'Would-be' hooligans in Brazil WC risk sharing cells with murderers, rapists

Fans arriving at Brazil for the 2014 FIFA World Cup have reportedly been warned to stay out of trouble or else risk sharing a prison cell with hardened murderers, gang members and rapists.

There are 563,700 prisoners in the South American state but only room for 363,500 of them in jail with some of the worst overcrowding being in the cities of Sao Paolo and Belo Horizonte, which will host two of England's group games.

According to the Daily Star, a Brazil-based English lawyer for the International Bar Association revealed that both military and civil police make frequent use of torture on people arrested while committing a crime and those arrested as suspects in order to extract confessions or information.

The lawyer also said that prison agents torture inmates as a form of punishment or humiliation to maintain discipline, adding that they also face terrible conditions in cells, which are so crowded that here is not enough room for all inmates to lie down at the same time.

The report mentioned that although illegal, scores of police stations are believed to have rooms containing a 'parrot's perch' where victims are tied up and subjected to beatings, electric shocks and even waterboarding.

The report said torture was common in Sao Paulo, whose prison population equals that of England and Wales put together while in Belo Horizonte, police work 'almost exclusively outside of legal limits' and often carry out 'the systematic application of torture as a means of investigation'.