Facing growing international and regional pressure to fight organized crime, Brazil has sought to strengthen its domestic security strategy. But some experts argue that the country’s greatest vulnerability lies in its own prison system, which consolidates criminal groups rather than containing them.
“In Brazil, prisons have become a tool to unite criminal groups.” Roberto Uchôa de Oliveira Santos, public security expert and former civil and federal police officer, said: brazil report.
“Organized crime was born within the prison system.” It is where new members are recruited, low-level criminals are promoted within the criminal structure and the gang’s identity is reaffirmed, he added.
This dynamic has proven to be structurally resilient and continues to recur despite successive reform attempts. In reality, prisons are training grounds for organized crime ‘mercenaries’ and, according to Santos, “we have no difficulty recruiting young men as long as they are in prison.”
Recruitment center converted from a prison
Groups including Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV), which operate in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro respectively, are not only surviving but expanding despite many of their leaders being locked up.
Moreover, the fact that it originated from the prison system of the 1990s did not impede its expansion.
Brazil’s history has been marked by violence within prisons, demonstrating the role of the prison system in strengthening organized crime groups within prisons and expanding them beyond incarceration.
Spectacular scenes of organized violence, such as the ‘May Offensive’ in 2006, when 74 prisons in São Paulo state simultaneously revolted against military bases, police stations and civilians, illustrate this phenomenon.
Brazilian prisons continue to feel the effects of mass incarceration policies strengthened under Brazil’s 2006 drug law. This has resulted in pre-trial detention, a punitive approach to low-level drug offenses, worsening rehabilitation programs and overcrowding.
The resilience of criminal groups is strengthened in prison
While many of the leaders of the PCC and CV remain behind bars, their illicit markets and industries continue to metastasize, transforming the PCC into a transnational criminal group and the CV into an adaptable criminal organization.
Both criminal groups have a special knack for expansion, even if their leaders are transported to maximum-security prisons. way of working It is distinct and Santos is emphasized.
The PCC utilizes more insidious forms of violence, but it is not in their interest to confront the state. According to experts, the group controls a ‘murder tax’ on targets in São Paulo to regulate and even reduce violence at its will.
This allows the group to expand unnoticed and, in turn, pursue highly profitable pursuits because “big profits can be gained by remaining unnoticed.” In the slums, this system determines their way of life, from internet sales to water supply, regardless of whether their leaders are imprisoned.
The group’s franchise-style structure is governed by semi-autonomous command cells known as: song – Ensures that leadership is institutionalized rather than individualized. The PCC has approximately 40,000 initiated (“baptized”) members and a wider network of associates. each tuning Controlling specific industries and markets expands the group’s reach into multiple sectors.
CV, by contrast, operates on a much more territorial basis with a much flatter hierarchy, with lower level leaders enjoying considerable independence.
This structure makes beheading or bossing strategies ineffective and makes it very difficult to break up both groups, Santos explained.
Even police raids provide little relief. Favelas across Rio and São Paulo are virtually uninfluenced by the state and most are run by the government. song.
“No Rehabilitation” Program
Although rehabilitation programs exist in the law and a strategy to change the prison system is in place under the Secretariat for National Penology Policy (SENAPPEN), Santos said the results have not yet been realized. In reality, the likelihood of leaving an organized crime group is very low.
With the number of young men in prison for crimes such as drug dealing offenses increasing, these groups are, counterintuitively, playing within prison walls.
Recent trends have shown that people incarcerated for drug trafficking offenses are often promoted within criminal organizations while in prison.
Prisons serve to bring together both PCCs and CVs, especially given the level of competition between the two criminal groups.
Santos said criminal gang members are often encouraged to reveal which group they belong to when arrested, emphasizing that Brazil’s prisons are predominantly “CV prisons or PCC prisons” due to previous clashes between groups that have led to high levels of violence within prison walls.
This implicit separation reinforces the criminal identity while also pushing rehabilitation schemes to their limits.
“There is no rehabilitation for these young people,” he said, noting that incarcerated people are more likely to reoffend as gang members without being able to find employment or educational opportunities. In fact, young men often turn to criminal activity to overcome socioeconomic disadvantage.
Rafael Velasco Brandani, National Minister for Penal Policy, echoed these concerns: “Lack of investment in infrastructure is another factor that strengthens criminal groups.
“Reforming our prison system is essential to provide non-violent and misdemeanor offenders with viable alternatives to incarceration,” he said.
Criminal governance means high punishment.
Despite a 20% decline in murder rates and 2025 being described as Brazil’s safest year in the past decade, these figures do not fully capture the reality of entrenched crime governance across Brazil.
Impunity remains widespread due to endemic corruption within various profit-driven “industries, institutions and financial systems.” Santos pointed out that the digitalization of the financial system has led to a proliferation of these groups.
Declines in murder rates are often celebrated, but they risk obscuring more subtle forms of practical violence by less visible criminal groups. According to his analysis, utilitarian violence allows the PCC to instrumentalize state structures as it wishes.
For example, the PCC bribed a police officer to kill one of his enemies at Brazil’s largest airport in broad daylight. According to analysts, this is the starkest example of silent coercion used by criminal groups.
This coincides with the increasing number of police officers involved in organized crime and the increasing presence of militias (vigilante groups made up primarily of current and former police officers who have turned to contract killings).
“For example, the PCC has a sintonia relationship called ‘sintonía dos gravatas’: they pay universities to help underprivileged people become lawyers,” the analyst noted. He added that the PCC funds the necessary training and education for the police officers, judges and prosecutors who work for them.
This seemingly benevolent level of covert investment in marginalized groups is what makes the PCC such a powerful organized crime group.
reform task
These cases demonstrate how deeply entrenched criminal organizations can become within institutions and raise important questions: Can meaningful reform be achieved when police corruption remains widespread?
One possible answer lies in the APAC-style prisons emerging in Brazil. These facilities operate independently of state and police control, reducing the potential for corruption. Instead, the nonprofit model relies on incarcerated individuals to drive their own rehabilitation.
Brazil’s major criminal organizations have long since evolved from prison gangs into sophisticated organizations that oversee a resilient criminal economy. Unlike Mexican cartels, which exercise power through periodic violence and overt drug propaganda, the PCC and CV operate more subtly.
These disguised criminal networks are proliferating in Brazil, and the country’s weak prison system continues to unintentionally foster the solidarity and capacity of these groups.
Without structural reforms, Brazil’s prisons will remain incubators for organized crime, with consequences far beyond its borders.
Featured Image: Porto Alegre Central Prison currently has 4,193 inmates, with a structural capacity of 1,905, according to data from the Military Brigade.
Author: Bernardo Jardim Ribeiro
Source: Seol21
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