Translation of article by Marco Aurelio Weissheimer as appeared in Carta Maior, May 29, 2006

The explosion of violence that hit Sao Paulo in May makes up in varying degrees the normal day-to-day life in Brazilian cities. It shows that we are sitting on a time-bomb, not one that is ready to explode, but one that is already exploding, and growing more powerful with passing day. It seems too little to say that the problem is due to lack of public policy in the area of safety, or even that it is a lack of resources. There is something much more profound that seems to have broken, leaving the Brazilian society floating on a sea of dissolution and anarchy. The growing of social inequality in the last decades and the scandalous concentration of wealth in the country provide the background for profound institutional and non-institutional violence. The co-existence of opulence and misery has raised a red flag for some time now. But for the most part we remain blind, deaf and mute.

It is true that it is not enough to affirm the existence of social inequities as a way of delineating the problem of violence. There are various aspects to this problem which demand short-term measures and which cannot wait for levels of inequality to even out. But, even the immediate problems, like the failure of the penitentiary system, can only be understood in its entire context. We must consider what also happens outside of the prisons. According to estimates of the Brazilian Institute of Criminal Sciences of Sao Paulo, in two years, 500,000 Brazilians will be behind bars. Today there are approximately 340,000. In keeping with this trend, and with the regulations set forth by human rights organizations which suggest a maximum of 500 people per prison, it will be necessary to build a new prison every 15 days.

The Sao Paulo prisons alone receive 800 prisoners per month. A lack of planning inside and outside the prisons and the dramatic fragility of the policies for reintegration make incidents of recidivism and return to prison very high. Thus, besides the flux of new prisoners, the prisons themselves function as feeders of the crime flux. In Rio de Janeiro, according to estimates of the Center of Studies for Security and Citizenship, at least 70% of the prison population is involved in drug trafficking. While there are no official statistics, the rate of recidivism may be as high as 70%. Thus we have a rather macabre combination of a lack of resources to build new prisons to alleviate those already in, and of a factory which is producing new inmates.

A letter from Judge Sonali Alhan published in Zero Hora illustrates this scene "I am a judge in Caxias do Sul. Here the prison is called "Industry" even though there are no jobs for the prisoners. There is room for 296, but presently it is operating with 750 prisoners. A cell made for four people has in some cases up to twelve. The shelter which houses prisoners who can work outside of the prison has space for 95, and is now houses 200. They are sleeping sitting down, on the roof, on top of tables and on the floor....the prisoners do not have any kind of medical or dental assistance. We are depending on volunteers who only sporadically appear. We have prisoners with AIDS, tuberculosis, cancer, etc., and these receive medication from the [Catholic Church's Prison Ministry] which receives some funding for medicines."

This is the reality of the majority of Brazilian prisoners. And what has society to do with this? Everything, obviously. More than what appears at first glance. On the occasion of the recent wave of violence in Sao Paulo, more began to speak in favor of the death penalty, the execution of criminals without legal procedures, and abandoning the prison populations. In one sense, these things have already become realities as we live daily with all of these practices.

In his book, Civil War State and Trauma, Luis Mir writes, "The Brazilian State opted for civil war, a painful war that piles up cadavers with cold Nazism and primordial fury. The victims of this war are the poor, who live in a permanent state of tension and terror. The deaths of this war are at 150,000 per year and they cost the State half of what it spends on health." The problem is that almost none of these deaths get attention in the media. Nobody knows anything about them. The name of the victim, what he did, what his family felt, what they suffered all of this information will always fall into oblivion, as if none of these lives ever existed.

Regarding the death penalty, one can argue that such a practice is absolutely inefficient and vile. Its defenders argue that it is a solution to the problem of criminality. But are they ready to assume the consequences of their position? Are they ready to support the general killing of criminals and prisoners? And future violators of the law? What would be the result for society? The defense of this thesis is the equivalent of declaring war against thousands of people, the vast majority being from the most poor of the population. For in the end, who is it that is overcrowding the prisons? And who would declare this war? The Brazilian State? This State that has a historical debt with its people. Let us remember some basic facts. In Brazil, 10% of the wealthiest sector of the population has 46% of the total national income; while 50% of the poorest sector--or 87 million people--have only 13%. We are a country of 14.6 million illiterate people, and about 30 million more are functional illiterates. Less than 70% of 7-14 year-olds finish elementary school. Only 22% of 18-25 year-olds finish high school. Afro-Brazilians make up 47,3% of the population, but 66% are poor. Women receive 60% of what men receive, doing the same job. These numbers are more than sufficient to indicate the gigantic challenges that the country confronts in taking care of the problems of violence, of segregation, and social inequities.

The historic tendency of the concentration of wealth and property in Brazil is one of the principal obstacles to be confronted. Countries with an income per capita similar to Brazil have 10% poverty rate, while Brazil has 30%. According to official statistics, nearly 55 million Brazilians live in poverty. Of these, 22 million live in misery. At the same time that millions of Brazilians live the daily trauma of hunger, Brazil possesses the second biggest force of private planes in the world. And Sao Paulo, which gained world attention in May because of all the violence, is second to New York in the second largest number of private helicopters.

These statistics are, in truth, a symptom. A symptom of a disease which affects all of Brazilian society. It is much more easy to pretend that this is a problem for the government to resolve, to take on the role of victim and defend the death penalty for those "men who lead a bad life," who do not know how to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. But this is only deceptive. The results of disparity cross our paths in our daily life, when we leave our houses, go to the bakeries, to the banks, to the supermarkets. More than cross our paths, they confront us, they threaten us. Faced with this threat, the majority tend to react, demanding that the State eliminate those who threaten. But maybe the question is not "who" threatens as it is "what"threatens. The numbers of the Brazilian prison system show us that there are no magical solutions on the horizon.

Prisoners continue to be "produced" at a rate with which the State financially cannot keep pace. What to do? The solution is to fry all of the bandits? And about which bandits are we talking? Those who live on the periphery, who end up in the drug trafficking? And what about those who through a stroke of good luck end up traveling about in helicopters and who also break laws? Do they deserve execution as well? And the police, who for many reasons, end up getting themselves involved in crime, do they deserve the same? And the politicians who are accomplices in the same crimes? And those who elected these politicians, do they have responsibilities? Who will cast the first stone?

At the beginning of the 20th century, Jack London wrote a series of articles about the poor and unemployed of London's East End. These articles became a book called The People of the Abyss. His words give us an admonition "The rejected and the useless. The wretched, the humiliated, the forgotten, all dying in the social slaughterhouse. The fruits of prostitution--prostitution of men, women and children, of flesh and bone, the spirit; finally the fruits of the prostitution of work. If this is the best that civilization can do for humans, then give us naked and cruel savagery. For it is better to be a people of the wilderness, of the desert, of the dens and caves, than to be a people of machinery and of the Abyss."