Highlights
– United Nations report details rising police killings and violence
– Police brutality and paramilitary groups to blame for high death counts
– Larger problems of corruption and lack of resources likely to impede any attempts to reform the judicial system in the near to mid-term
In a report released by the United Nations (UN) on September 15, 2008, the UN Human Rights Council reported an increasingly high number of police involved killings in Brazil. With numbers highest in the tourist area of Rio de Janeiro, officials are concerned about the number of police brutality cases and the increasing occurrence of off-duty officers moonlighting in paramilitary gangs within the slum areas.
Deep-rooted problems of corruption, low salaries and poor training will continue to hamper any attempts at reform in the near-term. Large-scale reform of the judicial system and law enforcement community will be necessary to remedy the problem of extrajudicial killings.
Recent Report
The 49-page UN report was compiled after a 10-day fact finding mission to Brazil in November 2007. The report indicated that Brazilian police kill three people every day within Rio de Janeiro, and are responsible for one out of every five murders. These deaths at the hand of law enforcement officers occur in two capacities.
• First, on-the-job police brutality remains exceptionally high, as officers often use deadly force during investigations. In police reports, officers will commonly explain the deaths of suspects as “acts of resistance followed by death,” which investigators believe often disguises police extrajudicial killings.
• Second, a new concern is the increasing use of paramilitary gangs within the urban slum areas, especially in the city of Rio de Janeiro. As previously reported, the development of paramilitary gangs, comprised of off-duty and retired officers, was seen as a counter-measure to ruling drug gangs within these areas (Previous Report).
Originally, the groups were private security providers in the slums, but the growing problem is that these gangs acting out their own perception of “justice” will remain a concern in the near to mid-term. The paramilitary groups have developed extensive extortion networks to overpower citizens, and often kill indiscriminately without proper investigation into drug gang suspects.
Violence is not limited to Rio de Janeiro, however. In the state of Pernambuco in the northeast region of the country, the report stated that close to 70 percent of all homicides are committed by these paramilitary death squads.
Deeper Problems
Numerous factors have influenced the continuing rise in police killings, as well as the growth of paramilitary organizations. Low salaries and a difficult shift schedule (where officers work long hours followed by several consecutive days off) have led officers to seek out alternative income opportunities. Brazilian police are also given little training or proper resources in dealing with large criminal issues, especially in the urban areas.
Despite the practical challenges facing the law enforcement community, the fundamental problem lies in Brazil’s ineffective judicial system. Even if a criminal case makes it to court, convictions on legitimate murder charges are rare. The UN report discovered that in Sao Paulo, only 10 percent of all homicide investigations reach trial. A recent poll of citizens living in high-crime areas revealed that the majority of people support extrajudicial killings as an option due to the absence of an effective criminal justice system.
Long-Term Impact
Deep-seated corruption and the fear by witnesses to help solve crimes has created a stalled system that will require large-scale reorganization to help streamline the arrest and judicial process in the long-term to restore faith in the system. While the issuing of the report will likely spur Brazilian lawmakers to examine the issue in the near-term, we anticipate police killings to continue to steadily increase, as long as the country continues to lack an effective and strict oversight policy.
