Pacifying Police Unit

For decades, many of Rio de Janeiro's favelas have been controlled by gangs of armed drug traffickers. Beginning with the first UPP that was implemented in Santa Marta in 2008, many of Rio's major favelas have received pacifying police forces.[3] For decades, Rio has seen a cycle of police raiding favelas, having shootouts with traffickers, and then withdrawing again. And also part of the cycle were frequent wars between different traffickers, leading to more shootouts, endangering the lives of the people living in many of these favelas.

The favelas chosen for the UPP program have previously not paid for public utilities but would have to pay fees to whatever criminal organization controlled the area; this often leads to a recurrence of extortion and tax evasion.

Therefore, the concept for the UPP (which was given even more impetus once Rio was chosen to host the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympic Games) was finally put into action as a first-step solution to deal with the urban cycle of violence.

Before a UPP is established in a favela area, gang leaders are driven out by Rio's elite police battalion, BOPE, who search for heavy weaponry and drug caches (during this stage, and thereafter, there is an effort to encourage residents to report criminal activity to an anonymous phone number managed by Rio's government called Disque Denúncia).[4] The inauguration of a new UPP is timed with the exit of BOPE from the area and the replacement of hundreds of newly trained policemen, who work within the particular area of favelas as a permanent police force.

As of September 2013, 34 UPPs have been established within Rio de Janeiro with the stated goal of Rio's government to install 40 UPPs by 2014. Some UPPs, such as for that for Rocinha, only cover the territory of one specific favela, while other UPPs such as Manguinhos or Jacarezinho, also each cover smaller favela communities under their administrative umbrella.[5]

Other favelas that now have UPPs include Cidade de Deus, Dona Marta, and Morro da Babilônia. In general, where the UPPs have been implemented, violent crime has fallen dramatically, while property values have increased.[6]

Because the favelas with UPPs had formerly been controlled by armed drug traffickers for more than twenty-five years, the fear of retribution, which was a mainstay of the "law of the traffickers", is slow to die. For instance, in April 2012 when a drug trafficker who had formerly controlled the favela of Mangueira was shot and killed during a police operation in Jacarezinho (before the area had received its own UPP), others from the same criminal faction ordered businesses to close their doors early in Mangueira — which they did. This despite the fact that Mangueira has a permanent pacification police force as part of its own UPP.[7] A similar occurrence of businesses closing their doors early in Mangueira because the traffickers ordered it occurred in February 2013.[8]

In May 2012, Beltrame acknowledged that armed criminals had migrated from parts of Rio that have a large police presence due to areas with less police and no UPPs, such as nearby Niterói, across the bay.[7][9] Beltrame has stated however that he believes based on analysis of crime data that only gang leaders higher in the hierarchy could reestablish in other favela communities (without UPPs); and that lower level traffickers have a much harder time integrating into other geographic areas.[10]

While the favela areas under pacification have seen improvements, the concentration of criminals has increased in other parts of Rio de Janeiro that don't have the direct benefits of permanent pacification police forces actively patrolling the neighborhoods. Among these are the Baixada Fluminense, Niterói, and certain neighborhoods in the North Zone.[11]

It was obvious early on that criminals fled particular favelas before BOPE entered. Previously, when police had attempted to encircle a favela to arrest and kill traffickers in surprise attacks, large-scale shootouts would ensue, and innocent residents were caught in the crossfire.

PMERJ arrive to reinforce the UPP in Rocinha after gunfire

While more high-profile gang leaders (also referred to in Rio's media as "traffickers") have been forced to leave favelas now administered by UPP police forces, their familial connections remain. Also, gang members from other favelas who are of the same faction as residents under UPPs, still coordinate and visit each other.[12] Exemplifying this point, one of Rio's newspapers reported on 9 July 2012 that groups of criminals fired upon police in different locations within the Complexo do Alemão on the same day that military forces completed their final withdrawal from the area.[13]

There is a well known history of police abuse and corruption in Rio de Janeiro, and for years this only added fuel to the war between drug traffickers controlling Rio's favelas and the police.[14]

In recent years there have been concerted efforts under Secretary Beltrame to root out corrupt police; and this is the very reason that the community policing of the favelas under the UPP program are staffed by new recruits coming straight from the UPP police academy — such as the 750 officers who will be policing the large Rocinha favela beginning in August 2012.[13]

Beltrame has stated that the main purpose of the UPPs is more toward stopping armed men from ruling the streets than to put an end to drug trafficking. A 2010 report by the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) did note the drop in the homicide rate within Rio de Janeiro's favelas.[15]

On 23 July 2012, the first police officer to die in a UPP administered favela was shot and killed by criminals within the Nova Brasília area of the Complexo do Alemão. At the time of the shooting, the female officer, 30-year-old Fabiana Aparecida de Souza, who had only been on the force a few months, was at a small UPP station within the favela, when the building was shot at by 12 assailants and she was hit in the abdomen by a rifle bullet. Ten minutes before this occurred, eight assailants shot at two officers patrolling the Pedra do Sapo part of the Complexo, but nobody was injured.[18]

The previous week, police were patrolling the area of Fazendinha within the Complexo when they were attacked two different times. In one of the incidents, a grenade was thrown which exploded near their patrol car.[19] (As a result of the attack resulting in the death of the police officer, an additional 500 UPP police officers were assigned to the Complexo, raising the total number to 1,800 officers working within that particular community).[20]

• Brazilian police militias
• Case of Amarildo de Souza
• C3 policing
• Philippine Drug War

• Official website (in Portuguese)