Rio: Drop in lethal violence real

Data publicized by Rio de Janeiro’s Public Security Institute (ISP) show an 18.4% drop in homicides in the state for the month of July 2010, as compared to July 2009.

While they are often questioned by public security specialists, the homicide data issued by the institute that belongs to Rio de Janeiro’s State Office of Public Security, seems to be correct.
The statement comes from one of the fiercest critics of the methodology adopted to classify official data used by the ISP, Sociologist Ignácio Cano (photo), from Rio de Janeiro State University’s Violence Analysis Laboratory, LAV.

This June, Rio de Janeiro recorded its lowest number of homicides since 1991, when the data began to be monitored by the ISP. According to the institute that compiles data based on Civil Police force records, homicidios dolosos (intentional homicides) dropped by close to 30% between 2005 and 2010, in the first three months of the year.

In order to verify the data, Cano compared the institute’s data with Rio de Janeiro statistices from the Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) (the nation’s health system) and found the drop is real. “The ISP data match the Health system data. The drop is confirmed in both sources," said Cano during a talk at the 4th Forum Violência, Participação Popular e Direitos Humanos (a forum discussing human rights, grass roots participation and violence) held this past September, organized by the NGO Rio da Paz, the Federal Justice Cultural Center and the United Nations.

Fig 1. Violent deaths rates per 100 thousand people, in the State of Rio de Janeiro, January to July

Although he confirmed the homicide data presented by the ISP, Cano nevertheless questions the data’s quality. In his view, deaths are classified inadequately, which can, as a result, effectively mask the real number of homicides and changes in non-lethal crime rates.

Cano provides the following example: If the Civil Police records a crime such as lesão corporal (assault) but the victim eventually dies from injuries in hospital, the practice is that police records are not amended, and the crime remains classified as assault. Other crimes that fail excluded in the homicide statistics are latrocínio (robbery resulting in death of victim) infanticide, and occurrences in which dead bodies are found with evidence that deaths resulted from intentional violence. Neither do the statistics include police killings classified as “auto de resistência” (akin to killings performed in line of duty) that take place in clashes during police operations.

In his own study, Cano used the category “mortes violentas intencionais” (or intentional violent deaths). (The category was first proposed by a special commission summond by the Rio de Janeiro state government in 2000.) Cano adopted it in order to highlight the importance of lethal crimes and avoid the risk of manipulating indicators by adopting overlapping and ambiguous categories to classify a single event. This indicator takes into account the number of deaths for every 100 thousand people, and includes the following recorded crimes: homicidio doloso consumado (intentional homicide); assault that leads to the victim’s death; latrocinio, finding a dead body, and finding human remains.

Cano and his LAV team compared the data for the first semester of the year 2010 (January to July) with the same period in 2009 (see table below). They noted a 17% reduction in the rate of intentional violent deaths and confirmed a drop in the rates from 2005. The rates of intentional violent deaths for 2010 were lower than those for 2009 in all the months analyzed.

Fig 2.Rates for 'intentional violent deaths' per 100 thousand deaths, per trimester 2009/10

The Rio de Janeiro Security Office has credited the drop to a new system that awards prizes for lowering crime rates. Prizes range from R$500 to R$ 1,500 Real, and are given at the end of each semester. 11 million Reals will be awarded this year, practically twice the amount of given for the second semester of 2009, amounting to R$6 million Real. The initiative is part of a program that intends to improve security in the period leading up to 2014, the year of the world cup in Brazil.

Autos de resistência drop

Autos de resistência, or police killings in the performance of duty, also fell. Between January and July this year, there was a 13.3% drop versus the same period last year. The LAV also noted that there was a drop in 2010 in relation to the five preceding years. The peak years for civilian deaths at the hands of police officers were found to be the first semesters 2007 and 2008, (as seen in the table below).

Fig 3. Number of civilians killed by the police in Autos de Resistência, January to July

"Killable humans"

Anthropologist Ana Paula Miranda, former ISP diretor, stated that the “auto de resistência” is not a legal category. In her view, it was created by the police to justify the killings of what she termed “killable humans”. “We need to look at these victims, and ask ourselves, who are they? What are their stories and the stories of their families? The moral elites build cities according to their own desires and purposes,” she said. She believes there are two types of citizens, those “killable” and those “unkillable”.

"It is not enough to look at homicides from the perspective of policing, we need to go further and see the reasons behind the clashes. The statistics may drop, but are we changing our (social) relations?” Miranda asked.

In Inacio Cano’s view, society has to demand that autos de resistência and other intentional lethal crimes are included in the goals of homicide reduction. Another crucial point is that more should be done to strengthen homicide investigations.

“The impunity levels for homicides are above 90%” said Cano. In his view, the creation of the Homicide Division in Rio de Janeiro’s Civil Police was a good step, but more needs to be done in order to reach acceptable levels of crime solving.

Cano also points out the need to create goals for the reduction of police lethality, as well as more policies in violence prevention for areas that are not covered by the Pacifying Police Units, the UPPs.

Community policing

The reduction in lethal violence is also attributed in part to the establishment of the Pacifying Police Units, the UPPs, and this topic was discussed at a round table with Anthropologist Jaqueline Muniz and Colonel Robson Rodrigues da Silva who commands the UPPs.

Muniz stressed that  Rio de Janeiro is now witnessing an unprecedented amount of money invested in public security, but she adds that the UPPs were not born in this government. “They evolved out of previous experiences, their respective successes and failures, that have been made since the 1980’s”.

In Muniz’s view, the establishment of the UPPs today was helped by a political alignment of government offices, leading her to caution Rio’s society to be aware of the transitory nature of such political alliances. Muniz noted the need for a pact that involves the federal government down in public security policy, following the example of health and education “it (UPPs) need to become public policy”, said Muniz.

Muniz also believes other factors have helped to cement the success of the UPPs, noting the role played by social pressure based on well founded criticism, the fact the media is now more aware of the importance of violence prevention, and their responsibility towards citizens in how they reports news. Muniz also highlighted the new generation of police officers with undergraduate degrees and courses in community policing. “Policiais are learning to speak “the language of citizenship” instead of pushing their own “cop talk”, said Muniz.

Colonel Robson Rodrigues explained that the UPP’s preventative work focuses on youths age 13 to 24, the social group at greatest risk. “The work is going to show its effects many years down the road,” said Colonel Rodrigues.

According to Rodrigues, the UPPs are taking old values and turning them around, traditionally the identity of the military officers was created as an opposition to civilians, resulting in a certain distancing.

“Nowadays we value the magic of contact,” he said. The Colonel added that there is a highly selective process in place to elect captains for the post of UPPs commanders, professionals are selected for their discipline, vocation and a sensibility towards communities.

Rodrigues also noted the fact that in communities already ‘pacified’ the UPP Social project that belongs to the Secretaria de Assistência Social is already underway. The project is now carrying out a survey of the communities to identify their needs and how to better establish services of the three branches of government, as well as the private sector and the NGOs. “The process will to bring legitimacy to the state, even if late”

Read Further:

Deaths related to police action

Translated by L H M