How to Fight Gangsters in Rio

Unless Rio de Janeiro's police adopt a new strategy, the city's decades-long war between security services and drug traffickers will go on indefinitely.

Make no mistake: Rio de Janeiro’s security services and gangsters are at war. In the past week, at least 45 people, many of them alleged drug traffickers, were shot and killed. Over the same period, some 17,500 police officers and 2,600 soldiers were mobilized to “take back” the slums. For several days the crackle of automatic gunfire echoed across the city’s northern zones, while in the south buses were torched in retaliation. By the weekend, the government had achieved what many believed impossible: they occupied the city’s most notorious slum.

Urban warfare is not new to the marvelous city. It has been periodically seized by acute violence since the late 1980s, and most recently in 2009 following the televised downing of a police helicopter. The war is waged by narco-traffickers, including the infamous comando vermelho (red command), militia, and police. But though experts are appalled by the recent escalation of violence, they believe that this time the situation is different.

Historically, efforts to crack down on gang violence were highly politicized, uncoordinated, and heavy-handed. Police raids, rather than diminishing the strength of gang leaders, tended to radicalize and empower them. Yet today, most of Rio de Janeiro’s elected officials and six million residents are firmly backing a new strategy to comprehensively deal with urban violence. And while the emphasis in the next few months will be on restoring law and order, everyone agrees that long-term stability depends on real social transformation and tangible development.

The impact of Rio de Janeiro’s urban war is devastating. Though homicides are declining overall, more than 2,000 people are killed there each year. The city homicide rate of roughly 35 per 100,000 is several times the world average. At least two-thirds of the population report having been exposed to violence in the previous year, and almost half witnessed police violence. In addition to causing senseless deaths and injuries, such violence discourages school attendance, closes shops and markets, frightens off investors, and diverts resources away from social and economic improvement. Nowhere are the effects of the “Guerra no Rio” felt more acutely than in the city’s 1,200 slums, or favelas.

While urban violence manifests itself differently from place to place, it is spreading because of unregulated urbanization, persistent income inequality, and public negligence. During the 1940s, more than two-thirds of all Brazilians lived in rural areas. Within less than 50 years, nine out of every 10 citizens were living in a city – most of them in shantytowns. Though formal urban zones of these cities are growing at a rate of 0.3 per cent a year, slums are expanding by 2.4 per cent. It is hardly surprising, then, that Rio de Janeiro exhibits one of the highest rates of income inequality on the planet. According to the United Nations, societies experiencing a Gini inequality rating of 0.6 or more are “at high risk of social unrest or civil conflict.” In 2009, Rio de Janeiro’s rating hovered just there, at 0.6.

Brazil’s public authorities typically resorted to violent and extra-legal measures to wage the war against narco-traffickers. Operations colourfully named “Asphyxia” or “Maximum Pressure” featured heavily-armed military police invading favelas with the intention of capturing and killing gang members, but often inflicting enormous collateral damage on residents. In some cases, shantytowns were temporarily “occupied,” until gangs pushed the police out or violence spread to neighbouring areas. Rather than establishing a permanent, preventive presence in favelas, police encircled and contained them. In many cases, the police themselves had a hand in sustaining the drug trade and the parallel diffusion of sophisticated firearms.

For more than two decades, Rio de Janeiro’s urban war seems only to have made the situation worse. Over the past 10 years, the police alone reportedly killed some 10,000 civilians, with the annual incidence rising steadily from 355 in 1998 to more than 1,300 10 years later, the highest in the world. Insecurity in the favelas also increased: homicide rates in favelas are several times the city average. The antipathy spawned by street warfare increased the distance between local residents and public authorities, allowing ever greater room for violence to occur.

Recognizing that they were losing the war, Rio de Janeiro’s military police began searching for alternatives. After visiting an innovative police program underway in Boston, a number of enterprising officers formed a “community police unit” in the Cantagalo favela in 2000. Rather than cracking down on drug transactions, the 100-man unit focused on protecting slum residents. The program immediately began generating positive results. A long-time critic of Brazil’s repressive police tactics, Amnesty International lauded the pilot project for its striking reduction in violence; indeed homicides fell to zero within the first year. The initiative was discontinued, however, after political rivalries and internal discord in the police force led to the transfer of key personnel.

It was only in the wake of the National Programme for Public Citizen Security (PRONASCI) that a radical transformation in the country’s approach to crime prevention finally emerged. Launched in 2007, PRONASCI seems to have contributed to impressive gains in both stability and social welfare. At a minimum, it has mobilized billions of federal dollars toward comprehensive security and development activities at the state and city levels, a significant achievement given past negligence. It has forced the police to look inward, rethink the limits of repressive approaches, and address deep-seated corruption in their own ranks. Since its inception, PRONASCI has successfully inspired comprehensive security plans across Brazil, from Pará and Espírito Santo to São Paulo and Minas Gerais.

The creation of the pacification police units (UPP) in 2008 also marked a significant break with past approaches. Enthusiastically supported by Rio de Janeiro’s governor and mayor, the UPP are the most important development in generations in the city’s fight against crime. The strategy is straightforward. First, the special operations battalion (BOPE) clears favelas of illegal armed groups including both drug traffickers and shadowy politically-backed militia. Next, a newly formed UPP unit – educated in human rights and community relations – is permanently installed in the heart of the municipality. The UPP enters a favela to stay. To date, some 12 communities – home to at least 200,000 people – including the infamous Cidade de Deus, Santa Marta, and Babilonia favelas have been “pacified.”

The UPP approach is intended to bring the state into the favelas, often for the first time. After decades of neglect and marginalization, pacified favelas now have a ratio of one police officer for every 40 people – 10 times higher than the city average. This represents a dramatic surge in public resources, and not all of them are devoted to security promotion. Central to the UPP strategy is the formalization of service delivery and the nurturing of bonds of communication and trust with community residents. UPP cells are investing in everything from health clinics and (legal) electrification to sporting facilities and professional training courses. The hope is that youth associated with gangs and the drug trade can legitimately leave violence behind.

The new approach to policing is expected to create a secure urban environment so that the social and economic dynamism of these communities can be unleashed to positive effect. Notwithstanding the recent outbreak of violence, there are signs that the strategy is working. Homicide rates in pacified communities show a precipitous drop when compared to pre-intervention data. Though skeptical at the outset, favela residents in areas where UPP are operating are generally enthusiastic supporters. Indeed, property values in pacified favelas have doubled or in some cases tripled in the past two years. There are plans to expand the activity to hundreds of favelas and increase the strength of the UPP to more than 62,000 officers by 2016 while slowly reducing the BOPE presence.

Notwithstanding the PRONASCI strategy and the UPP, the process of restoring public security will be challenging and incremental. On the one hand, it requires a sustained change of attitude and behaviour within justice and policing institutions. In order for gains to be consolidated, activities must also be backed with robust political and popular support. Building a legitimate bridge between local residents and their public authorities takes time. While the UPP represent an important first step, their activities need to be coupled with the permanent presence of the state across multiple sectors. It is only then that progressive development activities – including the national accelerated development program (Programa de Aceleracao de Crescemento, or PAC) – can take hold.