The high numbers of the prison population in Brazil, with precarious structural conditions and overcrowded male and female prison units were the themes of the fourth Panel during the XI International Congress on Human Rights promoted by the School of Judges of Tocantins (ESMAT) in partnership with the Federal University do Tocantins (UFT). The fourth Panel was officially opened by the general director of Esmat, Judge Marco Villas Boas.
Mediated by the Attorney General Maria Cotinha Bezerra Pereira, the international panel had speakers from Brazil, Portugal and France. The lectures addressed the risks faced by the prison population in the country in the face of the global threat of the pandemic, which is added to the infectious diseases already present in the prison environment.
For the speaker Maria Helena Zamorra, the precariousness of job creation systems, without legal guarantees and affected by the pandemic, promotes the intensification of job closings, which can lead to an increase in the prison population. “We have about twelve million unemployed Brazilians due to the closure of more than eight million jobs with the pandemic directly linked to this. It must be said, however, that many of these Brazilians had precarious, unstable jobs, without registration and without legal protection. This historical situation of labor exploration is undoubtedly one of the colonial fruits of the slavery of indigenous and black people who founded this country”, he said.
According to the Portuguese speaker, the doctor in Law, Justice and Citizenship, José António Mouraz Lopes, the prison system needs to go through an assessment with regard to serving sentences. “I want to say that, everyone is different. When a person is sentenced to a 15 years, these 15 years will probably not even be necessary to absolve him. It is necessary to consider the penalty, which is the ideal way to release that person”, he said.
Also representing European speakers, the doctor of law and professor at the University of Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (France), Fean-Paul Céré, emphasized that, in France, despite a certain decrease in incarceration due to drug trafficking and other delinquencies, there was an increase in the occurrence of family and intrafamily violence. “Confinement led to a decline in court activity. They judged only the most serious cases, and this is important, the number at the entrance to the prison units has dropped since this entry is made by provisional detention in France. This combination of factors depends on an exceptional unique situation, which allows at least some doubts regarding the continuity, for the future, of the achieved advances”, he said.
As a lecturer in the fourth Panel, Professor Dr. Tarsis Barreto recalled that the unhealthiness and lack of security for professionals are factors that intensify the control of diseases epidemics in prison units in the country. The professor emphasized the need for public managers to apply the resources intended for the maintenance and promotion of safety of health professionals who need to perform activities in prison units. “Brazilian society needs to wake up to that observation: the problem of access to prisoners’ health is not their problem. It is a public health problem”, he said.
The Programming of the XI International Congress on Human Rights follows, this Friday (3rd), with the Humanistic Trainig of Magistrates Panel as an Instrument for Overcoming Crisis and Training of Trainers: post-pandemic perspectives, and extends until July 7th.
