Photos of Brazil’s toughest jails where inmates rule their Worlds

So you were thinking Nigeria has one of the worse jails situations, just before you start the argument, take a look at these jails in Brazil's Pernambuco state where lawless dens of iniquity being run by inmates who sell crack cocaine to prisoners and murder anyone who owes them money.

The cells are overcrowded with prisons who are frightened of very dangerous inmates who are given control over their cell block for them to 'maintain order'. 

The authorities give the job to convicted murderers, rapists and drug dealers because they 'command respect from fellow inmates', a jailbird told charity Human Rights Watch (HRW), who reported on the four Pernambuco prisons, where there is one guard for 31 inmates.


They call them 'chaveiros' - or 'keyholders' -

It found chaveiros-run jails are hell holes where disease is rife, vulnerable ones are gang raped and relatives outside are blackmailed into paying off inmates' drug debts.

Prisoners are made to pay a weekly tax of between five to 15 reais - around 80p to £8 - and anyone who cannot keep up with payments is assaulted or killed by the chaveiros' prison gang.

These drug lords also make money by selling the prisoners crack cocaine - smuggled in for them by guards and police officers - and forcing their families on the outside to pay their debt.

Keyholders also abuse their power by selling and renting bunks known as 'barracos' to prisoners for between £100 and £330.

The worse part of this story is that government is doing nothing to improve on the situation.

A gay prisoner called Paulo, 34, said he was gang raped in a cell he shared with 67 men at the PAMFA prison in November last year.

He said: 'The prisoner who was in charge of the cell forced me to have sex with three men. I told the chief of security but he said it was a lie.'

The attackers did not use condoms, both victims claimed. These sexual attacks are partly why the HIV rate in Pernambuco's prisons is 42 times higher (870 per 100,000) than Brazil's, according to the National Prison Department.

Brazil's prisons hold more than 607,000 people in jails designed for about 377,000. In Pernambuco, almost 32,000 inmates are housed in prisons with capacity for just 10,500.

Around 59 per cent of inmate who are yet to be tried share cells with convicted prisoners , even though this is a violation of international and Brazilian law.

Prisons in Pernambuco on average have one guard for every 31 prisoners, according to the latest data from the National Prison Department.