NPR

Opinion: Brazil's Prison Massacres Send A Dire Message

Once again, Brazil's prisons are in the spotlight because of mass killings. The penitentiary system is badly understaffed, overcrowded and needs reforming, says security expert Robert Muggah.
Family members of inmates wait and pray in front of the Puraquequara prison in the city of Manaus, the capital of northern Brazil's Amazonas state, on Monday. Dozens of inmates were killed in four jails in northern Brazil on Sunday and Monday, authorities said, in the latest wave of violence to rock the country's severely overpopulated and dangerous prison system.

Robert Muggah is the co-founder of the Igarapé Institute, a Brazil-based think and do tank that focuses on security and justice across Latin America, Africa and Asia. He is also co-founder of the SecDev Group, a digital consultancy working in the Middle East, Eurasia and South Asia. He advises governments and business and civil society groups in Latin America and around the world on data-driven and evidence-based security, justice and new technologies.


Once again, Brazil's hellish prisons are making global headlines. The spotlight this week is on Manaus, the capital of the country's northern Amazonas state, where violence at different prisons left 55 inmates dead.

On Sunday, the mutilated bodies of were discovered at one Manaus prison, many of them reportedly showing signs of strangulation and stab wounds from sharpened toothbrushes. Another were recovered on Monday

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