Abstract
Between 2007 and 2013, homicide rates in Recife declined by 55%. Over that period, an innovative public security policy was implemented by the Pernambuco government. The “Pact for Life” focused on the prevention and repression of violent crime. It involved enhanced resources, effective integration of investigative and ostensive policing, and the careful monitoring of crime trends and police action. A priority for Governor Eduardo Campos, it quickly lost steam when Campos left the Pernambuco government to run in the 2014 presidential election, just as the state government’s fiscal space was curtailed by the end of Brazil’s resource-led boom. The challenge to unequal deterrence that the Pact represented proved short-lived and the discriminatory logic that prevailed in the policing of local drug markets reasserted itself, with deadly consequences.
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Notes
- 1.
World Development Indicators: GDP growth http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators (accessed 2017 12 17).
- 2.
UNODC. Annual prevalence for various drugs. https://data.unodc.org/ (accessed 2017 12 07).
- 3.
Collapsing the data for crack itself and for “oxi,” a form of smokeable crystallized cocaine that some users and sellers in Brazil distinguish from crack. Levantamento Nacional De Alcool e Drogas (LENAD II), table 32: 56. http://inpad.org.br/lenad/resultados/relatorio-final/ (accessed 2017 12 07).
- 4.
The Military Police is charged with crime prevention. Its agents patrol the streets and are on call when crimes are committed. The Civilian Police investigates crimes and makes indictment recommendations to the prosecutor’s office. The two bodies, in all states, have very different corporate cultures and usually testy, when not openly conflictual relationships, competing for budgets as well as prestige (see Willis (2015) for a fine-grained ethnography of that relationship in the State of São Paulo). Both police forces are the responsibility of state governments. Municipalities have a “guard,” whose members engage in traffic management, surveillance of public facilities like parks, libraries, and schools, as well as crowd control. In many states, Municipal Guards do not even carry weapon—though Brazil’s Federal Law allows it (Lei Federal 13.002/2014), as was the case in Recife until recently (Folhape 2017, 06 07). The Guard plays no significant role in crime prevention, control or repression, nor do firefighters (Corpo de Bombeiros), which are nonetheless under the responsibility of each state’s public security secretariat.
- 5.
Expenditure data from SEPLAG, annual budget data. To calculate real increases, we have used the World Bank’s GDP deflator (World Development Indicators).
- 6.
In Brazil , when none of the candidates for president or state governor obtains a majority in first round of voting, a second round is held between the two top vote recipients. In 2006 Campos had won in the second round with 65% of the vote, but only 34% in the first, in which he in fact came second. Official results from Brazil’s Tribunal Superior Eleitoral. http://www.tse.jus.br/eleitor-e-eleicoes/estatisticas/eleicoes/eleicoes-anteriores/estatisticas-eleitorais-anos-anteriores (acc. 2017 12 13).
- 7.
Tribunal Superior Eleitoral. http://www.tse.jus.br/eleitor-e-eleicoes/estatisticas/eleicoes/eleicoes-anteriores/estatisticas-eleitorais-anos-anteriores (acc. 2017 12 13).
- 8.
“Herdeiro de Eduardo Campos, Geraldo Julio (PSB) é reeleito em Recife.” https://eleicoes.uol.com.br/2016/noticias/2016/10/30/geraldo-julio-psb-e-reeleito-prefeito-de-recife-no-segundo-turno.htm (accessed 2017 12 14).
- 9.
“Paulo Câmara destaca conquistas do Pacto pela Vida,” http://www.psb40.org.br/noticias/paulo-camara-destaca-conquistas-do-pacto-pela-vida/ (accessed 2017 12 14).
- 10.
The current budget kept increasing between 2013 and 2016, on average by 4.5% a year, but inflation over that period averaged 7.9%. Inflation data from the World Development Indicators (GDP deflator) and budget data from the Pernambuco Secretariat of Planning (SEPLAG, Orçamento).
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Daudelin, J., Ratton, J.L. (2018). Inequality and Deterrence in Recife: The Rise and Fall of the “Pact for Life”. In: Illegal Markets, Violence, and Inequality. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76249-4_4
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