A.Institutional structure 13.The Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil of 1988 has instituted the Democratic Rule of Law in the country and has guaranteed to all, without any distinction, the inviolability of the right to life, liberty, equality, security, and property. 14.In respect to the rights guaranteed, the drafters of the Constitution did not forget those subjected to the State’s sanctioning power, by prohibiting capital punishment, life incarceration, forced labor, banishment, or other cruel punishment, thereby signaling that the politically organized Brazilian society would prove intolerant toward violation of the rights of any person whosoever. 15.Complementing the protective roster of rights guaranteed to those under State custody, the constitutional design of criminal execution in the country relies on a division of competence among the Federative entities; hence, it is incumbent upon the Federal Government to set the general norms of the penitentiary rule (art. 21, I), while it responsibility of the states and the Federal District to establish specific norms in conformity with their peculiarities (art. 24, paras. 2 and 3). To achieve these purposes, the country counts on a complex institutional framework and on a distribution of competences among the Federation members, so that each may design its own structures and set its own norms. 16.Although these rights precede the Federal Constitution, two normative frameworks, issued after intense political and academic debate, were introduced in Brazil and, as of 1984, have formulated new fundaments for criminal execution. Laws n. 7209 and n. 7210, of 11 July 1984, established, respectively, the new Criminal Code’s General Part and the Criminal Execution Law-LEP, imparting a jurisdictional nature to this State activity, with the objective of ensuring the rights acknowledged by those laws. 17.Relying on federalism and based on the aforementioned constitutional and legal architecture, the Brazilian legislation entrusted to a network of public institutions the task of managing – in a broad sense – the criminal execution in the country. 18.Therefore there are several prison systems in Brazil, as each state manages a specific, independent prison system, with its own criminal establishments and often different policies, characteristics, and rules. Each state has departments or similar agencies that are responsible for prison administration. The Federal Penitentiary System, in turn, under the administration of the National Penitentiary Department, has four criminal establishments located in four different states. 19.This criminal execution structure allows public institutions and civil society to establish a checks and balances mechanism, so that the monitoring and the enforcement of these regulations is not left to only one or just a few entities. This is an outcome from an ongoing effort towards the redemocratization of Brazilian public institutions since the 1980s, which culminated in the promulgation of the LEP. 20.The promulgation of LEP superseded the previous penitentiary regime, which was based on a punitive perspective introduced by the 1890 Criminal Code. The criminal sanctions were executed through the Correction Houses and the first penitentiary in Brazil was built in São Paulo, in 1920. In the twentieth century, there were several efforts of drafting a new penitentiary code, aiming at recovering the inmates and at changing their values and objectives, but the Code became a reality only in 1984. Therefore, the Brazilian current penitentiary policy is recent and is grounded on the pursuit of a humanized sanction procedure. 21.Under the LEP, the objective of the criminal execution is to implement sentence provisions or criminal decisions, while propitiating conditions for the harmonious reintegration of convicts and inmates into society. It is incumbent upon the State to render assistance to prisoners and interns, to prevent relapse and to promote social rehabilitation. This assistance shall be either, material, legal, educational, social, religious or related to health. 22.The LEP establishes that all authorities must respect the physical and moral integrity of those convicted or in pretrial detention, guaranteeing the following rights: (a) to sufficient food and clothing; (b) to the assignment of remunerated work; (c) to social security registration; (d) to the establishment of a savings fund for the remuneration of their work; (e) to proportionally allocated time for work, rest and recreation; (f) to the exercise of professional, intellectual, artistic, and sports activities, as long as they are consistent with the criminal execution; (g) to material, legal, educational, social, religious and health assistance; (h) to protection against any form of sensationalism susceptible of attempting against human dignity; (i) to a personal and reserved meeting with lawyer; (j) to regular visits of spouse, companion, relatives, and friends on the days established by the authorities; (k) to be called by his/her name; avoidance of any form of stigmatizing, depersonalizing identification; (l) to equal treatment that does not go against the punishment’s individualization; (m) to special audience with the establishment’s director; (n) representation and petition to any authority in defense of his/her rights; (o) to keep contact with the outside world through written correspondence, reading, and other means of information that do not compromise ethical and proper practice; and (p) to a certificate of time to be served, issued annually, subject to liability on the part of the competent judiciary authority. 23.The LEP provisions apply also to pretrial detainees and to those convicted by the Electoral or Military Justice, if they are kept in establishments subject to ordinary jurisdiction, and all their rights that are not affected by the sentence or by law are assured, without any racial, social, religious or political distinction. 24.The Criminal Code in force establishes three incarceration regimes: (a)Closed condition: It is the initial regime for a convict sentenced to more than eight years, who shall be submitted to an assessment in order to guarantee the individualization of the sentence received. The convict shall be subject to work in the daytime and to isolation during the nightly rest. The work is done in common inside the establishment, in conformity with the convict’s aptitudes or prior occupations, provided they are consistent with the criminal execution. Under the closed regime, outside work is admissible in public services or public works; (b)Semi-open condition: It is the initial condition for a non-recidivist offender who has been sentenced to more than four years but not more than eight years. The convict shall be subject to day release jobs at a farming colony, industrial undertaking or a similar

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