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Brazil's penal policy council members quit due to differences with gov't

Xinhua, January 26, 2017 Adjust font size:

President of Brazil's National Council on Criminal and Prison Policy Alamiro de Salvador Netto and six other members out of thirteen in total, resigned on Wednesday due to differences with the central government.

The collective move comes after the council disagreed with Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes following a series of bloody prison riots in January.

The Council seeks to elaborate public policy proposals for criminal and prison matters. The members who stepped down were all appointed in 2015-2016 during the government of former President Dilma Rousseff.

In a statement, they said there was a "lack of dialogue" between the Justice Ministry and the Council and that a national public security plan had been strengthened without consulting with the Council or the general public.

"The current criminal policy advocated for by the Ministry of Justice, without dialogue...will produce tensions at the root of our prison system, with the risk of radicalizing the recent tragic acts which horrified Brazilian society," read the statement.

A series of riots between different criminal gangs in northern Brazilian prisons have left over 100 dead since the beginning of January. Enditem