Crime Rules Over 1,400 Favela Communities in Rio de Janeiro State

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Over 500,000 students study in areas ruled by organized crime in Rio de Janeiro. Traffickers and militiamen are also in control of 14 percent of healthcare posts and 13.6 percent of the state’s electoral zones. Data on the influence of criminal factions is contained in a document created by the Witzel government, submitted to the courts in an attempt to advocate police operations in favelas.

In June, Federal Supreme Court (STF) Justice Edson Fachin suspended police operations in Rio’s communities during the coronavirus pandemic – except in “absolutely exceptional cases”. For such cases, the justification must be submitted in writing to the Prosecutor’s Office.

Last week, the STF plenary once again rejected the government’s arguments and ordered a number of restrictions on police actions. Among them, only using helicopters under “strict necessity” and banning the use of schools or healthcare facilities as police operational bases.

The authors of the judicial measures approved by the STF allege that the operations are conducted in a war-like fashion, violate established regulations and result in the death of innocent people. In May, despite the quarantine, Rio recorded 129 deaths by security agents, including 14-year-old João Pedro Mattos, who was shot in the back inside his own home. Even with the injunction in force, there were 34 raids in June and 50 in July.

In an attempt to support operations in the favelas, the Witzel administration based itself on a report by detective Felipe Lobato Curi, under-secretary for Planning and Operational Integration. According to the document, the Civil Police intelligence sector identified 1,413 communities under the control of organized crime.

Of these, 1,135 are said to be in the hands of three drug factions: Comando Vermelho (CV), Terceiro Comando Puro (TCP) and Amigo dos Amigos (ADA). In turn,illegal militias allegedly exercise power in 278 other locations. Rivals, the groups sometimes engage in violent conflicts over territories.

The document precedes the STF plenary ruling. It attacks the June injunction and refers to an estimate of 56,520 individuals carrying rifles or pistols in Rio de Janeiro’s urban areas. “Rather than protecting students and teaching professionals in schools and day care centers (…), they were ultimately exposed to an increased risk.”

Crime areas

According to Rio’s government, the map of criminal faction influence was drawn from the cross-referencing of service addresses for the population, intelligence from police inquiries and data from 11,700 calls to the ‘Disque-Denúncia’ (anti-crime hotline) in 2019. The most affected areas are the capital and the surrounding suburbs in Baixada Fluminense, Niterói and São Gonçalo, as well as the more distant Lagos and Serrana regions in the state.

The survey points to 1,779 teaching establishments in these areas, with 505,411 students enrolled. Two out of every three schools are public schools – most of them in regions controlled by the CV. “On the doorstep of the children’s school (…) individuals can be found trafficking drugs and carrying firearms,” says one of the complaints included.

In another, residents complain that criminals are using concrete and refrigerators to install barricades and obstruct roads: “The barriers prevent the entry of the food truck into a daycare center.” However, the most frequent reports are of criminals carrying firearms and collecting fees from residents and businesses for supposed security services.

Of the 4,848 basic healthcare units (UBSs) in Rio de Janeiro, 695 are in drug faction strongholds, according to the report. “Outside the hospital (…) traffickers (…) obstructed the road, with tree trunks and old sofas, preventing access to any vehicle and patients,” describes one anonymous report. “They constantly force doctors to write prescriptions, suture stitches and administer injections.”

The regions also include 672 election polling stations for over 1.9 million voters. In those areas, drug traffickers organize parties for their candidates and coerce the population to vote for them, the document says. “Restrictions on operations in communities in the state of Rio de Janeiro can interfere with the electoral process, hindering electoral campaigns as well as elections,” the detective warns.

Inefficiency

Despite failing to present solid data, Curi also reports that there has been “virtually one war between rival groups per day” since the suspension ordered by Justice Fachin. According to him, the conflicts have resulted in “several deaths of children and innocent people” – but he fails to specify the number of these alleged killings. Police operations, he adds, would be of paramount importance in fighting gang factions.

Social scientist Silvia Ramos, coordinator of the Network of Security Observatories, disagrees with the detective and says that the actions are ineffective for the population’s security. “For over 20 years, policies to solve this issue have been confrontational and war operations,” she says. “There have been thousands of operations and with what result? The factions and militias have grown stronger.”

According to the researcher, Rio lacks investment in intelligence and crime prevention policies. “When the police leave, the groups order more weapons with no effort to intercept them,” she says. “The model for disbanding these groups is so ineffective that the STF had to intervene.”

Risks

Beatriz Cunha, Subcoordinator of Childhood and Youth for Rio’s Public Defender’s Office, says the Witzel government’s assessment would in fact be yet another argument to restrict police operations in the favelas. “The data only reinforce the need to maintain the ruling,” she says.

The Public Defender’s Office of Rio de Janeiro (TJ-RJ) brought a civil lawsuit against operations in sensitive areas, such as near schools and hospitals. In the lawsuit, the entity states that the government fails to comply with its own internal ordinance, issued in 2018, which establishes criteria to reduce risks to innocent people.

“A police effort based on armed conflict with criminals increases the risk of victimizing people who are unrelated to the conflict and affects the provision of public services in the exposed areas,” Beatriz Cunha says. “Children and adolescents have often been victims of stray bullets, as well as missing classes due to suspensions because of gunfights.”

Among the problems, the public defender mentions incentives for school evasion and impacts on children’s mental health and learning process. “The public security policy, in the way it has been conducted thus far, does not achieve the intended goal and produces high social costs,” she says.

Beatriz also refers to two studies by the Prosecutor’s Office this year, according to which the increase in lethality by the Rio police does not lead to a drop in other crimes. “In certain areas of the state, these deaths have shown an unusually excessive nature and are unrelated to crime dynamics and police productivity,” says one of the reports.

Source: O Estado de S. Paulo