The New Favela Beat - christopher reardon

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