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Amazonas, Pamas consortium
Jan 6, 2017 voanews.com
Brazilian Prosecutors Want Private Prison Contract Scrapped
Brazilian prosecutors on Thursday demanded that a multimillion-dollar
private prison contract in Amazonas state be axed because of signs of
corruption as the government blamed mismanagement for the country's bloodiest
prison massacre in decades. Amazonas' accounting court prosecutor, Carlos
Almeida, said he found signs of payment irregularities in a contract the
state signed with the Pamas consortium to manage
all its prisons, including the Anisio Jobim penitentiary, where 56 inmates died in an uprising
this week. The killings have raised questions about whether private companies
should be running prisons in Brazil, especially in Amazonas, where the inmate
population has more than doubled since 2010. The Pamas
consortium, made up of Umanizzare Gestão Prisional e Serviços Ltda and LFG Locaçoes e Serviços Ltda, received about 400 million reais
($125 million) in 2016 to co-manage Amazonas' prisons, Almeida said. That was
after Umanizzare signed a contract with Amazonas in
2015 for the consortium to run state prisons for 27 years at an estimated
cost of 205 million reais a year, and received a
payment of 198 million reais at the time of
signing, said Almeida. The difference between the 2016 payment and the
estimated cost of the contract raised prosecutors' suspicions, as did the
original price tag, which was well above those for similar agreements in
other states, Almeida said. "There are indications those payments could
have been inflated," Almeida told Reuters, adding that he had warned
state authorities about problems with the contract and recommended they not
sign the deal. Brazilian Justice Minister Alexandre
Moraes said the private prison management model was
not to blame for the massacre, but pointed to mistakes by the administrators
of the prison, which had three times as many inmates as its capacity. Moraes said Umanizzare failed
to act on intelligence reports indicating that inmates planned a prison break
during the holidays and that weapons were easily
smuggled into the facility during a New Year's Eve party. Umanizzare
said in a Wednesday statement the state was responsible for guarding the
inmates, while the company was responsible only for cleaning, medical
treatment and electronic surveillance. But Moraes
said at a news conference on Thursday that the company was also responsible
for security at the prison. The guards hired by the company were poorly
trained and could be easily bribed because of their low salaries, according
to a ministry report on conditions at the prison in 2016. Private management
of prisons is relatively new in Brazil, with fewer than two dozen
penitentiaries under the model. Yet it remains an attractive alternative for
heavily indebted state governments as Brazil remains mired in recession.
Watchdog groups said this week's massacre in Manaus showed that profits and
prison management could not mix. "An inmate is not a commodity and
cannot be the object of a contract," said Marcos Fuchs, vice president
of the National Council of Criminal and Prison Policies. "This model is
ripe for corruption. ... Brazil should not follow in the steps of the United
States." The United States has more private prisons than any other
nation, but the model has come under harsh criticism by human rights groups,
who say it only gives incentive for more incarcerations to sustain profits.
The United States has the world's biggest prison population. In Amazonas, the
number of inmates rose to 10,333 in 2016 from 4,979
in 2010, according to prison authorities, a rise state Governor Jose Melo blamed on increased drug trafficking from
neighboring Colombia and Peru, the world's top two cocaine producers. Seven
of Amazonas' 19 prisons are under private management. Melo's
press office said that the hiring of the consortium by the state was done
through the correct legal means of a public bidding process.
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