The New Favela Beat - christopher reardon

THE NEW GLOBAL CITY
The New Favela Beat
Crime has dropped dramatically in
some of the most notorious favelas
in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte,
thanks to new policing techniques—
and an unusual collaboration with
young hip-hop artists. BY CHRISTOPHER REARDON
PHOTOGRAPHS BY IERÊ FERREIRA
Belo Horizonte, Brazil—Standing on a street corner in Pedreira Prado
Lopes, one of this southeastern city’s roughest favelas, or slums, Lt. Col.
Luciene Magalhães finds herself surrounded by smiling young faces.
Even after 24 years on the police force, Magalhães describes the warm
reception as a recent phenomenon. She attributes it to new policing
strategies that have sharply cut the neighborhood homicide rate and
begun to heal rifts between favelados and the police—two of Brazil’s
least loved groups.
“In the old police culture, we didn’t keep officers in the favelas,” she
says, wearing a crisp khaki uniform, her long brown hair pulled back in
a bun. “They would just go there, look around and leave.” Today, she
notes, “officers have a better appreciation of the community that lives
inside the favelas, and the children in the favelas can see that we’re
human beings.”
Magalhães and her colleague, Lt. Col. Josué Soares—two of six military
police commanders here in Brazil’s third largest city—have drawn
national attention in recent months for introducing experimental policing
techniques in their 700-officer units, the 22nd and 34th battalions.
Some of these techniques are modeled on the methods that have cut
crime so dramatically in New York City in the last decade: Compstat
crime-mapping software and the shoe leather of community policing.
But this highland metropolis has added a Brazilian twist by enlisting
AfroReggae, a popular hip-hop ensemble from a notorious Rio favela,
to conduct artist workshops with rank-and-file officers.
Christopher Reardon has written for The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other
major publications.

At the invitation of Belo
Horizonte’s 34th police
battalion, a D.J. from
the rap group NUC participated
in a weeklong
workshop designed to
break down barriers
between police and
slum-dwelling youth.

These innovations, supported by the Ford Foundation, are
reaping rewards among the 2.3 million residents of Belo Horizonte,
the capital of Minas Gerais state. For more than two decades, this
state has pioneered new approaches to law enforcement.
Such reforms are rare in Brazil, where the military police
(who patrol the nation’s streets) and the civil police (who investigate
crimes) maintain a pattern of repressive tactics and human
rights abuses. In April, eight rogue officers in Rio de Janeiro
were charged with murdering 30 favela residents in a shooting
spree earlier this year. The aggressive police culture is widely
Partners in Crime-Fighting
The Ford Foundation’s support for police reform in Brazil
reflects a commitment to strengthening that nation’s
criminal justice system, a pillar of any democratic society.
The AfroReggae Cultural Group, the Center for Studies on
Public Security and Citizenship and the Center for Crime
and Public Safety Studies advance this effort by showing
that civil society can play an important role in helping
police institutions become more responsive, effective
and accountable to the public.
viewed as a legacy of the dictatorship that ruled until the early
1980’s, when the nation began a transition to democracy. Some
critics trace the problems further back.
“If you look back to the 19th century, the police were created
in Brazil to protect slaveowners, not slaves,” notes Claudio
Beato, a policing expert at the Federal University of Minas
Gerais.“In practical terms, their function was to fight poor people
and protect rich people.” Some of the city’s policing reforms
originated at the university’s Center for Crime and Public Safety
Studies, a research institute that Beato directs. The center (known
by its Portuguese acronym, CRISP) has a staff of 36, with expertise
in such fields as demography, spatial analysis, statistics, computer
science, economics and sociology.
“One of the problems in Brazil is the absence of good information
about crime and violence,” says Beato. “At CRISP, we’re
working to help the military police take a more sophisticated
approach. It’s easier to respond to crimes, and prevent them,
when you know exactly where they tend to occur.”
In the last six years, hundreds of officers have taken courses
at the university in human rights, statistics, administration and
related fields. Meanwhile, CRISP has helped military police set
up a crime-mapping and analysis program, using computers
Silvia Ramos, area
coordinator at Brazil’s
Center for Studies on
Public Security and
Citizenship (fourth from
left), and members of
the AfroReggae Cultural
Group, with officers
from Belo Horizonte’s
22nd battalion after
a workshop.
20 Ford Foundation Report Spring/Summer 2005

Police officers and graffiti artists
took a walk in each others’ shoes
during a workshop created by
AfroReggae and Belo Horizonte
police department reformers.
to plot the incidence of crime block by
block, month by month. When the system
was applied in Pedreira Prado Lopes,
Beato says, the homicide rate among its
10,000 residents plummeted from the
staggeringly high figure of 56 in the first
nine months of last year.
Data and aerial photographs showed
that many shootings had taken place at
the same intersection where Magalhães
recently got friendly greetings. Police
replaced an adjacent fence and trimmed
nearby trees that had provided cover for
assailants. A specially trained unit then
arrested the most dangerous gang leaders
and brokered a truce between their
successors. In the three months that followed,
only two homicides occurred there.
In 2002, CRISP also had a hand in
launching a successful homicide-reduction
program, Fica Vivo! (Stay Alive!), in
another favela with a high crime rate. A
public-private partnership that originated
in Soares’ battalion, this program was
modeled in part on a highly successful cease-fire program brokered
by clergy in Boston, Mass., seven years earlier. It has since
expanded to 21 regions in Minas Gerais. Youth centers are a
key feature, offering constructive alternatives to gang culture.
The reforms hardly guarantee success, however. Crack cocaine
is fueling a violent crime wave; citywide, homicides rose 9.8
percent last year. But in neighborhoods patrolled by the battalions
that embrace the new
strategies most ardently,
Soares says, homicides fell 25
percent last year.
Belo Horizonte sits on a
high plain with striking alpine
views. But despite its name,
which means “beautiful horizon,”
the city is a patchwork
of privilege and poverty. Leafy
streets lined with gated compounds
adjoin makeshift
communities where slum
dwellers tap into municipal
water and electrical supplies.
At least 25 percent of the population lives in nearly 100 favelas,
spreading steadily up the slopes of the Corral Mountains.
Some are havens for heavily armed gangs controlling the
drug trade, which has underpinned violent crime over the last
two decades. From 1986 to 2004, for every 100,000 city residents,
armed robberies soared from 97.3 to 422 and homicides
climbed from 8.4 to 44.8.
Yet these incidents are highly localized. The vast majority of
The 23-year police veteran figured he’d
mastered the tools of his trade: a twoway
radio, handcuffs and a 9-millimeter
service pistol. He never imagined that
one day he’d add a bass drum or a can
of spray paint.
homicides occur within favelas, and most robberies take place
a block or two outside. Moreover, a recent study found that 20
percent of violent crime takes place in just six favelas. “People
talk about an explosion of violence,” says Beato. “Really it’s an
implosion. It’s very focused in a few poor neighborhoods.”
Officials like Magalhães and Soares are helping to make the
police more responsive to crime data, more intent on preventing
crimes and more accountable to the public—particularly
to favelados. Two years ago, Soares introduced special units
devoted to high-risk areas in the 22nd battalion. Now such units
have spread to the 34th battalion and beyond.
Soares, a plainspoken man wearing a black beret, says, “Not
long ago, a lot of officers believed we had to use force to stop
criminality. Our mentality has changed in the way we approach
favelados.” The 23-year police veteran figured he’d mastered
Ford Foundation Report Spring/Summer 2005 21

Police officers from
the 34th battalion’s
percussion group have
added drums to their
crime-stopping arsenal.
the tools of his trade: a two-way radio, handcuffs and a 9-millimeter
service pistol. He never imagined that one day he’d add
a bass drum or a can of spray paint.
Then last year, local officials got wind of an idea from Rio:
AfroReggae, a hip-hop group from Vigário Geral (a favela so
notorious it’s known simply as V.G.), proposed a series of artist
residencies to ease tensions between young people and the
police. The project failed to gain traction in Rio, but the Secretariat
of Social Defense in Minas Gerais state offered to bring
it to Belo Horizonte.
The 22nd and 34th battalions enlisted
AfroReggae to lead four weeklong
encounters designed to dispel stereotypes
that divide police and favelados. Band
members trained officers in drumming,
dancing, graffiti, video and circus arts. At
two concerts, slum residents mingled with
hundreds of officers and their families.
The workshops build on the “peace artists”programs of recent
years, in which hundreds of officers coach soccer or give music
lessons in the favelas. They seek to drive a wedge between criminal
gangs and the law-abiding majority.
Beato calls the AfroReggae workshops “one of the most interesting
processes of police reform in Latin America.”They help, he
adds, by “changing the misperceptions that keep police officers
and young people from the slums locked in a tense relationship.”
The band formed in 1993 after police gunned down 21
bystanders in Vigário Geral. Coming just weeks after police
killed eight street children sleeping on the steps of a historic
church, the incident made headlines worldwide. It inspired José
Júnior, a young D.J. who made ends meet by driving a taxi, to
‘The sound you heard before was
the sound of guns. Now what you
hear is music.’
join friends in launching AfroReggae, a loose ensemble of percussionists,
guitarists, turntablists and vocalists who write
bouncy, popular songs about hope and survival.
“We wanted to take V.G. out of the headlines about violence
and put it in the culture section of the newspaper,” says Júnior.
22 Ford Foundation Report Spring/Summer 2005

Toni Garrido, a Brazilian
pop star, left, joined
AfroReggae’s Luiz
Gustavo in a concert
at Belo Horizonte’s
34th police battalion.
“The sound you heard before was the sound of guns. Now what
you hear is music.”
More than a band, the AfroReggae Cultural Group is a registered
nongovernmental organization that runs youth centers
in V.G. and another favela near the sands of Ipanema. Hundreds
of adolescents spend afternoons making music and practicing
circus tricks, and some start their own ensembles.
Paulo Neguéba, a percussionist who led the police workshops
in Belo Horizonte, is living proof that the band takes its message
to heart. Driving through V.G. two years ago, he was caught
in the crossfire of a police operation gone awry. He took four
bullets in his legs and back, two other bystanders were injured
and a third was killed in the assault, which resulted in the firing
of the police commander.
“At first I felt angry, like anyone would,” recalls Neguéba, who
underwent three operations and months of physical therapy.
“But now I have a broader perspective. I cannot combat evil
with more evil.”
The AfroReggae workshops yielded striking scenes of Belo
Horizonte’s police creating music and art with rappers from
Rio’s most notorious favela. These new experiences changed
the way police and youth see one another, how they see themselves
and how they are seen by the larger society, says Silvia
Ramos of the Center for Studies on Public Security and Citizenship.
The center, based at Candido Mendes University in Rio,
helped administer and document the workshops.
“I’m always looking for tools that can change police behavior
and attitudes,”says Ramos, who holds a doctorate in psychology.
“I used to give them classes and lectures about respecting
the human rights of the poor population, but that language
wasn’t working. It created resistance and defensiveness. This
project is much more powerful. It reaches them, not just through
their minds, but in their hearts and in their bodies.”
The workshops made headlines nationwide and soon will
reach a wider audience through a photographic exhibit, a book
and a television documentary. Moreover, there are plans to expand
the program to all six battalions in Belo Horizonte this year, with
additional support from the state government. This time,AfroReggae
will be joined by local dance and drumming groups.
As Lt. Cláudio Alves da Silva, a tactical officer in the 22nd
battalion, observes, “Before we started these social programs,
people in the favelas saw us as a major enemy. They would shoot
down into the battalion from the hillside.” He adds,“Now when
we enter the favelas we get a good reaction.”
Ford Foundation Report Spring/Summer 2005 23