The politics of police violence: Political competition and police killings in Brazil

ABSTRACT

What affects police killings of denizens in the cities of developing democracies? Brazil is one of the countries with the most casualties from police lethality, yet deaths from police interventions vary greatly across its cities, as well as over time. Since most of its police forces are formally responsive to state-level governments, the political dynamics at this government tier are essential to comprehend urban policing—and its resort to deadly violence. I argue that subnational political competition explains whether state-level governments can implement reforms to reduce police lethality. I illustrate this argument through a within-case, cross-case comparison of the city-states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro since re-democratization in the 1980s. While lower fragmentation and partisan continuity at the state-level government enabled and consolidated reforms that mitigated police violence in São Paulo, higher fragmentation and turnover inhibited reforms and increased police lethality in Rio. Building on interviews with subnational politicians and police officers as well as statistics on police killings, this paper helps spark an urgent conversation in urban studies on police violence in the urban Global South and expands the police reform literature by developing a theory of how politics influences police violence.

KEYWORDS:

• Police violence
• Brazil
• political competition
• police reform

Acknowledgments

I sincerely thank Michael Leo Owens for the opportunity to participate in this special issue, and for his extremely helpful and generous comments to an earlier draft of this paper. I also thank the editor and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions. Finally, thanks to Ben Carbonetti, Stefanie Chambers, Mary Dudas, Andy Flibbert, Kevin Funk, Isaac Kamola, Serena Laws, Reo Matsuzaki, Cory Manento, Tony Messina, Belén Milmanda, Anna Terwiel and Abby Williamson for their comments on an earlier presentation of this paper and their encouragement through this process. All errors are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. While these indicators are at the state level, the majority of police killings occur in the greater metropolitan areas of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

2. References to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo allude to their state-level governments, which are the locus of political dynamics and security policies, and the geographical unit for police killings data.

3. These administrative regulations can restrict shooting at moving vehicles; ban chokeholds and strangleholds; compel other officers to intervene in cases of police abuse; or incorporate the use of force continuum.

4. In this sense, the incarceration rate in São Paulo in 2020 was 454 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, nearly twice as high as in Rio de Janeiro (254).

5. I have cross-checked the Rio de Janeiro data with Hirata et al. (2021). While there is a small difference between the two datasets, the ISP-RJ includes more cases, which is why I will refer to this data in the article. Nonetheless, they exhibit the same trends and corresponding gap with respect to São Paulo.

6. Further information on interviews is available in the methodological appendix.

7. After which, the PDMB split, with the more progressive faction forming the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB).

8. Interview with former Security Secretary, Marco Petrelluzzi by author, São Paulo, November 12, 2014.

9. Interview with former Security Secretary Petrelluzzi.

10. Interview with former Chief of the Civil Police, Marco Desgualdo by author, São Paulo, November 5, 2014.

11. Interview with Domingos Paulo Neto, former Chief of the Civil Police by author, São Paulo, November 12, 2014.

12. Decree n. 39.900, January 1, 1995.

13. This program was renamed Program to Accompany and Support Military Police (PAAPM) in 2002.

14. Interview with former Commander General of the Military Police Coronel Camilo by author, São Paulo, October 30, 2014.

15. Interview with Military Police Captain by author, police precinct in Eastern Zone of São Paulo, November 6, 2014.

16. Interview with Marco Petrelluzzi. Also interview with public security expert Guaracy Mingardi by author, São Paulo, November 3, 2014.

17. Interview with former Secretary of Security of São Paulo Ronaldo Marzagão by author, São Paulo, November 13, 2014.

18. Interview with former deputy security secretary, Arnaldo Hossepian by author, São Paulo, November 3, 2014.

19. Ferreira Pinto did not return requests for an interview.

20. Enacted by Law 3168 (January 12, 1999).

21. Interview with former BOPE Captain Rodrigo Pimentel by author, Rio de Janeiro, September 8, 2014.

22. Interview with PM Colonel by author, Rio de Janeiro, September 1, 2014.

23. Source: Institute of Public Security of Rio de Janeiro. Balance of indicators of Pacification policy. 2016.

24. Interview with former Coordinator of the UPP by author, Colonel Robson Rodriguez, Rio de Janeiro, September 16, 2014.

25. Interview with former commander of the ROTA Colonel Telhada by author, São Paulo, November 6, 2014.

26. The report did not address differences between states.

27. According to the Institute for Brazilian Geography and Statistics (IBGE), São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have practically the same number of civil society and nonprofit associations per capita. See data at https://www.ibge.gov.br/estatisticas/economicas/outras-estatisticas-economicas/9023-as-fundacoes-privadas-e-associacoes-sem-fins-lucrativos-no-brasil.html?edicao=9024&t=o-que-e.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hernán Flom

Hernán Flom is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Trinity College. He holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. His main research interests are illegal markets, violence, and criminal justice policies in Latin America. His book manuscript, Informal Regulation of Criminal Markets in Latin America, analyzes how politics influences the way in which police apply corruption and violence to deal with drug markets in metropolitan areas. His work has been published in Governance, Latin American Politics and Society, and Comparative Politics. Before arriving at Trinity, he was selected as a Visiting Fellow by the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame and worked in the National Ministry of Security in Argentina. He has also consulted on criminal justice policies for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Latin American Public Opinion Project, among others.