Connectivity and Chaos in Brazil

In a followup to my earlier post on the prison riots taking place in Brazil, it turns out that the attacks have been coordinated by cell phones held by prisoners.

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) – Family visits in Sao Paulo prisons only take place once a week but jailed Brazilian gangsters chat on their contraband cell phones every day. Smuggled cell phones are used to keep in contact with families but also to direct criminal operations outside the penitentiary walls—such as the gangster offensive unleashed in Sao Paulo in the past week.

The prison is a maximum-security penitentiary and cell phones are banned. But PCC leaders in prison used mobile phones to give the orders for a wave of attacks in Sao Paulo city and state in which about 150 people have been killed since last Friday.

Police said the gang ordered the attacks in retaliation for the transfer of jailed gang leaders and members to a remote high-security prison. Related uprisings broke out in dozens of prisons across the state to demand better conditions.

Among the rules imposed by the PCC in Sao Paulo state prisons is one that regulates communications. A prisoner who has a cell phone can never charge another for the phone use. Sao Paulo state Penitentiary Administration Secretary Nagashi Furukawa acknowledged this week that the state has problems controlling the flow of cellular phones into prisons.

Phones are delivered to prisoners by visiting relatives, corrupt prison officials or inside service trucks. Wednesday, the authorities ordered mobile phone operating companies to cut the signal in six state prisons. According to the Pastoral Carceraria human rights group, the PCC controls practically all the 140 penitentiaries in Brazil’s biggest state.

Yet another type of illegal flow through an ungoverned space. Brazil is a case in point in how technology is empowering the “bad guys.” In a poorly governed correctional system where gangs control extraordinary resources and influence, increased technology at the fingertips of any potential terrorist or criminal will put the power in their hands. Governance will become much more difficult over the years as these trends continue.