The municipal elections are just around the corner and, although the electoral dispute has not been brought to the center of the debate, it is already possible to anticipate the issue that will mobilize attention and generate the most heated discussions not only in Rio de Janeiro, but in all the country’s major cities. This is, of course, public security. Any candidate who presents themselves without a clear proposal on the best way to deal with crime can now withdraw from the race. Brazilian voters are beginning to show increasingly clear signs that they are tired of leaving their homes in fear of being mugged, assaulted or shot by who knows who. They want change.
It’s not uncommon for one issue to impose itself on the debate and become much more important than other important issues. In previous elections, food prices, health, education, urban cleanliness or the lack of conservation of roads and public spaces mobilized the voter’s attention and were the main criteria for defining the vote. This year, the discussion should focus on the issue of security and how to deal with crime. This applies to the elections that will take place in five months’ time and, given the situation that the population is experiencing, it will also apply to the choices of governor and deputy that will only take place in 2026.
No one can avoid this issue any longer and no candidate will be elected if they don’t have something to say about it. After spending the last few years pushing the problem down with their bellies and often even defending the idea that the issue of crime in Brazil’s big cities should be tackled with sweet talks and group dynamics in prisons, politicians will finally realize that the population’s patience has run out. And that their next terms in office depend, above all else, on defending more energetic measures to deal with this issue.
At least that’s what the opinion polls commissioned by the main political parties indicate, and which are beginning to be presented to the marketers already hired to create the campaigns that will seek voters’ votes. Although they are still being treated with reserve – not least because electoral legislation establishes deadlines that, if missed, can cause the candidate discomfort – they are very clear in this regard. Just as in the 1990s no one was elected to any important office if they didn’t have a proposal to end inflation or at least reduce its impact on the lives of Brazilians, no one will be elected now if they don’t have a clear proposal on security.
RETURNING LIVES – Before I go any further, a warning is in order! It’s good to be careful about the proposals that are made. Soon miraculous plans will begin to emerge, with striking names, promising worlds and funds to the cornered citizen. That’s precisely where the problem lies: there are no magic proposals for tackling this issue. To begin with, public security is not the responsibility of mayors. According to the distribution of responsibilities established by the 1988 Constitution, public security is a public policy under the responsibility of state governments.
Therefore, nothing promised by any mayoral candidate, no matter how sincere the candidate’s sensitivity to the seriousness of the problem, will have the power to rid the population of the constant threat that holds them hostage to crime. This is one side of the issue. The other, more important side, is that no one can fail to address the magnitude of the problem. If the mayors of the main Brazilian municipalities don’t do their part, the problem will never have a solution that benefits the population.
The public security situation has reached such an extreme point in Brazil that no authority, at any level of government – be it federal, state or municipal – will be able to resolve the situation with its own resources alone. On the other hand, it will also not be possible, as has happened so many times on this issue, for the candidate to wash their hands of the problem and say that they alone can do nothing to alleviate the suffering of the population.
The truth is that the problem has grown, grown and grown to a size that can no longer be swept under the carpet. Citizens don’t care whether the government actions that will give them back the right to go out to work, study or have fun, and then have the peace of mind of returning home in possession of their cell phone, wallet, wedding ring and without suffering any physical harm or embarrassment, will fall within municipal, state or federal competence. What people want is for the problem to be tackled and resolved. They want their lives and their freedom back!
Whenever this discussion is proposed and some authority is asked to take responsibility for the situation, the answer usually comes in the form of statistics. And they always present figures showing the efforts of the security forces in tackling the problem. The problem is that, recently, not even this has been helping.
In the most important statistic of all – the one on the number of violent deaths in the state – Rio de Janeiro had recorded four consecutive years of reduction. Until, last year, the situation was reversed. According to official figures, there were a total of 3,388 murders in the state in 2023 – 233 more than the 3,155 recorded in 2022.
In addition to these statistics, which show the extent of the brutality that has taken hold of Rio de Janeiro, there are others that are less important – but which also draw attention to the seriousness of the situation and help explain why security has become the main issue on any political agenda in Brazil today. One of them concerns the theft of cell phones.
Last Friday, the Public Security Institute of the State of Rio de Janeiro (ISP) published alarming data on this type of occurrence. Between January and April of this year, there were 6,576 cases of this kind in the entire state – an increase of an impressive 40% compared to the first four months of 2023.
THE WEAPON OF THE VOTE – The issue with giving the problem of crime a purely statistical treatment is that the coldness of the numbers fails to show the pain of those who have lost loved ones, who have fallen victim to a shooting. In the same way, the figures don’t show the indignation of those who, in order to preserve their lives, have been forced to hand over a cell phone to a mugger that they haven’t even finished paying for.
It’s this kind of situation, which seems to be on the increase without the state showing any willingness to put public safety at the top of its priorities, that will make people demand effective measures to combat crime from the candidates in the coming elections. Be that as it may, the crime figures in Rio and Brazil are just a possible snapshot of a problem that has grown without any authority seeming willing to tackle it head on.
A problem that will only be solved on the day that the federal government, all state governments and the city halls of all 5569 Brazilian municipalities are convinced that Brazilian citizens will no longer accept being at the mercy of criminals. Until society uses the most effective weapon at its disposal in a democracy – the vote – to demonstrate its indignation at the problem, the issue of public safety will not be elevated to the status of an absolute priority. And if the polling institutes are to be trusted, the time for this weapon to be used is now.
The truth is that if everyone doesn’t unite around the problem and if security isn’t recognized as the main problem the country has to solve, the bandits will continue to act as if they were masters of everything and society will remain cornered and afraid. In recent years, the Comando Vermelho (Red Command), which originated in Rio de Janeiro, and the São Paulo PCC have become extremely powerful and vertical structures, with command centers that control everything with an iron fist, a presence in every state of the federation and branches in other countries.
Anyone who thinks that cell phone thefts are the work of small-time thieves and have nothing to do with mega-criminal organizations is sorely mistaken. They have become so ubiquitous that, according to those who follow their actions, committing these secondary crimes is seen in the criminal world as a kind of selection test for the riskiest and most lucrative operations.
Brazil’s criminal corporations are closely monitored and have earned the status of a threat in the eyes of international security authorities as great as that of the Colombian cartels, the Mexican cartels, the Italian Mafia, the Albanian Mafia, the Chinese Triad, Japan’s Yacuza and the Hezbollah narco-terrorist group. And because the Brazilian state didn’t use the tools at its disposal to take action against the bandits when they were still weak, it ended up allowing the beast to become too powerful to be taken down with two or three blows.
Now, to put an end to the organizations, it will be necessary to mobilize material and human resources far greater than those currently available. We need to invest in security and intelligence and, free from the prejudices that have marked the federal government’s actions in this field, we need to sign cooperation agreements with countries like the United States, Israel and Germany – which have a lot to contribute in terms of equipment, software, weapons and, above all, information.
The task, any minimally informed person knows, will not be easy and, at the point the situation has reached, no significant change will come overnight. Any significant change that is noticed in Rio de Janeiro, for example, must begin in places thousands and thousands of kilometers away.
It has already been said that the drug traffickers who have transformed Rio’s slum communities into citadels of organized crime use weapons that are not manufactured in Rio de Janeiro. They enter Brazil through the land border, travel thousands of kilometers and reach their destination after passing through highways that should be inspected by a series of federal agencies and those of other states.
Many of these weapons arrive in Brazil after crossing the Paraná River in the region of the triple border with Argentina and Paraguay, in the Foz do Iguaçu region. Brazil’s authorities are tired of knowing that every night more than a hundred boat trips between the two banks bring into Brazil weapons, drugs, electronic products, cigarettes, alcoholic drinks, clothes and shoes and a host of other smuggled goods which, as well as helping to fuel crime, cause enormous damage to Brazil’s industry and commerce.
The question is: if the authorities know this is happening, why does it continue to happen night after night without anyone taking action? The first temptation is to consider it all the fault of officials who turn a blind eye to a crime that is happening right under their noses. And, the next moment, to consider it all part of a corrupt system that allows criminals to act in exchange for some benefit. Is it really that simple?
Let’s look at the facts: it may even be that among the Federal Police officers in charge of guarding the Brazilian border there are those who turn a blind eye to the actions of criminals. That may be so. But to attribute the system’s failings to this kind of situation is irresponsible, to say the least. Under the current working conditions, those responsible for guarding Brazil’s land borders would not be able to contain the actions of criminals even if they were endowed with the superpowers of cartoon heroes.
Brazil has almost 16,000 kilometers of land borders and more than 7,000 kilometers of coastline. All of them, when it comes to monitoring what comes in and what goes out of the country, are the responsibility of the Federal Police – which has a total staff of just under 12,000 professionals, including field personnel and back-up staff. These figures speak for themselves and are enough to demonstrate the need for a much larger force than we currently have.
Another point: it is true that security force agents now have better quality weapons and much better equipment than a few years ago. But every day it becomes clearer that the bandits have more modern weapons and a much larger number of men than the security forces. Therefore, above people and weapons, there needs to be a change in mentality: everyone needs to be aware of the problem and come together to solve it. What’s more, if the Constitution has to be changed so that the National Public Security System is adapted to the needs of the moment, then let it be changed. Brazil wants security and it’s past time to confront the bandits. And defeat them.
