Giant Prison, Site of Mass Uprising, Closes
Brazil closed a chapter in its troubled prison history by shutting down a colossal crumbling jail.
The last 76 inmates from a prison population of nearly 8,000 left Sao Paulo’s Casa de Detencao in heavily guarded police vans.
The prison, which had housed 170,000 men over its 46 years, went out of control during Brazil’s biggest prison uprising last year. Using cell phones, a gang organized a rebellion that engulfed 29 prisons and led to a 27-hour siege with 7,000 hostages taken. In a 1992 uprising, police stormed the prison and killed 111 inmates.
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