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.
<strong>The</strong>se 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. <strong>The</strong> aggressive police culture is widely Partners in Crime-Fighting <strong>The</strong> 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. <strong>The</strong> 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 <strong>Beat</strong>o, 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 <strong>Beat</strong>o directs. <strong>The</strong> 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 <strong>Beat</strong>o. “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
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