5) Description of initiative: Brazil has one of the ten largest penitentiary systems of the world with 374,000 prisoners in approximately 1,200 prisons and thousands of police headquarters and other offices. By every 100,000 Brazilians 134,9 are in jail. Sao Paulo is the most populated state of Brazil with around 40% of the prisoners of the country (149,600). The number of people in jail in Sao Paulo is bigger than in any other Latin American country. More that 85% of the prisoners are between 18 and 25 years old and mainly condemned because of theft. In average, prisoners stay in prison around 8 years. During the last five years 2,414 prisoners died: 83,43% because of “natural cause”, 15-16% because of “criminal causes” and 1,4% were classified as “suicides”. Due to the violent actions commanded by criminal factions operating inside the prisons, more than 1,000 people have died inside and outside the prisons during 2006. The picture is not very different in other countries of Latin America. In order to change this, we have tried to involve the other 13 Latin American Ashoka Fellows working with this issue. The idea is developing a system to monitor that human rights are respected in Latin American prisons. The central topics of our proposal are: i) ensure human rights for people in prison; ii) introduce education as part of the penalty; iii) reduce all violent manifestations inside Latin American penitentiaries. The initiative would contribute to peaceful conflict resolution because we would establish goals that prisons would need to achieve (ISO certification), we would have a permanent vigilance system (Observatory of Latin American Prisons – OLAP) and we would develop programs to increase the education levels of the prisoners (Latin American Network of Education in Prisons – RED ).

6) Description of innovation: Currently there is no system to monitor prisons in Latin America, nor any effort to bring education to jail. At the same time, there is no platform to integrate the actions of the 13 Latin American Ashoka Fellows working with prison issues, and there is no initiative, governmental or non-governmental, to develop a certification method for prisons that would allow them to ensure the respect to human rights. It is true that the Observatory of Latin American Prisons already exists, but it is not supported by a Latin American Network of Education in Prisons articulated by Fellows and experts that in general, are ex- prisoners that completed condemns in their countries. The certification for prisons would be based on ISO parameters and it would mean that prisons would need to adopt tools (approved by the Human Rights Interamerican Commission) to control that penitentiaries are endorsing the international conventions for prisons.

7) Delivery model: We have tried to create four committees from OLAP offices in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and Bolivia: i) Andean Committee; ii) Caribbean Committee; iii) South Committee and; iv) Brazil Committee. These would allow us to cover the 33 Latin American countries: Antigua e Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Granada, Guatemala, Guiana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Suriname, Saint Kitts, Santa Lucia, Sao Vicente and Grenadines, Trinidad e Tobago, Uruguay e Venezuela. The NGOs of each country can associate with their respective committee and elect one person that would be the OLAP national delegate. These national delegates should be responsible of controlling the prisons that want to obtain the OLAP certification.

8) Key operational partnerships: We identified 13 Latin American Ashoka Fellows from 7 different countries working with the penitentiary systems of their respective country. From Brazil (1): Roberto da Silva, Carlos André Abreu Carneiro, René Patriota, Valdenia Aparecida Paulino, Oscar Vilhena y Maria da Conceição Paganelle. From Bolivia (2): Juan Carlos Octavio Pinto Quintanilla y Elvira Dias Alvarez. From Mexico (3): Georgina Gutiérrez Alvarado. From Venezuela (4): Humberto Prado Sifontes. From Colombia (5): José David Toro Vanegas. From Uruguay (6): Virginia Varela Dubra. From Ecuador (7): Ximena Costales. Thanks to the All Fellows Meeting in Buenos Aires (August 2006) and the I OLAP Meeting in Isla Margarita in Venezuela (November 2006) these 13 Ashoka Fellows advanced with the creation of the Observatory of Latin American Prisons. OLAP will have offices in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and Bolivia. On the other hand, the discussion about education in prisons between the countries members of the Education Consortium during the International Meeting of Eurosocial Networks (June 25-30, 2006 – Cartagena, Colombia) made possible the creation of the Latin American Network of Education in Prisons (RED), a governmental network that involves all countries members of Mercosur. OLAP members are Ashoka Fellows, leaders of nongovernmental organizations. The members of RED are the Organization of Ibero American States (OEI) and the EuroSocial Program from the European Union. This is a network of governmental nature where countries are represented by a person from de Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Justice. Since the improvements introduced by the project Civic Action in Prisons, OLAP and RED want to create a methodology to monitor that human rights are respected in prisons, adopting a certification system to ensure good practices and periodic reports for the Human Rights Interamerican Commission and the Organization of American States.

9) Financial model: The 4,410 prisoners in Re-socialization Centers in Brazil have all products, services and rights ensured by the agreement of each NGO with the government of Sao Paulo. Now, we will try to have the adhesion of the penitentiary managers. On one hand, they need to accept the monitoring work of OLAP. On the other hand, they have to recognize RED as the speaker of prisoners’ basic needs. In order to improve security and life conditions in prisons, we need to articulate, dialogue and negotiate with the national governments to adapt their penitentiary system to the international conventions and the human rights rules.

          • Costs as percentage of income: n/a

          • Financing: The NGOs interested in associating with OLAP will pay an annual membership. The initial investments are US$10,000 by Ashoka Global Fellowship and 50,000 € by EuroSocial Program. The Organization of American States and the Ministry of Education of Brazil will also invest on this initiative and are currently working on their budget. The initiative does not generate profits but has fixed costs: design and maintain website, elaborate annual reports, assists audiences of the Human Rights Interamerican Commission (Costa Rica), periodic meetings and allowances for national delegates. A possible funding source could come through universities associated with OLAP and RED. These universities could obtain national and international funds for academic collaboration projects between Latin American countries.

10) Effectiveness

          • Project outcomes: On one hand, the first conversations about the creation of RED took place in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in June 2006. Then we presented the proposal to Education of Mercosur in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, the 22nd and 23rd of November 2006. Each country involved in the creation of RED (Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras, Colombia) was represented by an authority with decision making power in the penitentiary and educational systems of their countries. On the other hand, the first conversations for the creation of the Observatory of Latin American Prisons took place in Buenos Aires in August 2006. In November of the same year, in Isla Margarita, Venezuela, we constituted a Provisionary Commission to organize the II Meeting of OLAP in Quito, Ecuador, in March 2007. OLAP already has a preliminary organizational structure. It will have offices in Brazil (Administration), Venezuela (Secretariat General), Colombia (Secretariat of Communications and International Relations) y Bolivia (Technical Consultant). The Fellows who are directly involved in this initiative are the leaders of their organizations, and other organizations that work with penitentiary systems in Honduras, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela y Ecuador were invited and assisted the I Meeting of OLAP in Isla Margarita.

          • Number of clients in past year: The Re-socialization Centers assist 4,400 prisoners in 21 penitentiaries of Sao Paulo. Each center generated 70 jobs (1479 jobs in total): lawyers, psychologists, pedagogues, social workers, doctors, dentists, drivers, cookers etc. Prisoners’ families are organized in “clubs” in each of the 21 Re-socialization Centers. In 2006 these clubs integrated 13,000 persons.

11) Scaling up strategy

          • Stage of the initiative: Scaling Up stage.

          • Expansion plan: We have a plan for one, two and three years. The first year is to consolidate the collaboration strategy between the 13 Ashoka Fellows for the creation of the OLAP. This means that we need to legalize all the documentation to register OLAP in Brazil, establish the offices in Venezuela, Colombia and Bolivia design the website, develop a data base about the penitentiary systems of Latin American countries and publish the OLAP annual report. Our goal for the second year is creating the Andean, Caribbean, Brazilian and South Committees, start the negotiation process with the NGOs of the different countries and select the national delegates. The third year our objective is being present in the 33 Latin American countries and starting the process of certification for the penitentiaries that fulfill the best practices to respect the human rights of prisoners. RED is also advancing quickly and there is political support to set it up very soon. I am just a consultant from the EuroSocial Program. I do not have direct authority to implement this proposal, but I am the author of the first draft and I started the first conversations with the representatives of the other countries. My goal is establishing OLAP and RED, starting the collaboration between both institutions in the different Latin American countries, strengthening the regional role of the Fellows and the exchange of experiences and monitoring the advances and moves back of human rights in Latin American countries.

12) Origin of the initiative: The Resocialization Center, a communitarian model that manages prisons in Sao Paulo and establishes a social relationship between NGOs and the state, won the Ashoka/McKinsey Brazil Social Entrepreneur Award in 2000. Then the same initiative got the Rolex Award in 2002. After opening 21 Re-socialization Centers in 21 different cities and create 21 NGOs to partner with the government of the state of Sao Paulo, the model was transformed in a public policy of the Party of Social Democracy of Brazil (PSDB). On one hand, this means that the states governed by other parties will have difficulty adopting the model. On the other hand, this means that my organization (History of the Present) will not participate in future improvements of the model. The Re-socialization Centers will reduce violence, corruption, death, consumption and traffic of drugs and will put an end to relapses, escapes and rebellions. However, it was not possible to set up other improvements such as the creation of a network of prisons that work with the same methodology, the ISO certification for each Re-socialization Center and elevate education as the principal goal of rehabilitation. That is why I looked for the support of other Latin American Ashoka Fellows that work with prisons, and that is the principal motivation for the creation of the Observatory of Latin American Prisons (OLAP) and the Latin American Network of Education in Prisons (RED).

Contact Information:
Roberto  Da Silva
Ashoka Fellow
-
Organização Paulista para Ações de Cidadania
(ONG)
Brazil
Website: www.pedagogiasocial.usp.br