AI has received many allegations of beatings and other ill-treatment by guards. Young offenders are often not separated by age or by the seriousness of their offence, both steps which should be taken to minimise the possibility of children being abused or influenced by others. In March 1996 evidence came to light that boys in the Jo o Luis Alves juvenile detention centre in Rio de Janeiro were being sexually abused by a group of older boys convicted of violent offences. These older boys ran a 'parallel administration' within the school, entering and leaving at will, with access to drugs. They acted in league with a warder, who lent them his gun and took photographs of the sexual abuse of the younger boys.
Brazil is a state party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In 1992 many of its principles were incorporated in guidelines for the treatment of young offenders set out in Brazil's progressive Statute of the Child and Adolescent. On 10 December 1998, as the world celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, police pulled 400 terrified prisoners from their cramped cells in Osasco public jail in S o Paulo, on the pretext of conducting a cell search. Instead, prisoners were subjected to eight hours of violence and humiliation, running a gauntlet of policemen who kicked and beat they d elivered them. The judge who authorised this 'operation' looked on. As what prisonersi nmates sustained injuries.