ACTIONS AND
CAMPAIGNS
We understand that with the mobilization of various sectors of society we will be able to change the reality and context of people deprived of their liberty in Brazil in the fight to ensure their rights. However, the challenges are still immense and, in the face of them, we carry out constant campaigns to disseminate information. In the blocks below, check out our main actions in favor of urgent changes in this system.
MASS INCARCERATION IS
NOT JUSTICE
The video Realidade Visceral (in English, Visceral Reality) takes you to an overcrowded cell in a men’s prison with 25 people imprisoned in a 3m² space, clamoring for basic rights. The video is part of the campaign Mass Incarceration is not Justice, which questions the overcrowding of Brazilian prisons – currently there are more than 700 thousand people imprisoned for 371 thousand vacancies. The campaign was broadcasted in several cities in Brazil and around the world and was a finalist in the Cannes Lions Festival. Check it Out Here.
DEIXADOS PARA MORRER
To denounce the prison situation in Brazil after twenty months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Rede Justiça Criminal (in English, Criminal Justice Network) launches the website Left to Die with data, denunciations and testimonials. There you will find local papers depicting the situation of four Brazilian states (Bahia, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo) and the Hall of Shame, which shows how the Brazilian Judiciary responded to requests for reassessment of prisons during the pandemic, based on Recommendation n. 62 of the National Council of Justice.
#TORTURANÃOSEVÊPELATV
Since 2020, with the pandemic, the Rede Justiça Criminal has been working intensively against the virtualization of custody hearings. Together with the Agenda Nacional pelo Desencarceramento and the articulation Justiça Além do Cárcere, we launched the campaign #TorturaNãoSeVêPelaTV which demonstrates that the use of videoconferencing does not allow the identification of mistreatment and torture committed by agents of the state.
THE PANDEMIC AND THE PRISONS
To prevent uncontrolled proliferation among people deprived of their liberty and among the more than 100,000 prison workers who come and go every day, we demand the adoption of measures against the proliferation of COVID-19. Watch here.
FOR THE END OF THE VEXATIOUS BODY SEARCH
“You didn’t educate him, now you’re in trouble,” Rosana, 68, heard from a prison guard in São Paulo. She had waited in line for more than two hours to visit her son and was forced to go through the torture of the vexatious body search to enter the prison. Rosana is not the only one. To denounce this degrading practice, the Rede Justiça Criminal produced, in 2014, a national campaign against the obligation of vexatious body searches in prisons. Check It Out Here.
LETTER OF GUIDELINES TO CONFRONT RACISM AGAINST THE BLACK POPULATION
For some years now, the Rede Justiça Criminal, which is composed of organizations mostly white, has been doing an exercise of self-observation regarding the reproduction of structural racism in its actions. This exercise resulted in the creation of a working group on the subject and the expression of a public commitment to fight racism through our Letter of Guidelines to Confront Racism Against the Black Population.
PACOTE ANTICRIME: UMA SOLUÇÃO FAKE (IN ENGLISH, ANTI-CRIME PACKAGE: A FAKE SOLUTION)
Along with a broad coalition of organizations and movements, in 2019 we developed the campaign “Pacote Anticrime: Uma Solução Fake”, which sought to draw attention to the fallacy of the federal government’s package presented by the former Minister of Justice and Public Security, Sérgio Moro, as a solution to the problem of public security. The campaign position is that the measures would worsen the crisis in the prison system and urban violence, and increase the extermination of black and poor people in the country.
ELEIÇÕES SEM TRUQUE
In 2018 and 2020, we carried out the #EleiçõesSemTruque campaign, encouraging voters to access the platform developed for this initiative and directly question their future representatives about criminal justice and public security policies. This action sought to shed light on the speeches of the candidates, who are more concerned with capturing votes than with presenting proposals that address the problem of violence in a consistent manner. Learn More.
PROTESTING
The website “Projetos de Lei sobre Protestos” (in English, “Draft Law on Protesting”) seeks to monitor recent initiatives by the National Congress regarding the right to protest in Brazil. It provides information on 59 bills proposed in the Chamber of Deputies and Senate in 2017 that is published for the conduct of street protests, from bills that aim to impose some kind of restriction or criminalization to those that seek to establish safeguards for the exercise of this right. Learn about this initiative here.
PENAL ALTERNATIVES: A WAY OUT OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
Prison is not the only solution! We have formulated an agenda of proposals to call attention to the urgent need to think about alternatives to incarceration in the Brazilian criminal justice system. It stops basing purely on revenge, punishment, and control over those who commit crimes, and starts to concern with forms of accountability to the victim and the community. Watch a video on the subject and get to know the full agenda.