For 50 years, public security policy adopted in Brazil has centered on the “war on drugs” model, which promises to reduce the consumption and availability of certain substances by severely criminalizing them. In addition to failing to achieve its explicit goals, this model has relegated the exploitation of a multibillion-dollar market to crime, increased homicide rates and the power of criminal organizations, and multiplied the prison population.
In popular perception, public insecurity has begun to occupy a prominent place among the concerns of citizens and voters. The result is a normalization of violence which is reflected in the low public emotion in the face of episodes such as the massacre of the Penha and Alemão complexes, in Rio de Janeiro, which left 122 dead.
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Two answers to the problem have been presented. On the one hand, the federal government defends coordinated actions in matters of intelligence; on the other, the governors of certain states are doubling their efforts in militarized combat. Although different in terms of overt use of force, both amount to punitive actions, repeating the failed pattern that led us to the current chaos. How many crime-fighting programs and sentencing increases have we seen in recent decades without any reduction in violence?
The epicenter of all errors in the conduct of our public security arises from the current Brazilian drug policy – it is no coincidence, considered the worst among the 30 countries analyzed in the Global Drug Policy Index 2021. It presupposes constant violations of fundamental rights, demands summary executions and fuels contempt for privacy and the inviolability of the home, especially in areas of greatest social vulnerability. It is also racist because it disproportionately affects black and poor populations.
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It is not only the Brazilian prison system that finds itself in an “unconstitutional situation”, as the Federal Court has recognized since 2023, but all state action in the field of public security. Requiring a broad and urgent revision, it requires a profound transformation of paradigms.
Many of the current beliefs about the region are contradicted by science. It is false to say that drugs generate crimes. Countries with very low rates of violence, such as Norway, have more substance abuse problems than Brazil.
The idea that more prisons reduce crime has not been supported 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. As a bad example in practice, Brazil is a good example in theory. Our prison population increased from 90,000 in 1990 to nearly 800,000, without the homicide rate becoming exemplary.
Faced with this scenario of proven failure, a workable public safety plan must rely on reality and science as a starting point. But recognizing mistakes in security will require profound cultural and educational changes, without which good alternatives will remain unpopular. This change must not only be demanded of the state, but of all of society, the press and academia.
The plan should target successful models, such as Colombia, which reduced its homicide rate from 380 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1991 to 13.9 in 2023, thanks to disarmament policies and peace agreements. Uruguay strictly regulated the marijuana market in 2013, with positive results. Plant trafficking is no longer a major internal problem.
Now is the time for our country to join these examples and begin developing an effective public safety plan built on solid foundations. May the spectacle of barbarity presented at the Penha and Alemão complexes serve as a final warning of an urgent change of course.
*Patrícia Villela Marino is president of the Humanitas360 Institute, Larissa de Melo Itri is legal consultant at the Humanitas360 Institute
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