VZCZCXRO8014
RR RUEHRG
DE RUEHBR #0056/01 0091721
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 091721Z JAN 08
FM AMEMBASSY BRASILIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0817
INFO RUEHAC/AMEMBASSY ASUNCION 6511
RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 5234
RUEHMN/AMEMBASSY MONTEVIDEO 7176
RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 0098
RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 7588
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 5671
RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO 1448
RHMCSUU/FBI WASHINGTON DC
RHEFHLC/HOMELAND SECURITY CENTER WASHINGTON DC
RUEABND/DEA HQS WASHDC
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRASILIA 000056 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR WHA, WHA/BSC, AND INL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/07/2018 
TAGS: KCRM KJUS PGOV BR
SUBJECT: BRAZIL: LESS GUNS, MORE BUTTER: LULA TAKES ON 
CRIME (PART 2 OF 3) 
 
REF: A. A. BRASILIA 000035 
     ¶B. B. BRASILIA 000761 
     ¶C. C. SAO PAULO 000873 
     ¶D. D. RECIFE 000087 
 
Classified By: DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION PHIL CHICOLA FOR REASONS 1.4 B A 
ND D 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: As part of the Lula government's plan to take 
on the crime issue, the government proposed a multi-pronged 
plan to address both the social causes of crime and the 
weakness of the law enforcement community to fight it. 
Lula's proposal, the National Program on Public Security with 
Citizenship (PRONASCI) seeks in the first instance to address 
the social roots of Brazil's crime problem (Ref A).  But it 
also attempts to tackle the most often heard complaints about 
Brazil's fractious state-level law enforcement structure: its 
corrupt nature, its use of excessive violence, and its 
appalling inefficiency in solving criminal cases.   The 
program focuses on improving the various state police forces 
through education and technical training, a focus that, 
although necessary, will only bear fruit over the long-term 
and promises little relief to a Brazilian populace 
increasingly fed up with the ineffectual actions of all 
levels of government.  In addition, the program punts on the 
problem of overcrowded prisons teeming with criminal gangs 
that control narcotrafficking networks in the 
cities--proposing to build less than half the number of 
prisons necessary to meet current demand--and ignores the 
judicial sector altogether.  Observers agree that, while the 
law enforcement measures in PRONASCI were necessary and 
long-overdue, the program avoided making hard choices with 
regard to law enforcement and, as a result, fails as a 
meaningful response to the public security crisis. 
 
¶2. (U) This cable is one in a series by Mission Brazil on 
crime issues at both the national and regional levels 
(reftels).  Septel will address the potential role of the 
military in solving Brazil,s growing public security 
concerns. 
 
----------------------------------------- 
The Police as Part of the Problem 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) A consistent theme echoed by government officials, 
public security analysts, and the media is the poor and 
varying quality of the state police forces.  Collectively, 
Brazilian police forces are among the least effective in the 
world.  Although no official public statistics are available, 
"Veja" reported in October 2005 that Brazilian police forces 
solve only 3% of the more than 40,000 yearly homicide cases. 
Figures from this year's Annual Survey of the Brazilian Forum 
on Public Security show that Military Police forces in many 
states have an inadequate educational background.  In some of 
the largest states such as Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and 
Pernambuco, 70%, 41%, and 33% of the Military Police forces 
of those states, respectively, lack a high school degree.  In 
the best states, Parana and Sergipe, the figures are 13% and 
16%, respectively.  Balestreri, told poloff that 
fragmentation of the public security system--27 military 
police forces and 27 civil police forces, not including 
municipal guards--with their vastly differing capabilities, 
makes the task of improving public security at the national 
level even more complicated.  Some state police academies 
suffer from poor curricula, have barely functioning crime 
labs, and offer very little by way of technical training. 
(Note: In Brazil, law enforcement functions at the state 
level are conducted by two separate corps of police forces. 
The military police is the regular uniformed police and the 
civil police conducts investigations.  End note.) 
 
¶4. (C) A central focus of the Lula government in crafting 
PRONASCI was the need to improve the police forces of the 
states--to make them more efficient, less prone to using 
excessive force, and make them more accountable to the 
people.  Director of Research for the Ministry of Justice's 
National Secretariat for Public Security (SENASP) Ricardo 
Balestreri told poloff that with PRONASCI the government 
 
BRASILIA 00000056  002 OF 003 
 
 
wants to send the message that previous approaches focused 
solely on increasing the numbers and firepower of the police 
were wrong-headed.  In the GOB,s view, Brazil already has 
enough policemen (490 per 100,000 people, according to the 
Annual Survey of the Brazilian Forum for Public Security 
compared to approximately 285 per 100,000 in the United 
States using 2004 figures) and its police forces kill enough 
presumed criminals--in Rio de Janeiro alone, according to 
official state figures, police operations led to the deaths 
of 870 people through the first nine months of 2007. 
Balestreri said that there has been no impact on crime rates 
to show for these deaths, proving that purely repressive 
policies do not work.  The missing variables in the public 
security debate, he said, have been the social context and 
the effectiveness of the police.  With regard to the latter, 
Balestreri said the government is putting its bets on 
enhancing the skills of police officers and changing their 
mentality. 
 
------------------ 
Back to School 
------------------ 
 
¶5. (U) Through PRONASCI, the Federal Government is stepping 
into the breach by strengthening the National Network of 
Advanced Studies in Public Security (RENAESP) through which 
the Public Security Secretariat is partnering with 
universities in creating graduate programs for public 
security professionals.  RENAESP is available to military and 
civil police, fire fighters, and municipal guards as a 
graduate degree in public security with coursework on human 
rights, ethics, sociology, investigative techniques, use of 
statistics, evidence gathering, toxicology, DNA, ballistics, 
intelligence, conflict mediation, and forensic science. 
Currently offered in 22 universities in fifteen states plus 
the federal district, with 1600 students, PRONASCI will 
expand RENAESP to 80 universities by the end of 2008. 
PRONASCI also calls for establishment of 140 distance 
learning centers within police facilities, on top of the 60 
already in existence, for officers to undertake courses in 
substantive subject matter such as trafficking in persons and 
money laundering. 
 
¶6. (U) PRONASCI also creates a "Bolsa Formacao" to address 
the poor salaries of police officers, and particularly the 
disparity in salaries between the states, by providing 400 
reais (about USD 230) for police officers with salaries of up 
to 1,400 reais (about USD 800) per month.  In exchange, the 
officer must participate every twelve months in courses 
approved by RENAESP.  According to Balestreri, in 4 to 5 
years with the training through PRONASCI's programs, "we will 
have critical mass that will change fundamentally the way the 
police works." 
 
¶7. (U) Another program created under PRONASCI will give 
housing assistance to more than 60,000 state military and 
civil police officers that live in high-crime areas in order 
to encourage and disseminate the concept of community 
policing throughout Brazil. 
 
----------------------------------------- 
Prison Building Ramp-Up Still Not Enough 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (U) PRONASCI will provide funding for the construction and 
improvement of 187 prisons for 33,400 men and 4, 400 women, a 
quantity far too small to effectively deal with the severe 
overcrowding problem in Brazilian prisons.   According to the 
Forum's Annual Survey, official government data show that in 
2006 there were more 100 thousand more inmates than spaces 
for them in Brazilian prisons--a figure most public security 
analysts dispute as far too low.  Sociologist Julita 
Lemgruber, for example, recently wrote that anybody who had 
visited a Brazilian prison would quickly realize that the 
officially reported rate of 1.4 prisoners per each available 
space is completely unreliable and that the figure is almost 
certainly higher (Human Rights Watch put the number at 1.7 in 
its 2006 report). 
 
 
BRASILIA 00000056  003 OF 003 
 
 
------------------------ 
Avoiding Tough Issues 
------------------------ 
 
¶9. (C) For some observers, the Lula government lacked 
ambition in crafting its plan.  For starters PRONASCI does 
little to improve the reliability of crime statistics, which 
many observers believe understate the severity of Brazil's 
crime problem.  Alexandre Sankiewicz, Legislative Consultant 
on Criminal Justice issues for the Brazilian Chamber of 
Deputies, told poloff that neither national nor state-level 
data is trustworthy, as governors manipulate crime statistics 
and police precincts do not register all events.  Supporting 
Sankiewicz's point, according to this year's Annual Survey of 
the Brazilian Forum for Public Security, state governments 
reported 40,975 murders, while the Ministry of Health 
reported 47,578, some 15 percent more.  Fixing this reporting 
problem would not only help in strategic planning, but would 
take away control over information from state governors. 
 
¶10. (C) Federal Deputy, William Woo (PSDB, Social Democracy 
Party, opposition; of Sao Paulo), and a career Civil Police 
officer, told poloff that PRONASCI fails to deal adequately 
with police corruption.  Conditions for police officers in 
Brazil--low pay, little to no money for training or 
maintenance of vehicles, high-risk of getting killed--are 
such that it is almost impossible not to be corrupt. 
PRONASCI, however, deals with the problem only by providing 
financial incentives for police officers to tempt them away 
from corrupt practices.  It provides few resources to 
actively combat police corruption.  As a result, Woo sees 
PRONASCI as less a public security plan than a social welfare 
program with a few public security programs thrown in. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Another problem PRONASCI fails to address is 
weaknesses in the judicial branch, and the impunity such 
inefficiency breeds.   The initial judicial process on 
homicide cases take on average 10-12 years to be concluded, 
according to various news sources.  Furthermore, Brazil lacks 
a sufficient number of judges (5.3 per 100,000, about half 
the rate in the US) and its procedural code is unwieldy and 
in need of streamlining, in Sankiewicz,s view. 
 
-------- 
Comment 
-------- 
 
¶12. (C) While PRONASCI contains thoughtful initiatives to 
bolster law enforcement that merit support and may well 
achieve a measure success--including the educational and 
training programs included within RENAESP--PRONASCI appears 
to be another missed opportunity for a government that has 
often proved timid on matters of domestic reform.  Rather 
than presenting a truly comprehensive solution to what 
everyone agrees is a calamitous problem, the government has 
instead nibbled at its edges with an approach that seems 
designed to cater to its leftist base--from educational 
programs to cash-handouts to social projects.  The net result 
is a plan that allows the government to say it has taken 
action, while avoiding many of the tough issues and keeping 
primary responsibility for providing public security at the 
state level.  PRONASCI succeeds primarily in legitimizing 
both the argument that there are socio-cultural aspects to 
reducing crime that have long-been neglected and, the growing 
acceptance of an expanded role for the federal government in 
improving public security.  These were hurdles that needed 
jumping in order to tackle the problem in a long-term 
fashion.  But in concrete policy terms PRONASCI fails in its 
principal goal--to offer hope to a populace hungry for 
results that a more effective police force might succeed in 
reducing crime in the near future. 
 
SOBEL