Brazil · São Paulo · São Paulo
Penitenciária do Estado de São Paulo (former Carandiru)
Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.
For families
How to send mail, money, and visit Penitenciária do Estado de São Paulo (former Carandiru)
Step-by-step guidance using the Brazil system — addresses, money services, visit booking, what to bring on your first visit.
Gallery
From Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA where not otherwise stated).
Photo by ThaisOliveiraSilva84 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo by ThaisOliveiraSilva84 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo by Unknown authorUnknown author via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Photo by Prefeitura do Município de São Paulo via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Photo by Peter Louiz via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo by Werner Haberkorn/Fotolabor/Museu Paulista da USP via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Historic São Paulo penitentiary. Site of the 1992 Carandiru massacre in which 111 inmates were killed by Military Police.
Background
Carandiru Penitentiary, officially São Paulo House of Detention (Portuguese: Casa de Detenção de São Paulo) was a penitentiary located in the North Zone of São Paulo, Brazil. It was inaugurated on April 21, 1920 and was built by the engineer-architect Samuel das Neves. The name Casa de Detenção (House of Detention) was given by federal interventor Ademar Pereira de Barros who, on December 5, 1938, by state decree 9,789, abolished the Cadeia Pública (Public Jail) and the Presídio Político da Capital (Political Prison of the Capital). This decree provided for the separation of first-time offenders from repeat offenders and the separation of prisoners based on the nature of their crime. It once housed more than eight thousand prisoners, and was considered the largest prison in Latin America at the time.
Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.
Capacity
0
Current population
0
Occupancy
—
Year opened
1956
Closed 2002
Facility profile
Operator
SAP-SP (decommissioned)
Population held
male
Opened
1956
Region
São Paulo
Security level
Closed
Death-row facility
No
Conditions
Pre-closure: notorious for overcrowding (8,000+ inmates in design capacity for 2,500), inmate self-governance, and the 1992 massacre.
Visiting
Decommissioned in 2002 and partially demolished. Site is now part of Parque da Juventude.
Mailing
Not operational.
Practical info
Memorial and museum on the original site.
Known issues
Inter-American Court of Human Rights condemned Brazil in the Carandiru case (2016).
Notable inmates
Various Comando Vermelho and PCC senior members held in 1980s-1990s.
Contact & address
Conditions Risk Score
Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated
- Overcrowding
- 0/30
- Oversight reports
- 0/30
- Structural flags
- 0/15
- Death signals
- 5/15
- Conditions text
- 0/10
What the score is responding to:
- · Mass-event keyword in sources (riot / massacre / uprising)
Compared to other facilities in Brazil
655 peersHigher risk than 0% of peer facilities in Brazil.
Data completeness
92%How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.
Sources
- Inter-American Court — Case of Carandiru
- Conselho Nacional de Justiça — Banco Nacional de Monitoramento de Prisões — Brazil National Council of Justice
- Human Rights Watch — World Report — Human Rights Watch
- Wikipedia — Wikimedia Foundation
- OpenStreetMap — OpenStreetMap Contributors
- See /data-sources for our overall methodology.