Sexual Visitation Reduces Prison Rape in Brazil

Prison rape is an extremely violent, damaging aspect of prison life, yet researchers and prison staff do not have good data on it, nor has there been consistent analysis of it. The number of cases is underestimated because victims are ashamed and fearful of retaliation from the rapists and their friends. Nor do they believe their custodians are willing and able to effectively deal with the problem. Frequently, guards and administrators consider the sexual victimization of vulnerable prisoners to be inevitable. Prison staff uses rape, or the threat of rape, to control inmates: manage gangs, contain aggressive inmates, and recruit informers.

Rarely does public opinion focus on this violent practice. Prisoners are seen as deserving the bad food, repugnant odors, and violence associated with incarceration. Rape is perceived as part of the prison subculture and tolerated by the majority of society. The government is embarrassed by the rape of prisoners in their custody. Indeed, prison assaults, rapes, and homicides are gross human rights violations. The prison administrators know that potential victims are usually young, non-violent, first-time offenders from the middle class (without gang affiliations), but almost nothing is done to protect these likely victims from the aggressors.

A partial solution to prison rape was introduced in the late 1980s in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. In this program, adult male prisoners are allowed to have sexual relations with female visitors. The prison staff only register and search the women visitors who are wives, mistresses, and girlfriends. It is the responsibility of prisoners to prepare cells for the weekly sexual visits. Visits are regulated by severe rules created by the prisoners: there is harsh punishment for any lapse, such as annoying a woman or staring at a fellow inmate’s wife or girlfriend.

At the time of its initiation, sexual visitation was strongly criticized by prison staff and conservative groups. Predictably, the results are much more positive than negative. Firstly, prison rape has decreased enormously. Secondly, some prisoners are maintaining family ties and intimate relationships, alleviating the tensions of incarceration. Naturally, general prison violence has not stopped: homicide, assault, and stabbing remain commonplace in Brazilian prisons. Yet rape has been reduced in prisons where prisoners are allowed to have sexual relations with female visitors.

The House of Detention of São Paulo is one of the largest and most violent prisons in South America, with an average of 7,000 prisoners who are detained, awaiting trial, or sentenced. In a survey published in 1991, 90 percent of the prisoners interviewed thought that sexual visits reduced sexual violence among prisoners. Although 64 percent of the prisoners interviewed didn’t have any sexual visits and only 25 percent had sexual visits weekly, this impressive majority judged that these visits had positive effects on prison life. The warden concurred that sexual visitation had reduced prison rape.

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