“The biggest problem in Brazil today is called insecurity”, says Sanderson

Federal deputy Ubiratan Sanderson (PL-RS), president of the Chamber’s Committee on Public Security and Combating Organized Crime in 2023, stated that public security “is one of the biggest problems” in the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT ), in an exclusive interview with People’s Gazette.

“We saw, at the beginning of this current government, that it has no intention of combating organized crime, they set it up. And public security is the biggest problem in our country today, it is not health or education, the problem in Brazil today is called insecurity”, said Sanderson.

According to Sanderson, Lula’s first year was proof that his government “does not care about security” by citing a series of controversial events and statements. He recalled the visit of the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, to Complexo da Maré, cited Dino’s absence from the commission’s calls, and also criticized the fact that Justice secretaries received the “drug lady” from Amazonas, Luciane Barbosa Farias, member of the criminal faction Comando Vermelho.

“We have entered a suicidal line. The current government, with its omissions, has given muscle to organized crime in Brazil. Criminals think that they now have ‘warm backs’ with the government that is there, because no one can do anything against them anymore. And With that, they were encouraged, we had a security crisis in Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, and we had no security problem in the last four years”, said the parliamentarian.

One of the most controversial points in security, highlighted by Sanderson, was the government’s attempt to transform the release of prisoners as a public policy to solve the problem of overcrowding in prisons in Brazil.

“This is the biggest lie there is. You don’t have to empty the prison, you can’t put the population at risk, under the argument of providing comfort to a criminal who killed, committed robbery, pedophilia or other crimes. He has to stay in prison, until the State will be able to build more prisons”, he declared.

Sanderson also commented that El Salvador would be a “good example” for Brazil to follow in improving public security, as the country has managed to reduce crime to minimum levels. “In one year they built a super jail to house all the criminals. If the population has grown, new prisons have to be built. And this is a question of political will, there has to be a decent president and a courageous Congress. So, there is a way out to Brazil”, he said.

Security priorities

Among the priorities for security, the deputy from Rio Grande do Sul cited the need to “reduce the age of criminal responsibility to 16 years” and the “end of the party” which, according to him, “serves as an incentive for criminals to remain in the world of crime.”

“A law-abiding citizen has 4 weeks of vacation per year and a prisoner has ‘5 weeks of vacation.’ Serious crimes must be carried out in a completely closed regime”, he reinforced.

Regarding the reduction of the age of criminal responsibility, Sanderson defended the reduction from 18 to 16 years of age, and said that the current legislation is “outdated”, because many countries already adopt this 16-year-old system. “The number of young people who are co-opted into crime is very large, precisely because they are not attributable,” she said.

The parliamentarian also took stock of the activities of the Security Commission, which managed to approve 266 projects and 458 requests, totaling 724 deliberate proposals, during his administration in 2023. Motions to repudiate President Lula for cutting resources for public security were also approved. and also to the judge who released a criminal convicted of more than 70 years in prison.