Fearing the bullet, the police

What are you afraid of? The question looms so large that suddenly you are worried you may get it wrong. Multiple-choice answers make it easier however, and it is quickly apparent that most people fear the same thing in Rio de Janeiro: being shot. 

A victimization survey conducted by Rio de Janeiro State’s Institute for Public Security (ISP) revealed that the most common fears expressed by residents of the city of Rio are stray bullets (57%) and neighborhood shoot-outs (43%).

“Firearms should be taken out of circulation,” argued the sociologist Yolanda Catão, emphasizing the fact that 85% of vehicle thefts are conducted with firearms. She and other specialists in security and criminality were invited by ISP to comment on the data at the report’s public release, last month in Rio.

For two and a half years, about 30 researchers visited more than 75 000 households in the city of Rio in an attempt to meet with victims of any form of offense. A questionnaire was administered to 4553 victims, which covers an estimated population of 1 750 073 households and 8 696 561 individuals. Of those interviewed, the majority are women (53.7%) and live in the city of Rio de Janeiro (51.5%). Residents of the municipalities of São Gonçalo, Duque de Caxias and Nova Iguaçu made up 25.8% of those interviewed.

The research conducted during the visits demonstrated a victimization rate of 39%, a percentage generated by the number of affirmative answers to cases of theft, robbery or assault from at least one member of each household, occurring during the period of time covered by the research: from January 2002 to December 2006. Robbery was the most common case of victimization, with 46% of those reported.

The possibility of comparing and contrasting data from official statistics, based on police records of offenses, with the data generated through the victimization research, excites specialists. "It is a major breakthrough in the production of official crime statistics," said Yolanda Cato. According to the sociologist, the pressure of civil society led to the government's awareness of the importance of research in order to address issues of security.

Tables

It is understood that underreporting is prevalent in official registries. The research conducted allows for calculating estimated rates of underreporting for each type of crime, more accurate victim profile assessments and gauging the impact of the crimes.  "It's a rich database. There is a great field open to researchers," Cato said. There is no shortage of data, according to the sociologist, but research is often impossible to conduct. "Databases are withheld because of competitiveness," she argued.

Researchers however criticized the fact the report covers only five years. They hope that it be conducted annually and its methodology continually improved.

Sociologist Michel Misse, Coordinator of the Center for Citizenship, Conflict and Urban Violence Studies (NECCVU) of Rio de Janeiro’s Federal University UFRJ, compared police records with the result of the victimization study and found "glaring differences.”

The rates of underreporting reach 94.6%, as in the case of sexual offense – out of nearly 70 000 victims, only 4 000 thousand were registered. Misse chose to compare averages for each type of crime officially recorded in 2006 and 2007 with the average of crimes reported by survey respondents during from the past twelve months.

(See the table to the left, in Portuguese.)

Cariocas Distrust the Police

After stray bullets and neighborhood shoot-outs, the third most common fear (37%) according to those interviewed is home break-ins followed by robbery.

In light of this data, it is worth examining other aspects: the distribution of policing in neighborhoods is considered to be "poor" or "terrible” by 70.3% of the population. In addition, more than half (56%) of the population does not trust the military police and almost half (43%) do not trust the civil police. Only 6.9% of the population completely trusts the Military Police and 9.2% completely trust the Civil Police. (See the table to the side) To top it off: people are not clear on the difference between one another. Of the total estimated population, 35.3% reported having some interaction with the police at one point in their lives.

Interviewees were asked if any kind of aggression or ill-treatment had occurred in their last interaction with the police. The results demonstrated that 15% of the estimated population had been victim to aggressive language or verbal abuse by police; 13.3% had experienced some kind of humiliation and 12.2% had been threatened or intimidated. Some respondents, especially young residents of favelas, refused to answer the part of questionnaire related to the police, despite light insistence by the researchers.

The sociologist Gláucio Soares claims that feelings of insecurity increase significantly due to a negative perception of the police who are seen as corrupt and violent.

The lack of public confidence in the Rio police was the subject of headlines in prominent Brazilian newspapers after the release of the report. The ISP quickly came up with a strategic response: 12 manuals of police procedures were launched on August 27th. The manuals were developed by the ISP in partnership with Brazil’s Special Human Rights Office that is linked to the Presidency (SEDH) and with funding from the European Union - the same groups that partnered with the victimization research project. Both projects were designed and initiated in 2006, under the management of anthropologist Ana Paula Mendes de Miranda who was replaced in early 2008 by Colonel Mario Sergio de Brito Duarte.

ISP Defends its Methodology as the Nation’s Standard

By 2006, 23 completed victimization studies had been conducted in different cities throughout Brazil. Due to lack of uniformity in the studies’ methodologies and consolidation of results, it is difficult to perform comparative analyses. Moreover, most research is limited to studies of regional capitals, mainly in Brazil’s southeastern region.

The victimization survey project entitled “Desenvolvimento de Metodologia e Aplicação de Pesquisa de Vitimização na Região Metropolitana do Estado do Rio de Janeiro” aimed to develop a standard methodology that can be applied anywhere in Brazil -in cities, metropolitan regions, states or nationally- allowing for comparisons of results at a national or international level, given that the methodology follows parameters set by the International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS), developed by the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (Unicri).

The victimization study had already taken into account methodologies of past Brazilian victimization studies in the design of its own field methodology and questionnaire. Additionally, the project design included contributions from specialists. The Academic researchers continued work after the survey was completed, contributing papers on the data, some of which were published in a book that was released along with the research report.

One of the points to be improved in the study was how long it took to apply the questionnaire- close to one hour. The duration of the interview generated many complaints. The respondents with lower educational backgrounds often took substantially more time to fill in the questionnaires, many requiring more than 90 minutes.

Researchers Take on Traffickers, Militia, Doormen and Superintendents

According to the researchers who participated in the survey, the effects of a sense of insecurity were identified most clearly in Rio’s affluent neighborhoods, especially those with the highest concentration of people of middle and upper classes and with large numbers of high-rises. Residents frequently refused contact with survey takers, even after clarification was offered.
The researchers commented that many of the mechanisms of security in these neighborhoods created hurdles for establishing contact and thus affected the survey.

Firstly, because so many buildings use interphones, the work of researchers was placed in the hands of doormen and superintendents. In other cases, the lack of interphones subjected the researchers to waiting for hours at the buildings’ entrances. Problems of this nature were resolved with diverse strategies: the research team sent letters to superintendents, explaining the project and asking for the letter to be posted in the entrances and distribution in the mailboxes of the residents. The DataUFF website was included in the letter, to help people with questions to contact the team directly.

In poor areas, researchers reported that residents were afraid to provide information, especially in areas with a greater presence of drug trafficking and militias. According to the researchers, in areas controlled by local militias, the refusals to participate suggested the occurrence of victimization in the homes of residents and confirmed that the militia is unable to live up to its main goal: that is, to provide security to residents. In areas with high numbers of gangs involved in drug trafficking, the motivation for refusal to cooperate and the prevalence of insincere responses appeared to be linked to fear of being labeled as an informer.

In both cases, the procedure established and adopted by the team was for the researcher to seek contact with the local residents’ association first. In cases in which researchers were unable to make contact with residents’ association, they would inevitably need to approach traffickers or members of the militia to ask for assistance. This practice, according to the ISP, was adopted to show the research’s transparency and non-interference in the routine of the community.

Despite the fact that the presence and intimidation from drug traffickers and militia were not so extreme as to prevent the completion of work, the feeling of constantly being watched was a constant source of discomfort in many of those areas.

Often, the arrival of the researchers in the poorest communities generated expectations that the work would bring quick benefits to the social condition of the residents.

Read Further: (In Portuguese)

Pesquisa de condições de vida e vitimização - 2007 (PDF) - Em arquivo PDF, o livro que reúne a presentação metodológica da pesquisa, os principais dados e artigos de especialistas com reflexões sobre os resultados e a importância do estudo.

Entendendo a pesquisa de condições de vida e vitimização de 2007: dados principais (PDF) - Artigo de Vanessa Campagnac, Eliane Luz, Joelma Azevedo e Thaís Ferraz com os principais resultados da pesquisa. Em PDF.