As STF, Brizola banned operations in favelas in Rio 40 years ago

The decision by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) to prevent the police from carrying out operations to combat organized crime in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas (except in exceptional situations) has a historical precedent. The then governor Leonel Brizola (1922-2004) did the same in 1983 and the result was disastrous: it allowed the Red Command to become one of the largest criminal factions in the country.

During the campaign for the State government, in 1982, Brizola set the tone for what his Public Security policy would be: “My police will never open the doors of shacks”, he said at the time. The governor’s main argument was violence by police officers during operations in Baixada Fluminense.

Furthermore, Brizola shared the idea that Education was more efficient than public security in preventing crime. During his first term (1983-1986), he inaugurated the Integrated Public Education Centers (Cieps), the Brizolões, to promote education within needy communities. He thought this would be enough to contain crime.

But the governor’s intentions ended up not meeting reality. Because they were buildings constructed in remote regions of the favelas, the equipment ended up serving as bases for drug trafficking and was abandoned by subsequent administrations.

The balance of the reduction in police presence generated the opposite of what was intended: the strengthening of criminal organizations. At the time, the Red Command was growing in Rio de Janeiro and was consolidating itself as a replacement for the first faction in the State, the Falange Vermelha.

According to Military Police Colonel Paulo César Amêndola, creator of the project that created the Rio de Janeiro Special Operations Battalion (Bope), the ban on operations in communities “gave carte blanche” so that crime could grow in Rio.

“I was active when this happened. When you make this type of decision, it’s the same as giving carte blanche for crime to continue. He (Brizola) prevented the police from fulfilling the police’s role of arresting criminals, of seize weapons, drugs, etc. The numbers (of violence at the time) don’t lie”, said the retired military officer.

He added: “To the extent that there is a political decision preventing the police from carrying out what the law requires them to do, we can understand that the State government is leaving room for the marginalized to increase their degree of boldness and carry out their criminal missions as if there were government approval”.

Homicides soared in the State of Rio in the 80s and 90s

According to data from the Ministry of Justice and Health found in the Violence Map, after the curbing of police operations in favelas, the State of Rio saw the homicide rate go from 15.9 victims per 100 thousand inhabitants in 1983 to 20. 2 in 1986, Brizola’s last year as governor.

For the anthropologist and former BOPE captain, Paulo Storani, author of the book “Vá e Vança” (Ed. Best Seller, 2018), the ban is the result of a distorted view of political agents who were persecuted by the military regime, a time in which that the police were subordinate to the Army. He says that the image of the Military Police ended up distorted.

“Because it was used in repression, during the military regime, and because of the way it operated in operations in favelas, similar to the actions that still permeated the imagination of the amnestied, the PM was labeled as an institution of the forces of political repression, now reachable by new power holders”, says Storani.

Brizola’s successor, Governor Wellington Moreira Franco, resumed police operations in the hills. Upon assuming government in 1987, Franco inherited a rate of 30.9 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants and promised that he would end the violence within six months.

“We will confront organized crime groups, whatever the cost and whoever it hurts, because I am intransigent”, said the then Chief Executive. However, the promise did not materialize and the number of homicides continued to rise. At the end of his mandate, in 1991, the State of Rio recorded a rate of 56.1 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.

According to Storani, the police led by Moreira Franco found organized crime more equipped to confront state security forces.

“With the speech of radical change in strategies related to police actions, promising to solve the problem of violence in six months, Moreira Franco began the return of the policy to the old ‘foot in the door’ method, characterized by police brutality. But the police, with the same structures, procedures and personnel as in the period prior to the Brizola government, encountered more organized and better armed crime”, added the former BOPE.

Brizola returned to power in 1991 and the homicide rate suffered a significant reduction, reaching 39.1 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. With the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, Rio-92, the Army and other security forces were called in to guarantee the safety of the event. The mobilization that year allowed a slight drop in the homicide rate, which reached a rate of 35 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. But in 1993, the number rose to 41 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

“The resurgence of armed clashes in the mid-1980s, between the police and criminal groups, led to the death of many police officers due to the lack of technical preparation, the new type of confrontation and inferior weapons in terms of autonomy and range, in compared to criminals. This military inferiority was only balanced with the loan of 7.62mm caliber rifles by the Brazilian Army, in the mid-1990s”, Storani pointed out.

STF ban began during the pandemic and is still in force today

Filed by the Brazilian Socialist Party and left-wing entities in the STF, in 2020, the Action for Noncompliance with Fundamental Precept 635 suspended police operations in favelas in Rio de Janeiro during the covid-19 pandemic, except in emergency situations and with prior notice from the Public ministry. Although the pandemic has already ended, the suspension remains in effect and the Supreme Court decided that the State government must follow a plan to reduce deaths in police operations.

Since then, violence in Rio has reduced, but the consequences of restricting the presence of police in the hills are once again appearing in the numbers. According to data from the Public Security Institute (ISP), from 2019 to 2022, Rio saw the number of homicides fall from 4,004 to 3,059, a drop of almost 24%. However, the first half of 2023 has already recorded 1,941 deaths, an increase of almost 9% compared to the same period last year (1,782).

In the opinion of Alessandro Visacro, military affairs analyst and author of the book “War in the information age” (Ed. Contexto, 2018), Brizola and the STF’s decisions have a major impact on public security in the long term.

“The big lesson is this: whenever you restrict police operations, you have a medium and long-term negative effect. When we see the restrictions imposed by ADPF 635, it is clear that they did not learn from what happened in the 1980s. The humanitarian guise given to this action serves demagoguery very well. But the concrete effect became negative.”

For Storani, the ADPF reached the police’s ability to respond promptly to the violence that occurred in Rio de Janeiro.

“Restrictions have been created for the use of the police force and crime is very volatile. The big issue for the police is the prompt response, the ability to respond promptly to events, preventing events and acting so quickly that other events similar events do not occur – due to the speed of the response. ADPF 635 generated this lack of response”, he said.

Brizola favored the expansion of favelas

Rio de Janeiro’s favelas emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, but their expansion in the 1980s took on new contours due to Brizola’s land policy. During his first government, he established the Land Affairs Commission, within the Secretariat of Justice, and ordered the Military Police not to provide coverage for eviction actions or repossession of communities without first consulting the commission.

The measure is seen as one of the main factors for the growth of Rio’s favelas. Without supervision from public authorities, the invasions continued to grow and take over spaces on uninhabited hills.

“There was a great expansion of favelas in Rio de Janeiro at that time, mainly in Environmental Protection areas. The police were instructed not to climb the hills and this certainly contributed to new land being taken over”, recalled Paulo Storani.

Brizola also abolished the Security Secretariat

Just as was done by former governor Wilson Witzel, in 2019, Brizola also abolished the State Security Secretariat and elevated police commands to secretariat status. Thus, in 1983, the secretariats of the Judiciary Police and Civil Rights and the Military Police were created.

According to an investigation by Jornal do Brasil, at the time, the measure caught political allies and opponents by surprise. The expectation was greater integration between the police, but the governor decided to do the opposite. Brizola justified the decision by claiming that the same had been done by then French president François Mitterrand – the first socialist president elected in France.

Asked about who would be in charge of the police, Brizola limited himself to saying that legislation would play this role. “The law, supported by the legitimacy of the Government. We are impressed with the current situation. The institutions do not work. It cannot continue like this”, said the governor when announcing his secretariat to the press.

Despite the declaration, the command was directed to a “special advisor” subordinate to the governor. In practice, Brizola took effective command of the two police forces as a way of circumventing Army interference. According to a decree at the time, state security secretaries should have their names approved by the then Army minister.

The portfolio was recreated only 12 years later, under governor Marcello Alencar (1925-2014). In 2019, Witzel ended the portfolio under pressure from police leaders, who offered their political support to the governor in exchange for the end of the Security Secretariat. They wanted to have more free access to political positions and appointments.

But the action was disastrous as it dismantled the entire security policy that had been created a year earlier in a federal intervention. The police left integration aside and abolished the independent internal affairs department, giving space to the expansion of corruption.