Arrested in Brazil, what the family can do in the first hours

If you are reading this from another country, someone close to you has probably been arrested in Brazil in the last few hours. If you are a foreign national living here, the news is travelling the other way, to relatives who cannot help from where they are. The difficulty is the same, deciding quickly without knowing how the procedure works.

This text explains what happens after an arrest made during or right after an offense, what Brazilian law guarantees to the person held, including the right to have a consulate informed, and what the family can do meanwhile. It does not deal with any particular case and does not anticipate how one will end.

What happens in the first hours after an in-the-act arrest?

An in-the-act arrest (prisão em flagrante) is made during the offense or immediately after it, so it begins on the street and not in court. The person is taken to a police station, where the police authority hears the officer who made the arrest, then the witnesses and, last, the person held. That act produces the in-the-act arrest record (auto de prisão em flagrante), which gathers those statements and goes to a judge. When an incident is reported without an arrest, the document drawn up is the police report (boletim de ocorrência).

Article 306 of the Brazilian Code of Criminal Procedure requires the arrest and the place of custody to be reported immediately to the competent judge, to the Public Prosecutor's Office (Ministério Público) and to the family of the person held or to someone that person names. The same article provides that, within twenty-four hours of the arrest, the record must reach a judge and the person must receive, against a signed receipt, the notice of charge (nota de culpa), stating the reason for the arrest, who carried it out and who witnessed it.

What does Brazilian law guarantee to the person held?

Three items of article 5 of the Brazilian Constitution matter in these hours. Item LXII requires the arrest and the place of custody to be reported to the competent judge and to the family, or to a person the detainee names. Item LXIII provides that the person be informed of their rights, among them the right to remain silent, and guarantees assistance from the family and from an attorney. Item LXIV gives the right to identify who carried out the arrest and who conducted the police questioning. None of this depends on nationality.

The right to silence is the most misunderstood of the three. Remaining silent is not a confession, is not obstruction and cannot be used against the person who chooses it. What is said at the station is recorded and follows the whole case, often before the person has understood what exactly is being alleged.

Can the consulate be informed of the arrest?

Yes, and it is a right of the person held. Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963, promulgated in Brazil by Decree 61.078 of 26 July 1967, provides that, at the request of the person concerned, the authorities must inform the relevant consular post without delay when a foreign national is arrested or detained in any way. Any communication addressed to the consular post by that person must likewise be forwarded without delay, and the authorities must immediately inform the person of these rights.

The same article gives consular officers the right to visit the national who is held, to converse and correspond with that person and to arrange for legal representation before the courts, unless the person expressly objects, and those rights cannot be nullified by local rules.

The notification usually depends on the person asking for it, so it is worth confirming whether that request was made and recorded. And nobody has to wait, because the family can contact the consulate directly, giving the full name, the date of birth, the police station and the city. Protocol II of Resolution 213/2015 of the National Council of Justice lists the denial of consular access to a foreign national in custody among the situations that call for closer scrutiny.

What if the person does not speak Portuguese?

Article 193 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that questioning of someone who does not speak the national language is conducted through an interpreter, a chapter the police authority is directed to observe, as far as applicable, during the investigation (article 6, item V). Protocol II of Resolution 213/2015 states that a foreign national in custody must be assured the assistance of an interpreter.

Signing a document written in Portuguese without understanding it is a real risk of this phase, and asking for an interpreter, or for the content to be explained before signing, is a request the person is entitled to make.

What is a custody hearing?

The custody hearing (audiência de custódia) is the appearance of the person arrested in the act before a judge, with an attorney and the Public Prosecutor's Office present. Article 310 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides for it within a maximum of twenty-four hours after the arrest. Since Law 15,358 of 2026, the hearing is held, as a rule, by real-time video conference, with the attorney present and with the right to a prior, private conversation between the detainee and the defense; an in-person hearing is reserved for exceptional situations, by decision of the judge. For a family abroad, this means the hearing does not require anyone to travel, but it does require a defense that is already in place.

There the judge decides, with stated reasons, among three paths set out in law. The arrest may be set aside when it was unlawful, converted into pre trial detention when the legal requirements are present and measures other than detention prove inadequate or insufficient, or replaced by provisional release, with or without bail.

The hearing also verifies the conditions in which the person was arrested and held, and it is the first moment when the defense speaks directly to the judge, which is why an attorney at this stage carries weight of its own. The practice covers this stage, Atendimento de Ocorrência, on the page about assistance during arrest and at the police station, with the phone number and the first steps set out together.

What the family can do in the first hours

1. Find out which police station the person was taken to. Nothing else moves forward without it.
2. Write down the time and the reason given. Both help place the case within the procedure.
3. Keep the identification of those who carried out the arrest. A right under the Constitution and a useful detail for the defense.
4. Gather the documents. Passport or identity document from the person's country, the Brazilian taxpayer number (CPF) and proof of an address in Brazil when there are any, and proof of employment or study when available.
5. Contact the consulate. Even when the notification has been requested, the family can reach it on its own.
6. Tell whoever depends on that person. Work, medical treatment under way, small children and continuous medication matter to the judge.
7. Seek legal guidance before any questioning. Speaking with an attorney before being heard is a right, not a privilege.

What to avoid in this period

Two mistakes repeat themselves. The first is trying to solve the matter alone at the police station, offering spontaneous explanations or signing documents without reading them. The second is publishing the situation on social media or in messaging groups, because what is written there circulates, can come back into the case as evidence and exposes the whole family.

A third belongs to those reading from abroad, which is assuming the case will follow the rules of their own country. The stages, the deadlines and the documents described here are Brazilian.

Pressing for deadlines that do not exist does not help either. The twenty-four hours in articles 306 and 310 are the time of the procedure, not the length of the detention.

When to contact a lawyer?

As soon as the arrest is reported, and before any questioning when that is possible. The police phase is short and produces documents that stay with the case from beginning to end, and a defense that arrives later works on material already formed.

After that stage the case follows through the police investigation and, if charges are filed, through criminal proceedings, with all the stages covered by the work in criminal law, from the evidentiary phase to the enforcement of any sentence.

If the situation described here is yours right now, the practical route is short. Confirm where the person is, ask for the consular post to be informed, gather the documents and seek legal guidance before that person is heard.