People bury a prisoner who was killed during the latest prison riot in Altamaria, Brasil. Photo / AP
People bury a prisoner who was killed during the latest prison riot in Altamaria, Brasil. Photo / AP
Another burst of violence at an overcrowded Brazilian prison where dozens of inmates died has prompted promises of more prison cells and more guards, despite expert warnings that the strategy has been failing for decades.
A tough-on-crime vow last year helped Jair Bolsonaro win the presidency of Brazil, a nationplagued by gangs blamed for a string of mass-murder prison riots. No country has suffered more homicides in recent years and only the United States and China have more people behind bars.
"Our concern and our priority are good people," Bolsonaro said on Twitter while campaigning last year. "I've always said it: I prefer a prison full of criminals than a cemetery full of innocents.
"If space is missing, we build more!"
On Monday, a gang at the Altamira prison in northern Brazil attacked rivals within the walls and set fire to a temporary cell block. Officials say 58 people were decapitated, or asphyxiated by the fire. Four others apparently were strangled by other inmates in the aftermath.
In response to the riot, state officials in Para pledged to build five prison units to hold more than 2000 inmates, and Governor Helder Barbalho said more than 1000 new security agents will patrol prisons. It's an echo of the response to previous eruptions of prison violence.
"The truth is that Brazilian policymakers have long responded to the prison crisis by building more prisons, stiffening penalties," said Robert Muggah, co-founder of the Igarape think tank in Rio de Janeiro. "The paradox is that the filling of Brazilian jails is not only costly and ineffective, it is strengthening the hand of organised crime."
Reformers complain that the ill-controlled prisons essentially serve as schools for crime, forcing minor offenders into co-operation with murderous criminal cartels behind bars.
Brazil already has more than 720,000 individuals behind bars, according to official data from 2017. More recent independent estimates have the current incarcerated population at over 800,000 — more than triple the number in 2000.
Family members attend a burial service for an inmate who was killed in a prison riot, in Altamaria, Brazil. Photo / AP
The country has continued to build more prisons to try to keep up with its ever-growing incarcerated population. The national prison department recently announced that about 20,000 cell spaces would be created by the end of the year. But it already faced a shortage of 302,758 cell spaces as of July 2017.
Overcrowding has left prison guards severely outnumbered, struggling to keep control of inmates, and has repeatedly been blamed as a key factor in Brazil's recurring prison riots and massacres.
Two days of clashes in the neighbouring state of Amazonas in May killed 55 prisoners in four prisons of the state's capital, Manaus. In 2017, more than 120 prisoners died in another string of violent episodes that lasted several weeks, spreading to various states.
Bolsonaro came into office with a hard-line message that has broad appeal in a country where, according to the independent Brazilian Public Security Forum, 63,880 people were killed in 2017.
But critics say prisons are being clogged by inmates arrested for small drug offences and that alternatives need to be found.
Nearly 30 per cent of all inmates in Brazil were convicted — or are awaiting trial — on drug-related charges. Marcelo da Silveira Campos, also a researcher at the Federal Fluminense University said his studies found that at least half of those in Sao Paulo state were in prison for possessing less than 7g.
