2023-12-31 16:59:51
The request was based on a report published this month in Folha which revealed that Brazil has recorded 17 thousand deaths in prisons in the last ten years
CONSTANCA REZENDE
BRASILIA, DF (FOLHAPRESS)
Deputy Attorney General Lucas Rocha Furtado, from the Public Ministry at the TCU (Federal Audit Court), filed a representation last Friday (29) so that the court could investigate possible flaws in the conduct of public policies in the Brazilian penitentiary system under the responsibility of Senappen (National Secretariat for Penal Policies), of the Ministry of Justice.
The request was based on a report published this month in Folha that revealed that Brazil has recorded 17,000 deaths in prisons in the last ten years. Experts point out that most deaths occur due to poor conditions and preventable causes.
Furtado states that, recently, “the deplorable conditions of the Brazilian penitentiary system” were reported, in which “prisons had a significant number of identified deaths”.
“It can be seen that thousands of people who should be welcomed by Senappen’s public policies are being subjected to precarious conditions. The number of 17,000 deaths in prisons in recent years is impressive, especially considering the analysis by experts regarding the preventability of these deaths,” she says.
The MP’s representative at TCU also said that “such data acquire even more relevance when compared to the materiality of the Union budget allocated to the National Penitentiary Fund”. He adds that, in 2023, budget allocations of around R$600 million were authorized.
“Currently, therefore, there is the allocation of resources in large amounts to the fund, however, with the effectiveness of public policies conducted with these resources showing low, as reported by the press”, he said.
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For Furtado, it is important that the court, in the exercise of its constitutional and legal powers, “carries out inspections to verify the effectiveness of public policies under the responsibility of Senappen and other bodies benefiting from the fund’s resources”.
“The materiality of the values involved is clear, which, as mentioned, reach million-dollar figures. I note that this type of inspection by the TCU is within the scope of external control with regard to the evaluation of the public policy that is the subject of this representation”, he wrote.
The number of deaths recorded from 2013 to June 2023 was obtained by Folha after 75 requests for LAI (Access to Information Law) to the states and to Sisdepen, a data collection tool for the Brazilian penitentiary system, linked to Senappen.
A portion of this data, covering the years 2018 to 2022, was analyzed by Vital Strategies —a global organization made up of experts and researchers working with governments—, according to which 95% of these deaths occurred from preventable causes.
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