Significance: Ahead of these major international competitions, much remains to be done in the field of public security in Brazil, one of two key areas—along with a creaking transport infrastructure—that could undermine the success of the events and, as a consequence, the perception of the country as an emerging world power.

Implications: The challenge of improving public security now falls to newly inaugurated president Dilma Rousseff, who took office on 1 January on a ticket that included the expansion of security initiatives launched under outgoing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. These will bring domestic political consequences for Rousseff, as public perceptions of violence frequently do not reflect the reality on the ground.

Outlook: Public security will be a major priority for the Rousseff administration in the run-up to the sporting events in 2014 and 2016, and efforts to improve social inclusion are likely to lead to further reductions in overall levels of violent crime; murder rates are likely to remain high by global standards, though, with sporadic instances of high-profile attacks in tourist districts likely to provoke consternation among event organisers and observers.

A Daunting Security Landscape

Brazil's new president faces tough challenges in the field of public security, which continues to reflect the country's social inequalities and remains a question of extremes: while some of the most violent cities in Latin America are indeed in Brazil, the country's two leading metropolises of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are, perhaps counter-intuitively, two of its safer urban areas, although they have higher absolute murder totals because of their greater populations. The raw statistics rank Brazil in the middle of Latin American countries in terms of violent deaths. Its overall murder rate in 2009 of 22 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Ministry of Justice, is just under three times the global average, and significantly below the most violent countries in the hemisphere such as Venezuela (60 per 100,000 in 2010), Honduras, Jamaica, and Guatemala. Moreover, the Brazilian government claims that overall murders have fallen by 11% between 2003 and 2009, albeit with a blip in 2009, a trend of decreasing violence that is commonly observed in developing countries as people are lifted out of poverty.

This average masks significant regional disparities that will be of concern to authorities staging public events; many cities in the poorer north-eastern states, such as Recife and Maceió, have rates running in the range of 60 to 100 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Ministry of Health, making them among the most violent in the world. By contrast, Rio de Janeiro, where the Olympic Games will take place, saw 2008 murder rates at around the national average, and São Paulo was below average at around 16 per 100,000. While in crude terms this demonstrates a north-south divide, the phenomenon is not consistent as the southern city of Curitiba also had high murder rates in 2008 in the region of 43 per 100,000.

Moreover, in common with other Latin American countries suffering a high level of penetration by organised crime, a high proportion of murders were committed using firearms. Indeed, in absolute terms, more murders are committed annually by firearm in Brazil than in any other country in the world. According to the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Sou da Paz, reporting in December 2010, around 65% of murders committed in São Paulo in 2009 involved firearms, bearing out other studies suggesting a figure of around 70%. A high level of illegal gun ownership is the proximate cause in a country that also has Latin America's most developed military manufacturing industry. A 2010 study by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, working with two Rio-based NGOs, claimed that nearly 60% of the estimated 17.6 million firearms in circulation may be illegally held (similar figures emerge in other studies). Separate reporting from NGO Viva Rio, presented by the Ministry of Justice, suggests that eight out of 10 illegally held firearms were manufactured in the country, some of which could be leakage from security force personnel, who are entitled to buy three personal firearms per year at factory prices, while 140 land border entry points have been identified as sites of arms trafficking.

A large part of the violent crime problem stems from the activities of drug-trafficking gangs and organised crime groups, the most powerful being the São Paulo-based First Command of the Capital (PCC) and the Rio-based Red Command (CV). There are also numerous other gangs working in tandem with or in opposition to these two groups, as well as a persistent problem posed by "militias" of retired or off-duty police officers who originally claimed to be combating drug gangs in the violent "favelas" (shanty towns) of major cities, but which in recent years have become criminal outfits themselves, involved in extortion and trafficking. This presence of gangs in urban areas also hints at why the high murder rate is also not demographically uniform. It is particularly high among young people, with the Special Secretariat for Human Rights reporting in December 2010 that 45.5% of deaths among adolescents (12-18 years old) in 2006 were murders, while the overall youth murder rate is significantly higher than for the population at large. Murder rates in many inland areas can also be high, but often as a result of land disputes.

International Dimensions

Brazil's public security problem also has significant international dimensions owing to the size of its largely unpoliceable maritime and terrestrial borders. While the country's 2008 national defence strategy prioritises territorial security as a means to prevent the inflow of drugs and weapons, complete success in the task is unachievable in practical terms. Moreover, with better interdiction of trafficking operations in Colombia in recent years, further displacement of both coca leaf cultivation and cocaine trafficking through Brazil is likely in the coming years as drug cartels ship greater quantities of drugs through the southern cone. In this, they may be aided by the planned opening in early 2011 of the US$1.3-billion Inter-Oceanic Highway, the first fully paved east-west highway traversing South America that includes Brazil and regions of Peru that are home to significant quantities of coca leaf cultivation. This will pose new challenges to the security forces, both in terms of seizing drugs bound from the southern ports for West Africa and Europe, and preventing the entry into Peru of greater quantities of precursor chemicals.

With a rapidly growing middle class in Brazil, making the country a drug consumer market in its own right, further public security problems are likely to emerge in the next decade from increased cocaine and crack use, with their related side-effects. More worryingly, increased access to the cheaper basuco (cocaine base) among poorer sectors of society may also have direct security consequences, as the highly-addictive drug leads quickly to dependency and often violent behaviour, as well as related rises in the crimes needed to fund a habit.

Conscious of the international linkages that fuel its poor public security, Brazil has expanded its multilateral contacts in recent years to conclude a range of security and surveillance agreements with neighbouring countries, the most recent being with Uruguay in December 2010. Under Rousseff, increased use of the military in a policing support role on the borders can be expected, as can the increased use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and monitoring systems to target routes used by drug traffickers, and to improve border intelligence operations.

Countermeasures

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's outgoing administration laid the groundwork for a number of increasingly successful anti-crime initiatives that will now be expanded under Rousseff, herself a key member of Lula's administration. A permanent disarmament campaign now features an annual weapons amnesty day, while two programmes launched under Lula—the Rio-based Police Pacification Units (UPPs), and the countrywide National Programme for Public Security with Citizenship (PRONASCI )—are credited with leading to the beginnings of stability in previously lawless urban spaces. Both programmes prioritise improvements in social and infrastructure provision to tackle crime, particularly gang-related, as well as improving pay and training for frontline police officers. The UPPs, currently specific to Rio de Janeiro, will be rolled out nationwide under Rousseff and renamed Community Police Posts (CPPs). They aim to establish a permanent state presence in favelas, and most notably were installed in several previously ungoverned favelas in Rio in December 2010 following a massive, and perhaps unscripted, joint police-military operation that expelled drug traffickers from the Vila Cruzeiro and Alemão favelas. The CPPs will be extended to all 27 Brazilian states in the medium term through the creation of 2,800 posts, suggesting that the recent security gains in Rio may well be replicated elsewhere. The programme is not immune to criticism, however. Critics have noted that similar, albeit smaller, past operations in São Paulo have tended to target favelas bordering up-market or tourist areas, and the fear is that the government will lose interest in the programme once the most visible favelas have been "pacified". Indeed, the government has confirmed that its next target is the sprawling Rocinha favela in Rio, overlooking the famous Ipanema and Copacabana beaches, from where drug traffickers emerged in August 2010 to temporarily hold 35 tourists hostage in a luxury hotel. Further problems will include the difficulty of sustaining a military presence, as well as the potential corruption of local councils.

Outlook and Implications

Nevertheless, Brazilian security authorities are capable of organising event security. They can already be credited with a successful security operation in Rio de Janeiro during the Pan American Games in 2007, as well policing the massive annual Carnival in Rio and Gay Pride march in São Paulo. The short-term requisites of event security, such as substantial increases in visible policing for a short duration, coupled with lockdowns of high-risk areas, mean that significant problems at the 2014 and 2016 sporting events are unlikely to occur. The primary public security concern for both Brazilians and tourists attending the events will continue to be robbery: between September 2008 and September 2009, around 7.3% of Brazilians aged 10 or over reported being a victim of robbery, mainly on the street, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, and 1.6% suffered assaults.