[theiostream]

Brazil is a country where the correctional systems runs with 200.000 people over capacity and has had a 100-page UN report condemning practices which deny basic human rights, yet prison riots are treated by media simply as gang plots with no particular reason; Captain Nascimento, the protagonist of the "Elite Squad" films (who methodically kills/tortures drug traffickers) is regarded almost always as a hero instead of an aspect of the police to be criticized.

Particularly in the elections that happened last year, proposals to "end impunity" (as lowering the age for being treated as an adult in court) have had largely more electoral effect and have been widely more propagated than projects for improving rehabilitation capability or respecting human rights in prisons. In fact, it's common to hear the maxim "Human rights for right people [and not for criminals]" around here to disqualify proposals of the latter.

Thanks to this public opinion trend, stories like those in the article about people who are able to "get out" instead of being arrested or killed are largely ignored. (Seeing them on Hacker News is easier than on the daily newspaper or even than on left-wing blogs which hardly have journalism potential to get a story like this.) It's nice to see them.

[flueedo]

There's a propagated distortion regarding the meaning of human rights here in Brazil, it seems to me. There's this idea that human rights is synonym with being soft on crime, not actually punishing wrongdoings, treating criminals better than honest working folk. So, understandably, a lot of people start seeing "human rights" as part of the problem.

Crime can be solved in two ways, one of them is through the kind of policies you've mentioned. The other -- which may only work with crime committed or allegedly committed by the poor -- is by widespread oppression and institution of elements of a police state (the drawbacks are many as you can imagine). Brazil currently does not have the infrastructure to follow the former so it seems to be courting the latter; It doesn't seem to be in the best interest of politicians to work towards the better option. Possibly, who knows, because it would be the harder and riskier approach regarding whether it could bring them immediate votes and popularity.

[IndianAstronaut]

Elite Squad 2 went more in depth. It went at the underlying corruption that limited economic opportunities for the poor and how it uses the police power to maintain this situation.