NACLA Report on the Americas

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Prison Violence, Prison Justice: The Rise of Brazil's

PCC

Karina Biondi

To cite this article: Karina Biondi (2017) Prison Violence, Prison Justice: The Rise of Brazil's PCC,
NACLA Report on the Americas, 49:3, 341-346, DOI: 10.1080/10714839.2017.1373963

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2017.1373963

Published online: 14 Sep 2017.

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KARINA BIONDI
Prison Violence, Prison Justice:
The Rise of Brazils PCC
Could the origins and code of ethics of So Paulos largest prison gang offer
a new way to think about prison security policy in Brazil?
A
prison massacre in Manaus, located in the
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northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, was one
of the headline stories ushering in the new
year. On January 1, some 60 prisoners were killed and
decapitated, some of them cut into pieces. The press
described the killings as the result of a war between
two prison factions: the Primeiro Comando da Capital
(First Capital Command, PCC) and the Famlia do
Norte (Family of the North, FDN), who are allied with
the Comando Vermelho (Red Command, CV), and in-
stigated the slaughter.
In his 1991 book, later adapted into a film, William
da Silva Lima, a founding member, narrated the his-
tory of the Comando Vermelho. According to Lima,
the Comando Vermelho was founded in 1979 in the
now-defunct Ilha Grande prison off the coast of Rio de
Janeiro state, where ordinary criminals and political
prisoners were incarcerated together. The media has
circulated a narrative that political prisoners of the
Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985) instructed
ordinary prisoners in forms of organization and war
tactics. But this perspective denies regular prisoners,
considered ignorant and savage, the capacity to orga-
nize themselves, articulate their demands, take po-
litical stancesnot to be confused with engaging in
party politicsand claim their rights.
This idea, circulated by state actors and the media,
also incorrectly treats the Comando Vermelho as a
group whose shape mirrors the state model in terms of
organization, hierarchy, and order, consistent with the
political orientation that supposedly inspired it. Few
researchers or journalists are willing to speak with
prisoners themselves, and assume the police version
to be the only true representation of criminals. But
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS, 2017, VOL. 49, NO. 3, 341-346, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2017.1373963
NACLA_49-3.indd 341
REPORT
those who have engaged with prisoners have found
a different story: the Comando Vermelho is not an
organization, but a behavior, a way of surviving in
the face of adversity, its foundation considered a true
cultural revolution within jail, based on principles of
respect and non-violence, according to Limas book.
Subsequently, this behavior disseminated through-
out favelas. With the growth of drug trafficking and
the CVs involvement in it, they came to be seen as a
criminal organization responsible for the importation,
distribution, and sale of illegal substances in Rio, and,
in recent years, other states in Brazil.
The story of the CV is important to recount because
the adversities Lima refers to are the same that mo-
tivated the rise of the PCC in prisons in So Paulo
in 1993: precarious living conditions, violence by
police agents, and constant fighting amongst prison-
ers. At the time, the PCC proclaimed an alliance with
the CV and even adopted their motto: Peace, Justice,
Freedom, throughout urban areas in So Paulo. The
media, public opinion and state actors perceive its or-
ganization as similar in structure to the CV. Likewise,
this image portrayed by state forces also varies from
the descriptions by those who have performed close
research with prisoners or criminals.
This research demonstrates that, contrary to state
formation, neither the PCC nor the CV were founded
with regard to racial or cultural differences. In fact,
disputes over scarce resources within precarious
prisons sometimes even lacking beds, disputes origi-
nating from outside of prison, and disagreements
over the proper ways to behave towards one another
motivated prisoners to fight each other. After the rise
of the CV, the PCC and other factions that developed
341
2017 North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
9/8/17 8:36 PM
Downloaded by [179.191.253.236] at 17:19 13 October 2017
A prison rebellion on July 24 at the CDP (Provisional Detention Center) of Pinheiros, in western So
GUSTAVO BASSO/FLICKR
in Rio de Janiero and So Paulo and other Brazilian
states have distinguished themselves through differ-
ent ideas, behavioral norms, and strategies in com-
bating adverse situations.
Such disagreements motivated what would come
after the Manaus Massacre. According to experts, the
assassination of a trafficking kingpin in Paraguay the
previous year had already marked the end of the alli-
ance between the CV and the PCC and the beginning
of disputes over the control over trafficking routes
through the Amazon. But for members of the PCC,
prisoners share a common enemythe stateand
pledge that they remain united to confront it. The PCC
considered the murders as carried out in cowardice
and immediately promised revenge.
Indeed, a few days later on January 6, another up-
rising took place at a prison in Roraima, a funding-
starved state also located in northern Brazil. This time,
the death count was 31, and many were beheaded.
Days later, prisoners at the largest correctional facility
in Rio Grande do Norte, in the Brazilian northeast,
invaded a rival-led prison block. Using weapons they
had made or obtained in the prison, PCC-affiliated
prisoners clashed with the Sindicado do Rio Grande do
342 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS | VOL. 49, NO. 3
NACLA_49-3.indd 342
Paulo, Brazil.
Norte (Union of Rio Grande do Norte), allied with the
FDN and the CV, over prison space. The government
of Rio Grande do Norte requested federal aid, and na-
tional security forces were sent to quash the rebellion.
The official death count in this case was 26, though
additional remains of charred bodies were later found
in a trench. The government declared that it had lost
all the records of the approximately 1,150 prisoners in
the facility, rendering it impossible to count the living,
the dead, or the fugitives. In just twenty days, the year
2017 had already seen 140 prisoners dead, according
to the official count.
A Misguided Diagnosis: Brazilian Security
Policy and Mass Incarceration
Brazil currently has the third highest prison popula-
tion in the world. There are 644,000 prisoners, with
space for only 393,000. Prison conditions are precari-
ous: in addition to lack of space, there is also a dearth of
doctors, dentists, and medicine. Food is of poor quality,
and guards earn low salaries and consider themselves
to be lacking job security. This is the everyday profile
of Brazilian prisons. These conditions are not seen as a
crisis until they end in death.
9/8/17 8:36 PM
 The Brazilian prison system
Institutions
Beds (prison spaces)
Inmates
Shortage
Prisoners in closed regimes (full-time incarceration 291,198
within penitentiaries)
Prisoners in semi-open regimes (perform labor out- 102,564
side of prisons during the day but return at night)
Prisoners in open regimes
Prisoners in pre-trial custody
Prisoners on house arrest
Total
Inmates in compliance with security standards
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SOURCE: BLOGO NA BASE DOS DADOS/2017
The mainstream Brazilian media speaks strongly
about the need for stricter laws, exemplary punish-
ments, and more imprisonment. Sectors of the opposi-
tion (notwithstanding political party stance) complain
of government neglect in the matter of public safety. In
turn, most experts in the area denounce the lack of the
state as the main reason for the problems arising from
incarceration. State buildingincluding the construc-
tion of more prisonshas come to be seen as an act of
ensuring human rights.
The federal government responded to the Manaus
Massacre with a package of measures to combat the
criminal organizations operating in the Brazilian peni-
tentiary system. The package included a greater alloca-
tion of funds for constructing new prisons, increasing
surveillance and control equipment, and arming and
training public security forces. So Paulos prison pop-
ulation exploded from 50,000 in 1999 to 230,000 in
2016, distributed across 168 prisons. This growth oc-
curred as the state pursued a security policy that on the
one hand built more prisons and on the other increased
the number of people arrested and left convictions to
the sole discretion of arresting officers.
This is the policy that has been in place for at least
twenty years in So Paulo, which detains more than
a third of the countrys prison population. As the So
Paulo government has built prisons, the number of
prison spaces created has lagged far behind the num-
ber of people being incarcerated. Such increased incar-
ceration is also due to investment in security forces and
the severity of punishments doled out by the judicial
NACLA_49-3.indd 343
system. Even a measure passed in Brazil aimed at re-
2,766 ducing the number of incarcerated persons in 2006
393,842 the decriminalization of drug useended up increas-
644,575 ing the number of those incarcerated, since police and
250,733
judiciaries found ways to arrest and convict people pre-
viously considered drug users as traffickers.
Authorities have come to see these factions as pub-
lic safety problem and a threat to national security that
must be combatted. Paradoxically, the proposed solu-
8,767
tion to deal with Brazils penitentiary crisis in 2017
has been the construction of more prisons, severity in
244,108
the penitentiary system and greater repression. If we
341,137
consider the history of the emergence of the largest
987,774
prison factions in Brazilthe CV and the PCCwe see
3,534 that they were born precisely as reactions to hard-fisted
exercises of state power. Previous experience has dem-
onstrated that building more prisons and imprisoning
more people only places more people into contact with
gangs and, consequently, contributes to their expan-
sion. It was precisely the growth of So Paulos prison
system that allowed for the simultaneous growth of the
PCC. The policy of incarceration in force throughout
Brazil, but particularly in So Paulo, causes an increas-
ing number of people to come into contact with the
PCC while in prison who, once released, continue to
follow PCCs code of ethics, strengthening its mandate
on the streets as well.
The PCC Confronts the State
Events such as the 1992 Carandiru Massacrewhen
the police who invaded a prison to contain a rebellion
murdered 111 inmatesprecipitated the PCCs forma-
tion. The PCC emerged in So Paulo the following year
as a prison organization to address what members con-
sidered abuses of the state.
At the time, the PCC was only one among various
gangs that disputed for territory within So Paulos
prison system, as in the case of many North American
prisons. In Discipline and Punishment, Michel Foucault
makes it clear that association among prisoners is not
new, but in fact inherent to the very existence of pris-
ons. According to the inmates with whom I spoke,
whether during my field research between 2003 and
2008, living with ex-prisoners in favelas between 2010
and 2013, or in conversations held in a prison library
throughout 2015, the PCC presented an appealing plat-
form: imprisoned individuals united to face a common
enemythe state and its representativesand thus
quickly garnered a large network of support.
FALL 2017 | NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 343
9/8/17 8:36 PM
 There were two guiding principles born of the PCC:
peace amongst inmates, and war against the prison, po-
lice, and judicial system. According to prisoners, it was
this line of thinking that made it possible, in So Paulo,
to nearly eliminate sexual violence and casual murders
amongst prisoners and bring an end to internal thefts.
This occurred mainly when the PCC incorporated the
word equality into their motto in 2002 differentiating
it from the CVs. In the aftermath, by far the biggest ef-
fort within So Paulo prisons became negotiating how to
guarantee this principle of equality. Even foreign prison-
ers who barely spoke Portuguese learned to claim equal-
ity with the phrase: de igual! (roughly: Its equality!).
There were many consequences of this addition,
which has infiltrated all spheres of prison life, as de-
scribed in my other work. One of the main conse-
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quences of equality is that it gives people the right
to argue their case in non-aggressive disagreements. In
these terms: killing without giving the other the chance
to defend himself is seen as an expression of inequality
and seen as grounds for killing the perpetrator. As the
prisoners say, life is paid with life. This consequence
deterred killings, and most disputes ending in fatalities
A prison outside of So Paulo in 2008. KARINA BIONDI
344 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS | VOL. 49, NO. 3
NACLA_49-3.indd 344
ceased. Violence dropped dramatically: in So Paulo
in 1999, 117 deaths were recorded in a population of
slightly over 50,000 prisoners, while in 2016 there were
just 14 homicides among more than 230,000 prisoners.
This marks an 86% drop between 2001 and 2014: in
2001, 123 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants; and in
2014, 16 per 100,000.
Meanwhile, So Paulos state government attributed
the drop in homicides to its public security and prison
policies: greater policing, an increase in public security
agents, investments in police intelligence, enhanced
crime-fighting and prisoner control technology, the
purchase of crime-fighting equipment, and above all,
the construction of new prisons and the subsequent in-
crease in the number of arrests. Statistics-based research
reflects that the drop in deaths during this time was
unrelated to the PCC. But if the number of homicides
decreased, it was because of the dizzying growth of the
PCCstrengthened in numbers due to the efficiency of
the polices increased arrestsand consequently of its
code of ethics, under which one does not kill without
reason. Ultimately it is the very people who could have
killedand chose not toor could have died, whose
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An arrest in Baha, Brazil. GOVBA/FLICKR
voices we must hear. Asked why they did not kill or
why they were not killed, those I spoke with were unan-
imous in saying that, after the PCC, you dont kill now.
Meanwhile, the PCC continued their battle against
the state: In 2006, 84 prisons under control of the PCC
simultaneously revolted, setting more than 80 buses on
fire, and bombing 17 bank branches. In addition, 138
people were killed, including 42 police and security
officers were killed and 38 injured, with 107 civilians
killed and 16 injured.
To try to weaken, dismantle, or destroy the PCC, au-
thorities undertook three measures, all of which back-
firedand further convinced the PCC of the impor-
tance of its existence. Firstly, they transferred inmates
to other prisons, which ended up spreading the PCCs
ideals outward to these new facilities. Another measure
was repression, but this also worked to strengthen the
PCC: faced with such measures, prisoners felt a greater
need to unite. Finally, the government sought to iso-
late PCC leaders in high-security prisons, located fur-
ther from the state capital and equipped with greater
surveillance capabilities. But prisoners found new ways
to aid each other in getting around the new policies,
strengthening solidarity amongst themselves.
NACLA_49-3.indd 345
The PCC lifestyle solidified in the prisons in a
democratic manner during these years, according to
prisoners. Prisoners found new ways of living, think-
ing, and producing knowledge within the crime world,
created through their own actions. According to the
PCC code, no prisoner can subdue another, for all are
equal in the imprisoned condition to which they are
subjected. In my ethnographic research, I heard pris-
oners frequently repeating phrases such as nobody is
better than anyone else. This perspective orients ev-
ery aspect of the prisoners personal lives: from how
they use the bathroom and care for personal hygiene to
how they formulate escape plans, to the ways in which
they share food and define sleeping spaces. In a situa-
tion of overcrowding, for example, in which there are
50 prisoners occupying one cell with only eight or 10
beds, instead of conquering bed space by force or with
money, which would have occurred before the rise of
the PCC, inmates define criteria that seek to minimize
the inequality inherent to imprisonment. In this case,
seniority rules: those who have been imprisoned for
the longest sleep on the bed, while newcomers take the
floor. These rules were developed after reflection and
debate among all the prisoners, and adapt according to
FALL 2017 | NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 345
9/8/17 8:36 PM
 situational conditions that prisoners encounter. In light
of this, some prisoners have even criticized the PCC for
being too weak or too democratic. that laws must be more severe, when most politicians
The daily politics that occur within prisons expand
into every aspect of the inmates existence. On the one
hand, these trivialities of everyday life escape the realm
of penitentiary administrators; on another, these groups
have been able to extinguish cases of sexual violence
and drastically reduce the number of homicides in the
prisons of So Paulo.
I
n So Paulo today, the PCC operates in more than
90% of prisons. It is hegemonic. Elsewhere in Brazil
we are seeing bloody disputes between factions. But
beyond disputes over drug trafficking routes, two fac-
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tors triggered the conflicts in Roraima and Rio Grande
do Norte. The first was revenge. But alongside it was a
statement about the way in which inmates wish to serve
out their sentences: whether oriented by the PCC, by
the FDN or by the CV. For the prisoners at war who are
killing and dying, this seems to be what counts.
Above all, the crackdown is way of stopping pris-
oners from demonstrating, of silencing them, to assert
greater control. Underlying all of these positions is a cry
for greater state intervention, and therefore for a larger
state. In an environment that evidently is not a place for
social welfare but of control and punishment, demand-
ing a larger state is to demand more imprisonment,
more punishment, and more control.
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346 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS | VOL. 49, NO. 3
NACLA_49-3.indd 346
It is difficult to imagine political or cultural changes
taking place when newspaper anchors repeatedly state
respond to popular outcry and only narrowly rejected a
proposal to reduce of the minimum age of criminal re-
sponsibility, and when experts in the field denounce a
shortage of state prison facilities. It is more difficult still
in a country that seeks to resolve any and all questions,
including political ones, through legal or policing rem-
edies. Perhaps the first step toward a new approach to
those who transgress the law is to stop understanding
public insecurity as the lack of something, and to see it
instead as a result of the situations we create.
This article was translated from Portuguese by Emma
Young, who also provided editorial assistance.
Karina Biondi holds a bachelors degree in social sciences from
University of Sao Paulo (USP) and a masters and doctoral degree
in Social Anthropology from Federal University of So Carlos
(UFSCar), where she is currently a postdoctoral fellow. She is
also researcher at HybrisStudy Group on Power Relations,
Conflicts, Socialities and her subgrouping LEAPLaboratory
of Studies on Prison Agencies. She wrote Junto e Misturado:
uma etnografia do PCC, published in 2017 in English by the
University of North Carolina Press as Sharing This Walk: An
Ethnography of Prison Life and the PCC in Brazil.
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