Behind the postcard that forms a Carnival that is already heating up the engines, the most iconic beaches of Brazil, the bossa nova or a century-old hotel like the Copacabana Palace, Rio de Janeiro is a State where every day last year more than 11 people died violently, murders that are concentrated in the metropolitan areas of the spectacular city. The 4,356 deaths in 2023 are the lowest number in 34 years, when state authorities began keeping count, according to the Public Security Institute. Even more striking is that the decrease in violent deaths in general (-5%) is a consequence of the fact that the police kill less (-35%), they have relaxed their easy trigger. That is, 869 people died in police operations, which means more than two a day and almost 500 less than the previous year.
Brazil's security forces are among the most lethal in the world. And among them those from Bahia stand out for their easy trigger, which has snatched the unfortunate first place from Rio de Janeiro. The annual balance of Rio, prepared by the Public Safety Institute, and presented last Friday, has public safety scholars amazed. “This drop is surprising, taking into account that no policy has been implemented at the initiative of the State Government [de Río de Janeiro] aimed at reducing police lethality,” says Carolina Grillo, from the Fluminense Federal University, who recalls that the starting point “was very high, in 2022 there were 1,330 people dead.”
Grillo, coordinator of the New Illegalisms Study Group, warns against the temptation to congratulate oneself on the number of victims at the hands of uniformed officers: “Even with a drop of 34.7%, police lethality remains at an unacceptable level, it is more than double that in 2012 and 2013″. She emphasizes that a much greater drop would be necessary to reach internationally acceptable levels, that is, security forces causing less than 10% of violent deaths. Currently, the police in Rio, a State with 16 million inhabitants, carry out 20% of homicides. During the previous four years it reached 30%, a period that covers almost the entire mandate of former president Jair Bolsonaro.
When the NGO Human Rights Watch recently presented its annual report, police lethality was one of the concerns that this NGO highlighted most in the chapter dedicated to Brazil. The director of its Brazilian office, César Muñoz, criticized “the absence of forceful measures to combat the problem of excessive use of force by security forces.” And he warned that in 16 of the 27 States, deaths at the hands of the police increased in 2023 and that in two of them (the sparsely populated Goiás and Amapá) the agents perpetrated half of the violent deaths.
Another specialist, Joana Monteiro, from the Getulio Vargas Foundation, wrote in at 93 monthly average in the first semester and 111 monthly in 2022. “I don't know what happened, the one who can explain it is the PMERJ”, the Military Police of the State of Rio.
The Public Security Institute of Rio highlights in its balance that the seizure of long weapons increased almost 30% (610 rifles), more than 6,000 short weapons were seized, almost 15,000 stolen vehicles were recovered and almost 37,000 arrested in flagrante. And it highlights the investment of 2.5 billion reais (510 million dollars, 470 million euros) in technology, protective equipment for agents, in addition to works in barracks and police stations.
The expansion of cameras attached to police uniforms is one of the factors that in recent years has contributed to reducing police lethality in Brazil, but their use is very uneven. And it is also at the center of the polarized political debate. The governors of Rio and São Paulo, close to former President Bolsonaro and aware that the security forces are one of his great sources of votes, are reluctant to embrace this method.
Specialist Grillo recalls that, “in recent years, the Government of the State of Rio has offered resistance to all decisions of the Supreme Court aimed at reducing police lethality, both with resources and through deliberate disobedience.” Groups of relatives of the victims and other social movements went to the high court in 2019. And the Supreme Court ordered in 2022 to place cameras on all Rio agents. But only now, on January 8, did the most symbolic of the Military Police battalions, the BOPE, which starred in the famous movie, begin to use the equipment of discord. Elite troop. Grillo also explains that “what changed in 2023 was that, with the entry of President Lula [da Silva] to the Government, Rio de Janeiro no longer has political support to continue challenging the Supreme Court.”
Proclaiming from the rooftops that “a good bandit is a dead bandit,” as some political leaders did in Bolsonaro's time, no longer has political endorsement from the top of power. “If before the authorities blatantly expressed their support for the practice of police killings, the certainty of impunity is threatened in some way,” adds the coordinator of the New Illegalisms Study Group.
Experiences in other Brazilian states indicate that cameras in uniforms reduce the deaths of suspects and also those of agents.
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