Brazil Toughens Conditions in Maximum Security Prisons

On Thursday, Andre Garcia, the secretary of Penal Policies of the Justice Ministry, announced that the conditions of confinement in Brazilian federal prisons will be tightened.

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After the escape of two inmates from a maximum-security prison, authorities decided to suspend visits to federal prisons and keep prisoners in their cells for the next five days.

On Wednesday, two inmates escaped from the Mossoro federal prison. These were the first escapes recorded in a federal maximum-security prison.

The fugitives belong to the so-called "Red Command" (Comando Vermelho), a powerful drug trafficking gang from Rio de Janeiro, which has tentacles in several South American countries.

One has been identified as Rogerio da Silva Mendonça, who faces 74 years in prison, and the other is Deibson Cabral Nascimento, with sentences totaling 81 years.

Both had been in Mossoro since September 2023 when they were transferred from another prison after participating in a rebellion that ended with five dead, three of them decapitated.

Garcia said he could not "detail" the actions that the police were taking to capture the fugitives but assured that "all available means" were being used, and Interpol has even been notified, considering the possibility that the two fugitives may attempt to leave the country.

An investigation has been opened to establish if there was internal complicity in the escape, and the Mossoro prison directors have also been suspended from their duties.

In Brazil, at the end of 2023, there were 832,300 people incarcerated in a prison system that only has the capacity for 600,000 detainees. Around 1,500 of them are held in federal prisons.