Amid press headlines of "revenge" and "massacre in Sao Paulo", state authorities said 93 followers of the Capital First Command gang, better known by its Portuguese initials PCC, have been killed over the five days.
Forty police and four members of the public have been killed in clashes, and 18 prisoners have died in penitentiary uprisings blamed on the PCC.
More attacks on police targets have been reported and the new toll said the 22 latest deaths came during the night when attacks have generally been carried out.
The PCC unleashed the violence last Friday after several hundred of its members, including its leader Marcos Cacho, also known as "Marcola," were moved from various jails into a top security prison.
Police believed PCC leaders were controlling the violence from their cells using portable phones and ordered transmitting towers near prisons closed down.
Police crackdown
They also ordered a crackdown on the gang in the Sao Paulo metropolis, a sprawling region with 20 million inhabitants. Officers armed with sub-machine guns were on patrol in sensitive areas.
Sergio Olimpio Gomes, director of the association of military police officers, told O Globo newspaper, "From now on we are going to see an average of 10-15 bandits killed each day in Sao Paulo."
The newspapers used headlines of "On the fifth day, revenge" and "Police respond with a massacre in Sao Paulo" on its reports on the police reaction.
Reports started to give accounts by witnesses of people being killed who had nothing to do with the PCC gang. Human rights groups have also complained about the police tactics.
Armando Tambelli, director of the National Prisons Observatory, a non-government group, said "We now see spiralling violence".
Press reports said the authorities had negotiated an accord with the PCC leadership. The Sao Paulo government denied an accord had been made but has admitted there were contacts with Marcola at the Presidente Bernardes prison where he is held.
The head of the Sao Paulo prison system, Nagashi Furukawa, told reporters Tuesday that he had allowed a lawyer to visit Marcola on Sunday and to report that the gang leader had not been harmed.
Gomes, the police union official, was disparaging of the reported accord. "I prefer to believe that no accord has been made with the bandits but if it has, it will not be respected."
The Brazilian Senate's Justice Commission has proposed emergency laws to clamp down on the gang lawlessness in prisons. But Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastio warned against "panic legislation at a time when society is in crisis."