(Script of the
presentation at the International Harm Reduction Conference, held at
Vilnius, Lithuania, June, 09-13, 2013)
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Introduction
First of all I woud like to thank the
organizers for having invited me to this important meeting, and to congratulate
them and the sponsors for their commitment to the cause of harm reduction; and for
their effort to make it clear to the world that drug use is not a criminal
issue, and that problematic or unsafe use of drugs is primarily a health
matter. Then, if we take this fact for granted, we are left with the conclusion
that the problem should be approached with prevention and harm reduction
strategies, not with repression, as is the case in many parts of the
world.
In Brazilian society, drug use is still seen with moral
prejudice, mainly on the part of law enforcement professionals. I myself, some
10 or 15 years ago, had a different view, certainly due to ignorance of what
harm reduction really is.
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From repression to prevention
I start my presentation by its title:
"Mitigating the negative effects of repressive strategies: the Pacifying Police
Units (UPP) in Rio de Janeiro". It means that my concern, as a retired military
police officer, someone who worked for many years with the repressive ideology
in mind, has to do with the tragic consequences of the militarized approach
adopted by the police for decades in Rio; an approach that responds for hundreds
of deaths of traffickers, of suspects of being traffickers, of police officers
and inocent people, mainly from the so called favelas.
My focus is on an important law
enforcement experience that has been in force in Rio de Janeiro since 2008,
called Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora - UPP (Pacifying Police Units). These units were conceived to replace the
militaristic tactics employed by the police in dealing with the drug issue, when
they did not distinguish traffickers from users, nor law abiding citizens of
the favelas from criminals; when
people were classified as suspects or not depending on their profile. Those
tactics, based on military raids, resulted in frequent shootouts in the favelas, victimizing their residents with
stray bullets.
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The social context. Rio de Janeiro and
the favelas
Rio de Janeiro (6,5 million people) is the capital of
the State of Rio de Janeiro (16 million).
In spite of the homogeneous way the city is commonly portrayed, with its
world famous landmarks (Sugarloaf Mountain, Christ the Redeemer statue, and its
internationally known Copacabana and Ipanema beaches), it experiences high
levels of social fragmentation. And it could not be otherwise. The city was the
heart of a slave regime that lasted for more than three centuries, until 1888,
when slavery was finally abolished. One year later, 1889, now as capital of the
Republic that was then proclaimed, the city inherited the problems of such a hierarchical
society. So, it is reasonable to conclude that Rio is a city necessarily marked
by these facts.
Favela is a term associated to shanty towns and slums in
Brazil. The first favela dates from
the beginning of the Republic, called Morro da Favela, initially formed by ex
slaves and other homeless people. At the time, the site was seen as a remote
place, relatively far from the city center. For decades, the political attitude
towards their increase was to ignore them. As the city expanded, however, and
as most of them were located up on the hills, close to wealthy neighborhoods, a
number of plans were conceived to remove their residents to distant places, but
these plans never worked as imagined. The favelas
and their residents, then in a greater number (today they count more than 600,
being home to around 1/4th of the city´s population), (they) continued
to be regarded as a problem to be forcefully eradicated. To a certain degree,
this inveterate social and geographical segregation accounts for the lack of
infrastructure, sanitation, education etc., as well as for the lack of
prospects for most of the youth, who have increasingly been attracted by the
local drug trade.
·
The Pacification Process
In reality, the pacification process is much more than
a mere law enforcement strategy. It represents a change in government's
attitude (and also in the attitude of the elite). Now, the favelas are no longer seen as undesirable appendages, and begin to
be accepted as organic neighborhoods of the city. With the establishment of these
permanent units, the police are supposed to be there to protect the residents,
not to oppress them.
As defined by the government, the Pacification approach
"promotes closer relations between the
people and the Police, coupled with the strengthening of social policies within
the communities". But what a UPP really is? It consists of a contingent
of military police officers, varying in number, established in a favela once dominated by drug gangs. Its
implementation is preceded by the announced occupation of the community
(announced to avoid conflicts with the gangs), with the deployment of the Special
Operations Police Battalion, the well known BOPE, in order to recover the
territory from the drug gangs. After the occupation, which may last for some
weeks or months, the permanent unit (UPP) is installed. Up to now, 33 UPPs have
been inaugurated, out of 40 that they plan to install by the end of 2014.
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Points to be stressed:
- The project is strongly supported by the mass media;
- With the help of Viva Rio, an important NGO in Brazil, alternative educational programs have been developed in
the communities for the recovering of drug addicts and guiding young people,
with the participation of UPP police officers;
- The Program has had the approval of the majority of the population, as
revealed in several opinion polls;
- Criminality in communities with UPP has dropped, as registered by the Institute
of Public Security, a government institute that monitors public security and
violence in Rio;
- In the words of the residents, life in the favelas with UPP has changed for the better;
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Prospects and challenges
Prospects are that the program be consolidated and may produce benefits for the whole population,
which is not an easy task, as we are speaking of more than 600 favelas only in the city, many of them
still under control of drug gangs. In addition to that, it must not be
forgotten that we are speaking of a state police, and that there are many favelas in different cities of the
Metropolitan Area and in other cities of the state.
The UPP program, up to now in force only in the city,
has been blamed for pushing the gangs to peripheral favelas in the city, or to other cities of the state.
One point that has not received much attention, not
even by the press, relates to the fact that the pacifying project as a whole was
meant to be "coupled with the
strengthening of social policies within the communities", which implied that
heavy investments in infrastructure, sanitation, education, etc. would be made.
Residents have complained that the investments have not been made as promised.
Finally, it must be recognized that, to a certain extent,
the pacification program has been a successful experience. As already
mentioned, the police have received a different mandate to work in the favelas with UPP, a mandate based on the
concept of community policing / police of proximity, and they are trying to
work in accordance with it. Hopes are that the same mandate is extended to all
the favelas and poor communities; or
better, to all the city and state communities, poor or rich, considering that
we are speaking, again, of a state police (there are no local police forces in
Brazil). However, in a society historically marked by authoritarianism and
social discrimination, this is not a decision that can be taken and put into effect
at the discretion of the police. It depends on the government´s policy on how
to structure the police services and on the way their human and material
resources are distributed.
In sum: the UPP program has proved to be a possibility
of change. But it is far from being a panacea.
Thank you.
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