This unaltered story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.org.
License [2]: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/Int'l.
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Brazil’s policing is a war of men. Civilians are caught in the crossfire

By:   []

Date: 2022-02 

Central to this characterization is the drug trafficker – recurrently referred to only as a bandido – whose image is associated with that of a young, poor, Black man, seen as dangerous and heavily armed, who holds power over a territory and its residents. The drug trafficker defies the monopoly of violence and the laws of the state.

By sharing the territories occupied by drug traffickers – and supposedly subjecting themselves to the laws, guardianship and protection of the self-proclaimed ‘lords of the favelas’ – residents of the shantytowns have been inadvertently criminalised. They are associated with the supposedly savage and dangerous masculinity of drug trafficking, which produces the separation between state territory and enemy territory.

Public security as war, police officers as soldiers

Since the late 1990s, the idea of public security being associated with military masculinity has dominated among governors, mayors, and police chiefs in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

Nilton Cerqueira, who was the secretary of public security from 1995 to 1998, stated in 1996 that “a bandido is not a civilian.” Two years later, his successor, Noaldo Alves da Silva, went even further, proclaiming that “a bandido who shoots at the police does not deserve to survive, he has to be eliminated from social life”.

Security forces have adopted the warrior ethos in their police work. After the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1980s, the state police forces were not demilitarised, and the bandido came to replace the ‘subversive guerrilla’ as the male enemy figure. In the police forces, the understanding of police officers as combatant soldiers prevailed. Even with the entry of women into the forces during the redemocratisation period, the “basic institutional masculinity” was maintained.

Public policies, such as the so-called ‘Wild West bonus’ – a bonus of 50-150% of the salary for police officers who demonstrated ‘fearless courage’ in operations – have also geared police towards confrontation and elimination of the adversary. The results of this policy, which was in place from 1995 to 1998, were fatal: after its introduction, the number of people killed in police operations increased significantly.

Yet even after the abolishment of the Wild West bonus, the masculine logic of war became more pronounced. In the early 2000s, there was already a sharp increase in the number of deaths caused by police officers, reaching more than 1,300 fatal victims in 2007.

The failure of the Pacifying Police Units

After decades of a bloody war on drugs, the Pacifying Police Units (UPP) program was implemented in 2008 to establish a public security policy focused on respect for human rights, in line with the agenda of the left-wing Workers' Party that was, at the time, in the federal government. Some 38 pacification units were initially installed in the Rio de Janeiro capital and its outskirts.

The concept of the UPPs followed, to a large extent, an idea of humanising police work as a way of gaining the trust of the population. The intention was to break with the logic of war and place greater emphasis on citizen security, introducing ‘community policing’ as a new model for public safety. This strategy, which at first proved to be effective, reducing shootouts and weapon circulation in the ‘pacified’ favelas, soon began to show signs that it was not working as expected. Communal activities, such as funk parties, were banned and residents reported abusive policing practices, such as irregular body searches and sexual harassment.

The UPPs program began winding down in 2013 and was subordinated to the battalions of the Military Police four years later – effectively marking its termination. Experts point out that the flaws in the program were basically due to a conflict of paradigms: on the one hand, community policing and human rights orientation, on the other, the persistence of the warrior ethos and the ‘wild masculinity’ in the police identity.

In specialist or tactical police forces, in particular, such as the Special Police Operations Battalion (BOPE), the logic of war and confrontation prevailed in the territorial recovery of areas controlled by organised crime, a prerequisite for the introduction of UPPs. These tactical groups are known for their particularly brutal actions and have been denounced both domestically and internationally. As early as 2005, a UN report showed evidence of torture and summary execution of adolescents carried out by BOPE soldiers. In 2013, already during the UPP period, BOPE was responsible for a massacre in the Maré favela, leaving 10 fatal victims.
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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/brazil-police-a-war-of-men-civilians-are-caught-in-the-crossfire/
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