Manaus, Brazil, Jan 10, 2017 / 12:10 pm
After nearly 100 inmates died in gang-related riots at prisons in northern Brazil through Jan. 8, Church officials in the country have recommitted themselves to assisting in the rehabilitation of prisoners and parolees.
Riots at prisons in the states of Amazonas and Roraima between Jan. 1 and Jan. 8 have left 97 dead.
"There are a number of structural as well as technical problems today (in the prisons). In all this we have negligence of over a decade in the state of Roraima," Father Gianfranco Graziola, deputy coordinator of prison ministry for the Brazilian bishops' conference, told CNA.
The ministry "has an agenda of disincarceration and restorative justice as commitments for democratization, which gives justice, and for the realization of a world without prisons."