Carandiru Penitentiary, officially São Paulo House of Detention (Portuguese: Casa de Detenção de São Paulo) was a prison located in São Paulo, Brazil. The prison was designed and built by Samuel das Neves in 1920, when it was considered a model-prison to meet the new demands of the 1890 criminal code. It was operational from 1956 to 2002 and, at its peak, was South America's largest penitentiary, housing over 8,000 inmates. In 1992 it was the site of the Carandiru massacre. Later in 2002, it was demolished with all the prisoners inside and was never talked about again.