Tarcísio bets on more police and an offensive against drug trafficking

At the beginning of this year, the government of Tarcísio de Freitas began his term with a series of challenges in the area of ​​public security: with the lowest number of personnel in the history of the military police and a deficit of more than 30% in the civil police, the state ended 2022 with a 4.7% increase in the number of homicides compared to the pre-pandemic period, according to figures from the State Secretariat for Public Security (SSP-SP). The data pointed to a person murdered every three hours in the state.

São Paulo also saw an increase in several other crimes, such as thefts and rapes, in addition to an intense wave of violence in the center of the capital, where Cracolândia is located, and on the coast of the state. The issue of lack of security, which was at the center of debates between government candidates in the last elections, is an old concern of residents of the state, which is the birthplace of the PCC, the main criminal faction linked to drug trafficking in the country.

With public safety as a priority during the electoral campaign, Tarcísio has been betting on measures to bring about rapid changes in the panorama of violence, which include the recomposition of personnel, enhancement of the security forces and integration between the police forces, in order to increase the productivity of the police. organs.

As a priority, he appointed police officers to head the Secretariat of Public Security, going against a decades-long trend in previous governments of prioritizing jurists for the position, especially members of the Public Ministry. While the captain of the PM Guilherme Derrite, who has already served in a shock battalion of the corporation, was the bet for the position of secretary, the “number 2” of the folder is the delegate Osvaldo Nico Gonçalves, founder of the first Special Operations Group ( GOE) of the Civil Police.

“With that, we have technical people again, with technical knowledge taking care of the Secretariat, which has not happened for a long time. Several of the occupants of the position in recent years were committed to agendas with a distorted concept of human rights, which does not look at the victim, only at those who committed the crime”, explains Ricardo Fernandes, specialist in public security and partner at ARP Consulting.

Tarcísio’s bet on professionals with extensive field experience, and not just theoretical knowledge of combating violence, is one of the governor’s trump cards for reducing crime figures. For the command of the police, the formula was repeated, with the choice of names with a history of extensive performance at the “end of the line”.

“There are clear signs that public security policy in São Paulo is going to change. This is still not fully perceptible in terms of indicators due to the short period of government, but the conduction here brings a very clear message in terms of combating crime”, says Fernandes.

Despite the various ongoing measures – which also include increased surveillance on streets and highways and investment in intelligence and technology mechanisms, especially to combat organized crime – the government still deals with a series of challenges.

In the first four months of the year, there was an increase in records of thefts (4.7%), vehicle thefts (5.7%) and rapes (14.7%). On the other hand, there was a reduction in crimes normally carried out by gangs linked to organized crime, such as bank robberies (-60%) and cargo thefts (-6.8%). Some police productivity indices also registered significant increases: drug seizures grew by more than 300%, while arrests increased by 17.5%.

Increased wages and recomposition of staff are the main bets of management on safety

With low wages and high risk, the police career has not been in high demand by the people of São Paulo, and the high rates of evasion led the Military Police of São Paulo to reach the smallest number of personnel in its 192 years of history – currently the corporation has 79,000 police officers and registers a deficit of around 20%. The Civil Police, on the other hand, maintains around 23,000 police officers, with an estimated deficit of 33%.

In order to solve the low attractiveness and recompose the staff, in early May the government sent to the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo (Alesp) a bill to be processed on an urgent basis to increase police salaries. The proposal was unanimously approved in the same month and guaranteed an average increase of 20.2%. All state police positions were corrected, but the biggest increases were precisely for the first steps of the careers, with the aim of increasing the attractiveness of the profession.

In parallel, the governor announced, in April, the opening of a contest for the PM with 5,600 vacancies. As for the Civil Police, the Executive has called those approved in the last competition to fill around 2,900 vacancies and should launch this year a competition for the entry of another 3,500 police officers. The promise is that the new contest will have a very accelerated procedure so that in 13 months, counting from the launch of the public notice, those approved will already be at the end of the line acting.

Tarcísio’s campaign promise, the government estimates to reach 90,000 police officers in the PM by the end of the mandate, in 2026. In the civil corporation, the estimate is to reach at least 30,000 members, which would eliminate the current deficit of the body.

The government’s expectation is that measures to stimulate the profession will have an impact on significant improvements in police productivity in the short and medium term. In the first four months of the year, other indices evolved beyond the increase in drug seizures and arrests: there was a significant increase in firearm seizures (46.1%), vehicle recovery (9.1%), investigations initiated ( 10.1%) and flagrante delicto (13%) according to SSP-SP data.

Government changed tone about cameras in police uniforms and started to encourage them

The use of cameras in police uniforms is a sensitive point in the current government’s security management. The PM of São Paulo has been using the equipment since 2020. By the end of 2022, 62 of the 135 battalions in the state had already adopted the technology. Since the election campaign, Tarcísio had taken a stand against the cameras and even promised to review the policy for using the equipment. Secretary Derrite also maintained a speech against the use of technology.

A study released last year by researchers at Stanford University, carried out in Rio de Janeiro, concluded that the use of equipment produced a “de-policing” effect, that is, it discouraged security agents from getting involved in activities such as approaching and answering calls. . According to the researchers, most police officers avoided getting involved in the cases for fear that the recording of interactions could incriminate them. As a result, there was a 46% reduction in the various types of “proactive” inspections, such as approaches and searches.

Despite this, the government changed its tone and said it would not promote changes in the deployment of equipment. Derrite even started to defend the expansion of cameras for traffic, road and environmental policing. “The concern with the cameras was more the way they were initially used, exclusively as inspection and control of the police. We are going to expand the functionalities so that it becomes a de facto tool of protection for the police, using technology and intelligence tools to do, for example, reading license plates”, said the secretary of public security to the People’s Gazette.

In the opinion of former military police officer Luiz Paulo Madalhano, who asked for the São Paulo Military Police to leave last year, the large-scale deployment of cameras must be carefully analyzed. For him, in addition to possible damage to public safety, investment in equipment, which is expensive, should not overlap with the acquisition of basic equipment for police activity, such as vests, weapons and other items. “The police today, with cameras, no longer want to act more effectively because they are being used excessively for inspection and punishment purposes”, he declares.

Tackling organized crime

In the fight against organized crime, the priority of the Tarcísio de Freitas government has been to increase investments and efforts in inspection actions and in the use of technology and intelligence resources to dismantle gangs linked mainly to drug trafficking, which are dedicated to various other crimes, such as robberies and homicides.

One of the results of this action occurred at the end of May, with the second largest seizure of drugs in the history of the Highway Police, carried out on the Raposo Tavares highway. There were 12 tons of marijuana seized. “The main form of ‘revenue’ for organized crime is drug trafficking, both internationally and for the domestic consumer market. Our main focus is to dismantle organized crime by messing with their cash”, says Derrite.

Another bet of the State Executive is the program called “Muralha Paulista”, which provides for the creation of a wide communication network with cameras in several municipalities centralized in the Integrated Command and Control Center (CICC), which operates within the State Security Secretariat. .

According to the SSP-SP, more than 400 agreements have already been signed with municipalities for the exchange of information obtained by the cameras. The idea is to connect municipalities to state security management to, through the crossing of information, contribute to elucidating crimes. “If the crime happens in Indaiatuba, and the criminal takes Santos Dumont towards Sorocaba, the Sorocaba staff will already be waiting for the criminal with the stolen car, with a load”, says Derrite.

The government is currently seeking to increase integration between the state police and focus on actions in places where crime has increased more drastically in recent years, such as the center of the capital and the coast of the state. With all the initiatives in progress, the Executive foresees an effective improvement in crime rates and in the perception of safety in two years.

“We have already started to turn the game around, with good indicators. And let’s increase the sense of public safety that the population expects so much. The work is being done. This demands recomposition of staff and investment in technology. Over the next two years at least, with the staff recomposed, I am sure that the population will feel in their skin that security will be on another level”, concludes Derrite.