The following article, written by Patrícia Villela Marino and Larissa de Melo Itri, was published in the newspaper O Globo on December 27.
For 50 years, Brazil’s public security policy has centered on the “war on drugs” model, which promised to reduce the use and availability of certain substances by criminalizing them severely. Beyond failing to achieve its explicit objectives, this policy has relegated the exploitation of a multibillion-dollar market to criminal organizations, increased homicide rates and the power of criminal groups, and multiplied the prison population.
In the popular perception, public insecurity has come to lead the list of concerns among citizens and voters. The result is a normalization of violence reflected in the low public outcry over episodes such as the massacre in the Penha and Alemão complexes in Rio de Janeiro, which resulted in 121 deaths.
So far, two responses to the problem have been presented. On one side, the federal government advocates for coordinated intelligence actions; on the other, governors of some states are doubling down on militarized combat. Although they differ regarding the overt use of force, both amount to punitive actions, replicating the failed model that brought us to the current chaos. How many anti-crime packages and sentence increases have we witnessed in recent decades without violence being reduced?
The epicenter of all errors in conducting our public security stems from Brazil’s current drug policy—not coincidentally considered the worst among 30 countries analyzed in the 2021 Global Drug Policy Index. The current security policy presupposes constant violations of fundamental rights, demands summary executions, and fuels disrespect for privacy and the inviolability of homes, especially in areas of greater social vulnerability. It is also racist, as it disproportionately affects Black and poor populations.
It is not only Brazil’s prison system that finds itself in an “unconstitutional state of affairs,” as the Supreme Federal Court has recognized since 2023, but all state action in the area of public security. Lacking broad and urgent review, it requires a profound transformation of paradigms.
Many current beliefs about the area are contradicted by science. It is false to claim, for example, that drugs generate crimes: countries with very low violence rates, such as Norway, have more problems with substance abuse than Brazil.
Meanwhile, the understanding that more prisons reduce crime has not held up since the 1930s, when Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer concluded in “Punishment and Social Structure” that, beyond a certain point, more severity does not reduce violence. Being a bad example in practice, Brazil is a good example of the theory: our prison population jumped from 90,000 in 1990 to nearly 800,000, without the homicide rate becoming exemplary.
Given this scenario of proven failure, a feasible public security plan must start from a foundation in reality and science. But recognizing errors in the security area will require a profound cultural and educational change, without which the correct alternatives will remain unpopular. This change should not be demanded only from the State, but from all of society, the press, and academia.
The plan should aim for successful models, such as Colombia’s, which reduced its homicide rate from 380 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1991 to 13.9 in 2023, with disarmament policies and peace agreements. Uruguay restrictively regulated the marijuana market in 2013, with positive results: trafficking of the plant ceased to be a significant internal problem. Switzerland was successful in adopting harm reduction policies for people with abusive heroin use, reducing overdose deaths by half and HIV infections by 65%.
It is time for our country to join these examples and begin developing an efficient public security plan based on solid premises. May the spectacle of barbarism displayed in the Penha and Alemão complexes serve as a final warning for an urgent course correction.
Patrícia Villela Marino is president of the Humanitas360 Institute, Larissa de Melo Itri is legal consultant at the Humanitas360 Institute
(Photo Credits: Gabriel de Paiva / Agência O Globo)
