The New Favela Beat - christopher reardon

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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
Page 1 and 2: THE NEW GLOBAL CITY The New Favela
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