{"id":5442,"date":"2016-02-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.conectas.org.inf.br\/wp\/noticias\/ongoing-violation-two-years-since-the-crisis-in-pedrinhas\/"},"modified":"2021-03-22T19:49:56","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T19:49:56","slug":"ongoing-violation-two-years-since-the-crisis-in-pedrinhas","status":"publish","type":"noticia","link":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/ongoing-violation-two-years-since-the-crisis-in-pedrinhas\/","title":"Ongoing violation: two years since the crisis in Pedrinhas","content":"

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Introduction<\/span><\/h1>\n

It was in 1965, in the midst of the military dictatorship, that the then governor of Maranh\u00e3o, Newton de Barros Belo, built the Agricultural Penitentiary of Pedrinhas. Located nearly 30 kilometers from the state capital of S\u00e3o Lu\u00eds, in a neighborhood of the same name just off the BR-135 highway, from the outset the prison was built in a precarious and improvised manner.<\/p>\n

During the more than four decades of the so-called \u201cSarney Era\u201d, Pedrinhas grew and turned into a major prison complex as seven additional prison facilities were added to the main penitentiary. Over the years, its capacity increased from 147 to 1,945 places, although in actual fact it holds more than 3,000 prisoners today.<\/p>\n

Over the course of its fifty years of systematic violations, Pedrinhas has been the target of criticisms by Congressional Inquiries in 2009 and 2015, dozens of recommendations for closure by the National Justice Council and it has become an international symbol of prison violence and the flaws of the Brazilian prison system.<\/p>\n

History and Context<\/span><\/h1>\n