C O M M U N I T Y B A S E D C R I M E A N D V I O L E N C E P R E V E N T I O N I N U R B A N L AT I N A M E R I C A A N D T H E C A R I B B E A N

CASE STUDY
World Bank
Water, Disaster
Management, and Urban
FICA VIVO HOMICIDE CONTROL PROJECT
Development Group
Latin America and
Caribbean Region IN BELO HORIZONTE

The World Bank

Water, Disaster Management, and Urban Development Group
Latin America and Caribbean Region
 CASE STUDY
World Bank
Water, Disaster
Management, and Urban
FICA VIVO HOMICIDE CONTROL PROJECT
Development Group
Latin America and
Caribbean Region IN BELO HORIZONTE
1
Cludio C. Beato

1
Cludio Beato works for the Centro de Estudos de Criminalidade e Segurana at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
 2005 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank
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2
 Contents

I. Overview of the Problem

4

II. Conceptual Bases of a Public Safety Experiment

6

III. Some Methodological and Conceptual Principles

8

IV. The Ecological Context of Homicides

10

V. Mobilizing Partners for the Initial Project

15

VI. Intervention Strategies

22

VII. And the Results?

28

VIII. Preliminary Conclusions

30

IX. Bibliography
32

3
I. OVERVIEW OF THE PROBLEM

Belo Horizonte has always been one of Brazils most peaceful state capitals. During the 1980s,
when large metropolises such as Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo witnessed dramatic increases in
violence, the million and a half inhabitants of the capital of Minas Gerais observed all of this with a
mixture of distance and incredulity. The belief that they were protected by the mountains that
encircle the city, combined with a small-town sentiment, seemed to protect them from the bloody
reality of the large metropolises.
This picture was corroborated by figures showing that Belo Horizonte was one of Brazils top cities
for quality of life. The city has South Americas fifth largest industrial complex, within which the
automotive, auto-parts, steel, electronics and construction sectors stand out. It is also a major
Brazilian cultural center in several fields, such as music, the plastic arts and literature.
The result of these pleasant conditions was that security was never addressed as a public issue of
the first magnitude at different levels of government. Part of this feeling of security was due to the
inhabitants confidence in their police forces, considered to be among the countrys most traditional
and efficient. The hero of Brazilian independence was a police officer and was chosen by the
Military Police of Minas Gerais as its patron. Innovative experiments with regards to officer
training have arisen since the early 1980s thanks to a partnership between the Military Police (PM)
and researchers from universities and research bodies. This made it an important national and
international point of reference both in terms of officer training and of using information
technologies such as the mapping and spatial analysis of crimes.
However, at some stage in the 1990s, this idyllic picture began to change. The city, which used to
record some 300 homicides a year, began to witness a steep rise in violent crime, starting in 1998.
The Civilian Police recorded 325 homicides statewide in 1997, 433 in 1998, 505 in 1999, 697 in
2000 and 701 in 2001. The number of homicides doubled in just four years, setting a trend that
meant that 2003 saw 1,150 homicides. Actually, this increase in the number of homicides was
preceded by higher levels of violent crime recorded by the PM in the city. The number of violent
crimes per year jumped from 8,000 in 1996, to almost 12,000 in 1997, to 14,500 in 1998, to 18,600
the following year and reaching 45,000 in 2003. During this period, only in 2001 and 2002 was
there a decline and stability in the figures, resulting from modern management techniques adopted
by the police on the beat during this period.
It is not very clear what happened. Generally, a complex set of factors is associated to an increase
in homicides. Because it is an event that involves a huge variety of manifestations, homicide is
correlated with factors of different orders. There are innumerous forms of fatal aggression, from
domestic violence to various forms of political crimes and collective homicides resulting from
confrontations between gangs and mobs. There are, however, certain elements that act as the
backdrop to this increase.
The police like to attribute to drugs the responsibility for most of the crimes that take place. This is
an argument that finds a positive repercussion among public opinions commonest views, as well as
being the most economic way of shortening investigations and exempting oneself from prevention
responsibilities, whether by means of deterrence or ostensive policing. Given that drug
consumption takes place in the private sphere, generating the demand that finances traffickers
activities, there is little that police organizations can do in terms of projects and policies. They
believe that it is private addictions that feed the collective ill. Consequently, the State is exempted
from any possibility of intervention, and investments in investigative actions are cancelled.
As was the case with the USA during the 1980s, the introduction of crack-cocaine led to a serious
deterioration of communities (Johnson et al., 2000 and Goldstein et al., 1997). Crack is a type of
cocaine meant for mass consumption by the poor. It is cheap, highly addictive and very profitable
for those who sell it. The combination of these two factors (incidence in impoverished places and
high profit margins) is at the root of the violent disputes between gangs.
Added to the crack phenomenon, one has the growing introduction of firearms at an ever lower
price and used by ever younger people highly disposed to conflict. The mix is explosive. This

4
phenomenon of gangs in the shantytowns and poor neighborhoods of the city is not yet very well
understood by scholars and public security authorities. It was exactly in this complex context that
the Fica Vivo project emerged, seeking to develop an intervention methodology for homicides in
Belo Horizonte.

5
II. CONCEPTUAL BASES OF A PUBLIC SAFETY EXPERIMENT

Faced with this picture, the Crime and Public Security Studies Center of the Federal University of
Minas Gerais decided to propose to certain institutions and organizations a course aimed at
discussing a work methodology geared to formulating intervention strategies. The initial strategy
consisted of seizing upon the international literature on homicide control programs that were
successful in other contexts, as well as studies that sought to understand more specifically what are
the motivations and determining factors involved in this sort of violence. Background material of
whatever type that could be used in a local interpersonal violence control experiment was sought in
international experiments.

Put this way, the proposal was already a novelty. For a start, formulating control experiments and
programs on the basis of criminology literature is not usual in the context of public security policies
in Brazil. There are deep suspicions of any more rational and academic orientations in intervention
processes, principally those involving the police. This is based on the belief that the people who
really understand public security problems are the operators of the system police officers and
lawyers, mainly. Added to this, there is a certain provincial attitude that says that Brazil is
different, and that international experiments have little to say about our reality. Curiously, this
reasoning is extended to the domestic regional plane: Rio de Janeiro is very different from So
Paulo, which is very different from Minas Gerais, and so on. Building up experience and
knowledge, a crucial task for developing public policies in general, ends up becoming complicated
in the light of such varied and numerous specificities.

Therefore, it was a matter of putting into practice some new methodologies for formulating,
developing, analyzing and evaluating problems that originated in the private sphere and were
shown to be successful in the realm of public security in other countries. The Problem Solving
approach, previously acclaimed in the management of police activities, had already been put into
practice by the Minas Gerais Military Police with impressive results with regards to certain types of
crime, especially crimes against property (Beato, 2005). However, transposing this type of strategy
to specific types of interpersonal violence required much effort and a specific focus.
In relation to homicides, the experience of Cease Fire in Boston obtained notable results, having
been replicated in other US cities. Some of the elements developed there could be used, as long as
adapted to local specificities. The Latin American literature points out the centrality of gangs (or
pandillas, maras, quadrilhas etc) to the homicide issue in major urban centers. Successful
experiments had been developed in Colombian cities like Cali and Bogota. In other words, it was
possible to start off from positive experiments that had already been reported on.

Cognitive Inertia in Public Security Planning

In the Brazilian case, two obstacles had to be surmounted. The first has to do with the absence of a
culture of planning and management of public security problems. This ends up making the
challenges in this field equivalent to controlling natural disasters, in which human intervention
makes little difference. The absence of a more embedded culture of planning has a lot to do with
this belief, which ends up being corroborated by the scarcity of education in social projects of crime
control and prevention, or in public policies on security. From the strictly police point of view, the
belief is that it is possible to manage human and material resources but not the result of this process.
Hence, old organization techniques and methods are used, which makes it possible to administer the
internal affairs of barracks and police stations, but never the results regarding crimes.

In Brazil, for a long time, public security problems were the property of jurists and police officers.
To this day, after successive governments of different ideological colorings, when a more serious
emergency measure is necessary, a team of lawyers and police officers is formed to this end. The
result of this juridical and police formalism, and of the naturalization of the phenomenon of
violence, can be seen in the rising crime indicators in Brazil. Skepticism has become widespread

6
among operators, policymakers and scholars as a consequence of the inexistence of success stories.
The complexity that the phenomenon of violence has taken on over the last few years has meant
that traditional forms of control achieve little or no result.
Add to this Brazilian societys growing and legitimate demand for more security, amplified by the
media. The result is a context of perplexity and skepticism among operators, whose most common
attitude is to shift the responsibility upwards, downwards or sideways. Thus, municipal
governments blame the state administrations because they cannot achieve better results with the
police forces. The latter demand from the federal government macroeconomic policies that
supposedly would halt the rise in crime levels.
One of the manifestations of this managerial traditionalism on the part of the police organizations is
widely known in the literature as the incident-based approach. Professor Goldstein believes this is
one of the obstacles to a result-based approach by the police forces (Goldstein, 1990). It consists of
treating each event in isolation without trying to understand it within a broader causal structure. So,
officers attend to domestic violence incidents, for example, without relating them to one another or
seeking to understand causes they have in common. Each time there is an episode at the same
address, some officers rarely the same ones see to a case of a man who beats his wife.
Despite the history of similar episodes, no connections are made between them. And then the police
end up having to attend to a case of homicide. If there had been an effort to understand and
integrate the information, that homicide might have been avoided.
Information and vehicle management systems that guide police work are not capable of relating
events that follow time or space patterns. Consequently, the work is not coordinated and lacks
intelligence in terms of relating events and identifying patterns. The absence of efforts to
understand patterns and analyze cases certainly contributes towards the ineffectiveness and inertia
of the public security organizations and the consequent lack of motivation on the part of the
systems operators.

7
III. SOME METHODOLOGICAL AND CONCEPTUAL PRINCIPLES

Many of the projects fundamental ideas were developed during the data-gathering period and
through conversations with partners. It was then possible to have a more adequate idea of what was
most convenient in conceptual terms. It was a strategy of grounded theory, in which mechanisms
of induction and deduction were used alternately and the data suggested new theoretical
possibilities, which, in turn, shed light on new possibilities for action. One began with certain
conceptual principles that were modified and re-formulated inasmuch as the empirical elements
suggested this. On the other hand, a new idea, something someone had read or an interesting
experience could equally suggest new intervention and innovation possibilities.

Initially, the idea was to work with the same model developed in Boston, which started off from a
micro-application of deterrence theory allied to an analysis of the firearms market. The starting
point for all the discussions on deterrence was an analysis of data on prisons and the effect on crime
rates. Bostons experience showed that it was possible to think in terms of a deterrence approach
that began with the justice system acting in relation to repeat offenders (Kennedy, 1996). The logic
of concentration is that of Paretos distribution, according to which a small number of individuals
concentrates a large number of homicides.
These principles may be used in identifying public security problems. However, in this definition
there are dimensions of a political nature, which we now turn to.

The Definition of Public Security Problems

In the literature on problem solving, a problem is something that involves two or more incidents
that are similar in nature, that harm the public and that the State is expected to do something about.
The mobilization of the State means taking on the problem, defining strategies to control it and
allocating resources to solve it.

Strictly speaking, when one takes this definition of the various forms of violence, especially
homicides, one must understand some Brazilian peculiarities with respect to the diverse forms of
violence that take place in large urban environments. The first and most perverse of them is
the extremely segregationist character of the definition of public problems of security. When one
speaks of the violence that is confined to certain ghettos and communities with no political or
economic weight, it takes on a far more modest public dimension than that which takes place in
middle and upper class neighborhoods. A famous interpreter of the Brazilian soul used to use the
metaphor of the Casa Grande (the main farmhouse) and the Senzala (the slave house), which one
might seize upon here to understand this phenomenon. Violence that is confined to the Senzala,
does not constitute a public problem that mobilizes the State and its authorities. The problem only
begins when victimization reaches members of the Casa Grande who, in principle, should be
immune to the torments of the Senzala. When this happens, all the forces mobilize themselves,
amplifying their fears through the media and the indignation of the elites. Every mobilization and
discussion of public security problems in Brazil begins and ends with the case of a notable victim.
The countless deaths that happen on an everyday basis in the urban peripheries deserve, at most, a
short news item on TV or in the newspapers.
However, in recent years there has emerged another possibility for creating public mobilization
around the security issue. Precisely as a result of this decades-old process in our cities, violence has
more and more been spilling over from the ghettos where it had been confined. The explicit
manifestation of phenomena of violence in the commercial areas and better-off residential areas has
been taking up more and more space in the media.
Furthermore, the absolute magnitude of homicides in Brazil has taken on overwhelming
proportions. Between 1980 and 2000, there were exactly 198,267 murders in the country. In Belo
Horizonte over the last decade, the number of homicides grew by a factor of four and that of violent
crimes, by a factor of five. There were 293 homicides in 1993 and 1,150 ten years later. The PM

8
recorded 9,127 violent crimes at the start of the period; the figure for 2003 was 45,551. Numbers
such as these cannot be treated in negligent fashion. Homicides are today one of the main problems
with which the State has to deal.

9
IV. THE ECOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF HOMICIDES

A study carried out by CRISP using spatial statistics techniques had already identified the major
spatial concentration that homicides have. The analysis of hotspots identified the existence of six
homicide foci in the city of Belo Horizonte. The analysis demonstrated clearly that the clusters were
located in only six of the citys 81 urban conglomerates that contain shantytowns. In other words,
the common perception that shantytowns constitute per se a condition for violent crime was shown
not to be true. There were many urban conglomerates that were not necessarily regions with greater
incidence of crime than any other neighborhoods. It was a matter, then, of understanding why
homicides were concentrated in these few urban conglomerates.

On the basis of this data, a victimization survey was designed, which sought to sample these six
areas so as to understand the conditions favoring violent episodes there. The survey had a double
aim. On the one hand, there was the intention of building a database that could be used for training
researchers and producing articles. On the other, the survey was designed so as to provide
background material for public policies. The objective was not to arrive at a citywide victimization
figure, but to gather information that might be helpful in understanding specific localities within the
urban space. Hence, a long list of questions was applied to large samples of interviewees in the
violent areas of the city identified by the homicide hotspots.
Understanding these problems involves a detailed analysis of systemic elements such as the actors
involved, how and when the episodes occur, and what the institutional responses to the
phenomenon are. This more comprehensive perspective seeks to gather data on ecological elements
regarding the time and space patterns of the crimes, as well as the physical, social and
environmental conditions. In the case of homicides that happen within urban conglomerates, what is
the relationship between victims and offenders? What is the reaction of other people who take part,
whether as spectators or co-participants? What is the socio-economic context in which these
homicides take place? Does the physical environment contribute in any way? How? When and how
do they occur? How does the community react? What is the traditional response of the public
agencies? What is the degree of seriousness attributed?

Local Characteristics of the Homicide Foci

Socio-economic and Urban Infrastructure Aspects

Analyses were carried out of the socio-economic characteristics that might explain the existence of
the hotspots in the locations with high homicide rates. What became clear was that the shantytowns
with homicide clusters have very low social welfare and quality of life indicators. Hence, the finish
of the homes in these regions is almost eight times worse than those of other parts of the city. The
average time spent in education is three years less. These are regions with younger populations
25 years old, on average, which is four years less than the city average. The rate of occupation in
the formal labor market is lower than average. Furthermore, more children die and the rate of
illiteracy is higher. The urban infrastructure index is significantly lower (around five times). In
general terms, the social protection index is about a third that of other regions of the city.
One is dealing, therefore, with very poor places that seem to be growing even poorer due to the
local violence; in other words, an actual inversion of causality. It is no longer a case of poverty
leading to violence, but of violence making these places even poorer. Teachers and health service
staff do not want to work there, and public services are forced to withdraw. Services such as
garbage collection, the water company or ambulances find it very difficult to enter due to the
interference of local traffickers, who often inhibit the action of public agents. It is not by chance
that an analysis of the citys health data indicated a great coincidence between locations of
vulnerability and of violence and crime.
When one observes the urban layout of these places, the absence of any rationality in the
distribution of spaces or in the urban geometry is notable. These are labyrinthine spaces, made up
of a mesh of alleys and narrow passages spread at random over mountains and places of difficult

10
access, which makes the provision of whichever public services problematic, including police
activities.
One of the consequences of this for public security is that the layout of Brazilian shantytowns is, for
local traffickers, the equivalent of a jungle for a guerrilla. These are places whose geography is
mastered by them, and in which they can vanish from police officers sight in a few meters. Hence
the difficulties in carrying out police operations for capturing traffickers or inhibiting the drug
trade. The police only goes into such places by means of war operations, with which the local
population does not sympathize.
The Implosion of Violence
Another important fact revealed by the spatial analyses is the intra-community character of the
homicides that were taking place in the city. The offenders home, the victims home and the
location of the homicide were found to be within a 400-meter radius. This meant that the distances
traveled by offenders to find their victims were very small, thus contradicting the common view
that homicides were committed in distant neighborhoods by strangers. The public believe they may
come to be victims of homicide, especially of muggings followed by death, committed by strangers
who travel right across the city. In actual fact, homicides happen among people who know one
another, who were born and raised not far from one another, whose victim is one but might have
been the other, depending on the circumstances. In this sense, it is a mistake to refer to the
phenomenon of the explosion of crime in the large urban centers. It would be more correct to talk
about implosion, since it occurs inside specific communities, where victims and aggressors come
from and live.
Subsequently, data from the Belo Horizonte Municipal Health Department showed how extreme the
levels of violence are in these places. Neighborhoods such as Barragem Santa Lcia and Morro das
Pedras have Colombian-style homicide rates. The figure for Barragem Santa Lcia in 2000 was
twenty times higher than that for Belo Horizonte as a whole, and two and a half times higher than
that of other shantytowns in the city.
Another city department confirms this perception of the deterioration of community security
conditions. A qualitative survey conducted by the Youth Section of the Belo Horizonte Municipal
Culture Department heard the complaints of youngsters seen to by one of the sections programs
and of the programs workers in each of these violent places. Complaints related to the death of
relatives, invasions by local traffickers, youth involvement with gangs and the drug trade were
common to all the shantytowns. In the specific case of Morro das Pedras, the issue of explicit gun
possession by traffickers was highlighted. In these places, memories of violent deaths are very
common among residents. According to data from CRISPs 2002 victimization survey, almost a
third of the population in such neighborhoods has a relative, friend or neighbor who was the victim
of a homicide. The violent death of a person close to one thus becomes an element that is common
to residents of these communities. This contributes to a process of trivialization of violence and
death. This proximity leads to a certain sense of fatalism among the residents, as if violent deaths
were a natural fact.
The Neighborhood Contagion of Violence
But it is not only homicides that happen there. As a rule, the traffickers do not allow muggings or
petty thefts near points of sale of drugs. This attracts the police, creates antipathy among the local
population and ends up harming the business. Often, the punishment for such petty crimes is very
severe, including shots through the hands and exemplary executions. Many cases fit these
characteristics. An illustration of this thesis of exemplary violence is the fact that on average each
victim was shot 4.8 times.
It so happens that the most widely sold and consumed drug is crack, a highly addictive, mass
consumption substance. It is fundamentally a type of cocaine for the poor, whose use tends to take
place in shantytowns. The cracklands that exist in these places are a shocking spectacle: tens,
hundreds of people openly smoking their pipes before local residents. Crack is a drug with rapid
effects that requires continued consumption. To keep up the habit, many users end up working as

11
watchmen for the dealers or carrying out robberies, thefts and muggings in the vicinity. Hence, it is
common to observe increases in burglaries and stick-ups of small businesses and bakeries in
adjacent neighborhoods. Crack may be one of the few drugs that unquestionably leads to an
increase in crime, especially against property.
Firearms
A trend has been detected: just when homicide rates started rising, the rate of homicides with
firearms also rose, with a growing participation of young people under the age of 24 as the
perpetrators. Since 1998, 48% of homicides have been committed with firearms, according to PM
data. Subsequent data gathered by Civilian Police investigations confirms the supremacy of
firearms in homicides: of the 145 cases investigated between 1999 and 2001 in these areas, 78.1%
resulted from the use of firearms. Streets, alleys and houses, in that order, were the most frequent
places of execution. Few people are killed at the points of sale.
In general, the population of Belo Horizonte owns many firearms. There are some 170,000 in the
hands of the citys residents. However, the owners are more concentrated in the less violent regions
(7.5%). In the shantytown areas, less than 3% of the population own one or more firearms. Those
who do own them, however, are more likely to carry them when they leave home (38%) (CRISP,
2002). 2
Another study on the introduction of guns into the conglomerates shows how they enter in a diffuse
and fragmented fashion. There is no clear pattern of gunrunning that permits one to detect any
large-scale operation. Doubtless, an important part of the heavier arms used by the traffickers
comes from more organized delivery schemes. But this type of armament is not common, unlike
what happens in other state capitals, such as Rio de Janeiro. Another part, however, is the result of
exchanges for drugs, payments, robberies etc. Furthermore, police officers themselves, who have
the right to own personal firearms and to renew them regularly, end up supplying part of the
arsenal. The cost of a revolver is not very high, even by local standards, which makes them
accessible to very young people.

Media and Violence

Side by side with the police problem, another consensus on the issue of violence in the
conglomerates involves the media. The participants of the working groups were unanimous in
stating that the press was part of the problem of violence. This happened in many ways. (a)
Reporters sought news, not necessarily information. In the search for a headline, there was not an
actual journalistic investigation that checked the news that was received. (b) Furthermore, the press
had a tendency to glamorize violence. Not long before, one of Brazils best-known traffickers had
been on the cover of a major newsweekly (Veja magazine), a feat a police officer has never
achieved.

How does this process take place? Conversations with journalists who cover crime were very
enlightening. On the one hand it is true that the journalistic coverage of public security matters is
precarious, often left to inexperienced journalists who have very little support from their employers
to carry out more in-depth investigations. This makes them extremely dependent on their sources of
information, who often are from within the police forces themselves.

On the other, the public security departments and the police forces are not used to have their own
media relations services. The police forces, especially the Civilian Police, tend to give information
to journalists from statements, hence contributing to the creation of parallel and informal sources
among officers.

2
CRISP. Victimization Survey in Belo Horizonte. 2002. See results at www.crisp.ufmg.br

12
Furthermore, it is no less true that crime and violence issues are great crowd-pullers. Editors know
that bloody and dramatic headlines win over readers, listeners and spectators.
Lastly, there still persists a certain mentality according to which public security is treated like a
state secret. It is up to an enlightened few not to alarm public opinion with data and tendencies
that contribute to the feeling of insecurity. Instead of the information being discussed and then
qualified in a substantive manner, it is simply hidden, perhaps as a result of the absence of training
in analysis and discussion of information on the part of the executives themselves.

How are the Gangs Involved in Homicides?

One of the activities developed during the period of data gathering was a series of interviews with
young offenders who were under the educational care of the Belo Horizonte city councils Assisted
Freedom program. There emerged a sketch of youngsters potentially involved with gangs. Contrary
to common perceptions, the youngsters were not involved with serious offences. Only 2.6%
committed homicides or attempted homicides, while the figure for muggings was 15%. The vast
majority are not hardened criminals whose recovery is impossible, but young people who may well
be rescued from the risk situation represented by their involvement with gangs of traffickers. One
might say they are at the start of a career.
Later on, in-depth interviews were conducted with some of these youngsters, during which
information was gathered that would possibly help the communication programs. Many of their
statements describe the attraction to the successful and respected model of the traffickers and
young men of the movement. However, after a period of involvement with the gangs, many of
them realize how very difficult it is to leave and the inevitable fate of each and every person
involved in the drug trade. All of them die in confrontations with the police or with other gangs, or
end up in jail.
One of the communication campaigns was developed for television. Many of these
statements were recorded by the Globo television network and used later on as material for
documentaries on the consequences for young people of involvement with gangs.

Organizational Profile of the Gangs

One of the projects most revealing items of information was on the organizational nature of the
gangs. It was produced by the PMs investigation and intelligence services. At the location
approached by the pilot project it was observed that out of 23,000 people, at least 80 were directly
connected to the drug trade and to local gangs. This represents under 0.5% of the local population
and less than 2% of the population aged between 15 and 24. This data contradicts a certain common
perception which, incidentally, is also the view held by many official bodies and police forces
that sees all the local inhabitants, or at least the youngsters, as directly or indirectly involved with
drug trafficking. In fact, many children and youngsters see in the groups and gangs a reference for
part of their lives, and many end up occasionally involved with them, without actually joining them.
Only a few become really professional.

Another uncanny issue is the low level of organization of the gangs. When analyzing the
organizational structure of these groups, what one sees is nothing like the organized crime that is
so much in evidence in the media. On the contrary, what exists is a simple structure, and largely
disorganized in its actions. The more organized side of crime is located outside the shantytowns. It
supplies guns and drugs to local traffickers, often with the tacit cooperation and action of police
officers.
In general, one is talking about groups made up of 8 to 12 people in which a leader emerges who
takes charge of providing material and financial advantages to the others, obtained from the drug
trade. Guns, drugs and protection are guaranteed to the group members. What is paradoxical is that
precisely this search for protection is what will lead to the deaths of these youngsters in conflicts
with the members of other gangs. As well as the leaders, there are the ordinary gang members, the

13
soldiers of the group and those in charge of looking after the points of sale. 3 There is also a large
number of people who become involved occasionally, whether as providers of petty services, such
as transporting drugs, or as small-scale salespersons to sustain their habit. The presence of heavy
users is very striking in these places, and many of them end up becoming victims due to drug-
related debts.
The shantytowns are divided into regions under the control of groups that may be in alliance or in
conflict at one time or another. The territories are strictly demarcated, and crossing the borders may
mean a death sentence for a gang member.
So many deaths end up creating innumerous feelings of resentment and vengeance among gang
members. Often, the motivation is not related to instrumental reasons of an economic nature, but to
elements of an expressive nature, related to avenging brothers, friends and relatives killed in the
war around them.

3
The international literature corroborates the data relating to these groups (See, for example,
Decker, Scott H. and Van Winkle, Barrik. 1996. Life in the Gang. Cambridge University Press.)

14
VI. MOBILIZING PARTNERS FOR THE INITIAL PROJECT

On the basis of this initial information, the next step consisted of mobilizing a set of institutions that
could act as partners to the project. A central role was granted to the university in this process, since
mobilization was easier through a politically neutral institution. The Brazilian political context is
often marked by rivalries, of very different degrees and intensities, between the various levels of
government. The result is a zero-sum game in the eyes of the political actors involved. If the mayor
of a given party does a good job in relation to prevention, this means a defeat for the state governor.
If the state governor wins, the federal government loses, and so on. In some states, this rivalry and
small-minded conception have disastrous results, with the public always on the losing end. In the
case of Belo Horizonte, rivalries are also present and take on a certain prominence during electoral
periods.

In this particular case, the easiest and most convincing way of forming these partnerships was by
means of a training course on intervention methodologies in security projects. Based on this idea,
the civilian and military police officers in charge of policing in the capital, as well as members of
staff from the municipal administration, were invited to take part in the course, which would
culminate in the formulation of a homicide control project adapted to Belo Horizontes context.
CRISP had already cooperated with the police forces in the development of public security projects.
The use of mapped databases and of geo-processing techniques was originally developed by the
Center and researchers from the university. Nowadays, the Minas Gerais Military Police is
considered a national and international reference with regards to the use of this technology. Much
of the polices habitual distrust of external organizations had been broken, although some of it
remained among the older and more conservative sectors.

Bottlenecks in the Brazilian Justice System

At the start, several meetings were held with members of the police forces, and later on, with
prosecutors and judges. From the beginning, what some authors call the loosely articulated
character of the organizations that make up the criminal justice system became clear. There is no
integration between the work of the police forces, and the lack of continuity between the work of
the police, public prosecutors and courts is even more pronounced.

The integration of the police forces, for example, is emphasized by several Brazilian scholars. In
fact, when analyzed through concrete and specific cases, these diagnoses are constantly reiterated:
ostensive policing actions are not backed up by the activities of the judiciary police; databases are
not shared; planning is separate and without cooperation; the physical and human resources
structure is redundant and badly used; non-cooperation is deep and rivalries are intense. In the
specific case of Belo Horizonte, there is one of the countrys worst situations in terms of hostility
and lack of cooperation between the police forces due to the organizational, administrative and
cultural disparity between them. The most visible result is that many of the arrests and
apprehensions have no follow-up, and end up corroborating a certain feeling of impunity among the
citys inhabitants. In the specific case of drug dealers and murderers in the shantytowns, this feeling
is very relevant, as it reiterates the fear that many local residents have of cooperating with the
police.
But the meetings with other members of the justice system and police forces also illustrated the
innumerous vicissitudes that, added to the non-integration of the police forces, equally contribute to
the heightened sense of impunity felt by the residents of these conglomerates. The Public
Prosecution Service, for example, is independent of the police forces and may investigate their
performance. In practice, however, it is extremely dependent on investigations conducted by police
officers, as it does not have the structure to check and conduct in parallel this type of activity. The
exceptions and this is a polemical issue involving the institution are the high profile, notable
cases among public opinion and the media. In these situations, the personal vanity and individual
effort of some prosecutors become essential ingredients of the process.

15
As it happens, here one is dealing with homicides and common crimes, routine police occurrences
that are a part of the miserable and not at all glamorous everyday life of police stations. In these
cases, the lawsuits have no sense of priority, as there is no way of classifying them as such. There is
no detailed analysis or crossing of data, given the significant mass of information that the
prosecutors are not qualified or ready to handle as a result of their legal training.
Another notable aspect in relation to the Brazilian justice system is the absence of priority in its
actions. Each and every case deserves the same weight. In part, this happens because of a belief that
justice is equal for all, therefore it must treat all cases equally. This makes the systems
performance extremely formal, as it does not differentiate between more or less dangerous
defendants, or between those with one or many suits pending, due to the fact that each one is tried
independently.
In addition, there is the fact that the justice system and Public Prosecution Service do not have a
geographically localized action. This means they do not have an opportunity to formulate a more
adequate perception, or even an impression, about what takes place in each part of the city, as well
as who is who around there. Often, the same individual is indicted by more than one prosecutor for
different crimes. The non-addition of the crimes means that those few individuals responsible for a
large number of police occurrences end up not being identified.

Defining the Place of the Intervention

Any of the six favelas identified in the study could have been chosen as an area for intervention.
Working groups made up of municipal employees and police officers had already been meeting for
a few months. Morro das Pedras was chosen because at the time it was one of the citys most
dangerous and complicated places. The conglomerate had six sub-divisions (vilas), a population of
23,000 inhabitants and bordered on two busy avenues. It dates back to 1897, when the citys
construction began. It sprang up around a quarry that existed there, and that supposedly supplied the
stone used in building the state government headquarters. The first reference to one of the vilas, So
Jorge, dates back to 1922. Later, in 1931, there emerged Vila Leonina, in the vicinity of Estrada do
Sanatrio (Madre Teresa Hospital, nowadays). From that time on, there began to emerge middle
class neighborhoods in the vicinity, which complete the picture of contrasts that still mark the area.

In 1936, a municipal decree gave land property rights to poor workers and their equivalent (petty
functionaries, civilian guards and soldiers). In the 1940s, residents of a shantytown located in a
commercial area were transferred to Morro do Querosene, hence beginning the process of
expansion of the conglomerate. During this period, the city authorities started using the place as a
rubbish dump without criteria or compacting techniques. This ended up leading to many accidents
in the 1970s, including fatal ones, among people who used the dump as a means of survival.
Part of the area belonged to the Army, which led to many conflicts in the 1950s. The Catholic
Church was always active in organizing and defending the interests of local people.
At present, the conglomerate is made up of six shantytowns. Some local characteristics make it an
adequate place for a preliminary intervention. It is a conglomerate that shares many of the socio-
economic and crime features found in other places. It is located in the citys west and has 23,270
inhabitants. 17% of homes do not have waste collection. The population is mostly poor: 24% have
family incomes between one and two minimum wages. 10% of the population do not even have
monthly earnings. The rate of unemployment is strikingly high: 41% of the economically active
population.
Anyone who has transited along Avenida Raja Gabaglia, one of Belo Horizontes most elegant
commercial addresses, would think that the billboards advertising imported cars were deliberately
hiding one of the citys poorest and most violent places. The area was well known to the press: at
least two high-profile homicides happened there around that time. One, on October 15, 2000, took
the life of an architect. She was in her car with her husband and a couple of friends, waiting at a set
of traffic lights in an avenue on the edge of the conglomerate. They were approached by muggers,

16
who shot at them and killed the architect. There was much indignation expressed by the press, and
in just two days the murderer was arrested. But the episode led to the start of campaigns sponsored
by one of the citys most important newspapers.
Another of these events took place on March 17, 2001, when the owner/manager of one of the best-
known gyms in Belo Horizontes south side was killed by a police officer inside the conglomerate.
Apparently, the entrepreneur was there to buy drugs. When trying to escape a PM raid, he ended up
being shot by a police officer. Once again, measures relating to the punishment of the perpetrators
were taken very rapidly, and the officer in question was charged.
Each of these episodes, in its way, illustrates a facet of the homicide issue. The first is the relative
indifference towards the dozens of youngsters caught in the crossfire of gang wars in the
conglomerate. The episodes gained a high profile, but the public did not realize that the location
was one of the citys most violent. According to data from the police homicide division (Delegacia
de Crimes contra a Vida), in the two years preceding the project there were over a hundred
homicides. Molotov cocktails in public schools and lost bullets killing innocent people were
recurring events in the community.
In September 1999, a local drug dealer shot an elderly couple in the hands and feet for having
connections with one of his enemies. On September 13, 2001, traffickers dragged a 13-year-old boy
with his hands tied through the streets of the shantytown and executed him with a shot to the back
of the head in the presence of dozens of residents. Nobody came forward to give evidence.
Executions of drug users and members of rival gangs with shots to the head were common scenes in
the alleys and narrow passages of the locality.
The shantytowns strategic location between high-income neighborhoods, with easy access routes
and close to a private university, made it a prime point of sale for drugs. Occasionally, large
seizures would take place. In August 2000, for example, 18kg of crack were apprehended there.
This position was the motive for many of the gang wars over points of sale. Conflicts with the
police were frequent. On June 22, 2000, police officers confronted and ended up killing two young
men in the shantytown at different times. The first involved military police officers and the second
occurred when civilian police officers were carrying out investigations relating to the first
homicide. Both cases illustrate the tension surrounding police activities in the area.
All this made Morro das Pedras a challenge for a project such as the one that was being sketched
out. Already for some time, the groups participants had been looking for an adequate place for a
pilot intervention. Morro das Pedras had been looking like the best place due to the characteristics
of the crimes taking place there, with heavy youth participation in gangs and use of firearms. It was
already considered extremely dangerous by the police. But the decisive factor in the choice of
Morro das Pedras was a multiple homicide in Vila Leonina, one of its sub-divisions. On July 23,
2002, five people were murdered in a local bar. Of the five, only two had police records, for armed
robbery, armed robbery followed by death and illegal firearm possession. The execution caused
great commotion and perplexity among the population, especially since the last homicides had been
two long months before, when two traffickers were executed in a local bar.
Initially, as per usual, suspicions fell onto a notorious local dealer, with drug trafficking disputes as
the reason. However, after four days, a house caretaker was arrested. He allegedly killed the people
due to a quarrel between gangs of robbers over a homicide that took place months earlier. The case
ended up ratifying Morro das Pedras as the projects location due to the commotion it created
among the local population, and the attention it gained in the media and among public opinion.
The protagonists of the executions were always the same. Some of them were blamed for over ten
homicides. Within the structure of these groups, there were some members who were considered
the killers and became the levers or means to carry out the processes of violence. Sometimes, this
role was played by the leader of the group, who, as well as offering protection and some financial
support, was responsible for controlling activities and deviations. With reference to the conflicts in
Morro das Pedras, the police always used to talk about two rival gangs: that of Brs Street against
that of Muniz Street. Later on, a more detailed survey would show that at least six more gangs were
active in the area. Strictly speaking, each part of Morro das Pedras was the property of gangs that

17
sometimes were in alliance and at others were in conflict. Each of these territories was not crossed
by members of other gangs. Initially, it seems, the war between them was supplied with guns
provided by the son of a city councilor who was a drug user.
On February 12, 2001, the citys main newspaper carried a major headline on an exchange of fire
on the streets of Morro das Pedras between the Nem sem Terra and Sinha gangs against the
Titica gang, which ended up taking the life of a 57-year-old innocent bystander, as well as
injuring an 8-year-old child, who later died. On the following day, at the victims wake, another
exchange of fire ended up calling the attention of the press.
These characters were frequently featured in the crime section of the papers. Curiously, these
people were often involved with the police and the courts, and often being released. On June 2,
2000, two of them were arrested in a police raid motivated by gang conflicts. At the occasion, the
two dealers from Nem sem Terra and Titica gangs exchanged insults and threats in the presence of
police officers. One of the operations commanders lamented the fact that they would probably be
released by the court very soon, due to lack of evidence. And many of the threats would probably
be carried out over the course of innumerous gang conflicts.
Just three days later, after their release, a group shot at a police battalion headquarters, which led
the PM to occupy the conglomerate. Following a common pattern in such cases (large operations),
the information leaked and several local traffickers were able to hide their guns and drugs, and
leave the shantytown in time.
Once again, after a few days, the group led by the drug dealer Titica executed a crack user in front
of many residents. This episode came in the wake of the execution a few days earlier of a couple,
shot more than fifteen times with automatic pistols.
The use of minors by the traffickers was a common strategy with a clear logic. Given the so-called
protection given to minors by Brazilian legislation, according to which they cannot be made
criminally responsible, they would often assume the property of drugs or confess homicides.
Almost 20% of arrests in Minas Gerais for drug trafficking were of minors. In the case of Morro
das Pedras, an article published in Estado de Minas newspaper on July 9, exposed the fact that
many of the teenagers recruited went around armed. The article highlighted the case of an 11-year-
old who had committed a homicide.
In actual fact, this impunity resulted more from the inexistence of a correctional structure for
underage offenders. The precarious nature of the Tutelage Councils (Conselhos Tutelares),
combined with the poor training of the councilors, contributed to this picture of impunity. As often
happens in Brazil, the mere enactment of a law without any concern for its implementation, through
an institutional network with professionals trained up for the task, ended up making it ineffectual.
Paradoxically, this paralysis of the apparatus for punishing adolescents left many of them to
become victims of their peers. One of the episodes that mobilized the community was the murder of
the minor Leandro, killed in August 2000 while waiting for a socio-educational measure that never
came.

The Communitys Response

Violent communities tend to relegate violence and homicide issues to the background, developing a
fatalist sentiment towards them. They believe violence and homicides, as well as confrontations
with the police, happen to people involved with gangs and drugs, and that this is the natural result
of being in the movement. It is a price that must be paid. This is a way of rationalizing their
forced coexistence that derives from an attitude of distancing oneself from the issue, despite the fact
that many of those involved are brothers, nephews, relatives or acquaintances.

On the other hand, the drug trade turns over significant resources inside the communities. Although
the residents do not get involved directly with the trafficking, much of the local economy is built
around the money raised by the dealers. This includes local shops, service provision and even the

18
income of some families, where the parents or guardians do not worry much about the origin of the
money that, after all, is paying the household bills.
However, sometimes the conflicts end up making victims among innocent residents or workers.
This leads to reactions such as the one that took place in June 2000. People from the community,
tired of the conflicts and wars that took place there, decided to mobilize by painting their houses
white as a type of appeal for peace. The initiative came from a leader of a residents association of
one of the high-income neighborhoods that borders on the conglomerate. She had already taken part
in other activities that sought to integrate children and teenagers from the conglomerates by
creating the peace passport so as to avoid the stigmatization of the youngsters by shopkeepers
from the surrounding neighborhoods. In this case, the idea was to help the residents paint their
houses white to protest symbolically and recover residents self-esteem. In the end, this project
came to fruition only in part. The following month (August), Vicente do Prado, one of the regions
best known community leaders, led a demonstration in favor of peace.
However, the current attitude then was one of indifference and alienation, leading to a growing
inability to control residents activities. Given the territorial division into regions, residents could
not move freely across the conglomerate. Furthermore, due to the absence of a justice system that
was close to them, they ended up not cooperating with the police or the courts, hence contributing
to an even greater deterioration of the capacity of local control. This process, resulting from the low
level of local social capital, became a type of self-fulfilling prophecy, perpetuating indifference and
fatalism with regards to local problems.

The Police Presence in Violent Communities

One of the difficult problems to be faced in such places is the bad relationship between the police
forces and the local populations. The usual policing strategy is basically the same all over Brazil:
reactive, sporadic and often violent. This whole context of conflicts generates an ambiguous feeling
on the part of residents in relation to the police forces. On the one hand, given the serious problems
created by the gangs, security is one of the most sought-after public services. The scenes of explicit
gun use and sale and consumption of drugs in public are indicative of the level of disorder and lack
of civility in the communities. On the other, the polices lack of training to deal with such situations
in urban conglomerates, combined with the lack of information regarding local crime activity, end
up making the interaction with local communities very difficult.

Complaints of police violence are a recurring theme among youths attended to by municipal
cultural programs. Complaints over the actions of bad police officers in these places are very
common, and involve violence, corruption and extortion of drug dealers. These things are often
witnessed by residents.
One of the reasons for this localized and inefficient police performance has to do with a certain
culture that believes that the homicides that take place in these locations are among bandits who
deserve what they get. It is a matter, in their own words, of dogs eating dogs. Therefore, the more
this happens, the better for all. It so happens that the dogs never end, and are reproducing as
never before. The sound of gunfire is more and more intense, and the noise is beginning to reach
the Casa Grande.
The image of the police, as attested by a survey conducted by CRISP, is negative, especially in the
citys poor conglomerates. Complaints of unnecessarily rude and brutal approaches are constant in
these places. This partly results from the way police forces usually attend these places, that is,
during large, sporadic operations. Many ended up leaking to groups connected with the traffickers,
indicating a larger, recurring problem.

The Problem of Police Corruption

The leaking of information on police operations was only the tip of an iceberg of problems related
to police corruption. One of the features of the drug trade in Brazil is that it is conducted in the

19
streets in well-known addresses. Unlike in other countries such as the USA, for example, where
deals are done inside homes (making investigating much more difficult), in Brazil they are done
openly in public places of the shantytowns. This is partly due to the urban makeup of such places,
which makes police operations difficult. And even when they happen, they are easily detected by
sentries and salespeople. There is a whole system of surveillance and control of the shantytowns
entrances and of the points of sale of drugs, which is put into action whenever a police raid takes
place.

On the other hand, this characteristic reveals how the corruption scheme involving police officers
occurs in these places. This type of activity is impossible without the knowledge of some police
officers as to how and where it takes place, and who is involved. Hence, a fair amount of the
corruption consists simply of letting the trade happen, without direct police involvement in the
transactions between traffickers, although this may happen as well.
Police officers from each of the forces take part in this type of transaction in different ways. The
ones who act more openly in ostensive policing may provide benefits in the form of non-
interference in sales activities. Police officers in charge of investigations may provide protection
and immunity from justice for traffickers. Each police activity takes charge of supplying the
appropriate opportunities in the shape of different types of services for traffickers.
A third way would be through the elimination of incriminating evidence or of undesirable
competitors who are getting in the way of a gangs business. Many executions may take place
involving gang members with the connivance of police officers, or involving groups of police
officers directly. These extermination activities do occur, and are often carried out by police
officers claiming self-defense. In Brazilian states like So Paulo, which took upon itself the task of
specifically investigating such acts, it was found that a significant share of those killed in
confrontations with the police had clear characteristics of execution. This depends largely on the
top brass, who authorize or shut their eyes to this type of police conduct.
Lastly, it can happen by means of the offer of guns or drugs apprehended by police that are then
sold to other gangs. This happens in a more fragmented and diffuse way, although it may also
involve large transactions. This type of transaction may make the corruption more visible and
attract major operations from the Federal Police. Although more profitable, it is also more
dangerous and requires the participation of more senior officers. Here, one enters into a much more
organized level of criminality.

The Culture of Violence and Conflict

On September 13, 2001, a 13-year-old with his hands tied by electric wire was dragged through the
streets of Morro das Pedras and exhibited as game by the members of a gang who did not care to
cover their faces. The boy was executed shortly thereafter, with a shot to the back of the head. The
perpetrators, who were arrested by chance a few days later, emblematically called themselves
bloody angels, indicating the mix of youth (all were between 20 and 23 years old) with a
readiness to commit cruel acts. An analysis of executions carried out by traffickers indicated that
they fire four times, on average. The shots are meant to disfigure the victims and as a warning to the
local population as to who is the law in those parts.

In fact, this is a component of one of the most notable aspects of these places: the culture of
violence and conflict that exists there. The violent resolution of disputes is a common practice
among young men. Any motive becomes the trigger for a violent confrontation between youngsters.
A badly placed comment, a glance at somebody elses girlfriend, an allegedly disrespectful act, an
old quarrel or, very often, a small drug debt may become the motive for a demonstration of
authority on the part of gang leaders. The exercise of this authority through fear takes on its most
violent forms as a sign of who is the local boss. This bossism reflects one of the most curious
characteristics of this culture: the enormous degree of traditionalism present in the relations
between gangs. More than killing, the aim is to show symbolic signs of authority in the most

20
traditional way possible, as was the case with Brazils centuries-old local mandonismo. Gangs in
Medellin resorted to the same ritual of exemplary executions, in an allusion to traditional practices
of Colombian landowners and local bosses. Over there, as in Brazil, the aim was to recover the
purest rural traditions of local potentates that persist to this day in remote corners of the country.
These seem to have found their contemporary expression among young gang members in the
conglomerates of large urban centers.
One of the most traditional manifestations of these forms of power is the demarcation of spaces and
territories inside the shantytowns. These become the property of the gangs. Partly, this demarcation
obeys a certain commercial logic in terms of the distribution of points of sale of drugs. Certain
regions may have easier access routes or be in more valuable areas. Proximity to major avenues and
routes of entry into the shantytown attract consumers with more buying power. However, it may
also follow the same type of instinct employed in the demarcation of territories under the guise of
authority maintained by violence. More than a commercial issue, it is an issue of identity, to which
the residents must subordinate themselves.
Worryingly, this culture of conflict and violence, with its associations of virility and cruelty, has
been spreading among youth. Schoolchildren use the signs of violence by learning and reproducing
these relations. The work of educators reveals how this universe of intolerance and sexism among
children, reproduced in their everyday games, is structured. Hence, sexual practice is often similar
to rape, and the use of toy guns represents situations actually experienced by the students. The
testimony of a teenager who got a shotgun as a present from his father, a drug dealer, illustrates this
trivialization of violence among the young: I got it [the shotgun] from my father when I was eight
years old. It was a double-barrel shotgun. I remember he used to practice shooting at cans and
pieces of glass. All this happened in the middle of the shantytown and the residents would see it as
something common. This daily life of violence ends up victimizing many who become involved
with gangs, as happened to the teenager mentioned above, who lost his parents, a sister and his wife
as a result of conflicts.
Undoing this process of socialization seems like one of the biggest challenges for any violence
control projects in these places. This would require the training of educators, social workers and
psychologists, who at present are not ready.

Idleness

One of the things that most calls the attention of someone who goes to a shantytown for the first
time is the degree of idleness that can be observed there, especially among the young. Since they do
not spend the whole day at school, it is very common to see groups of youngsters along the streets
and alleys, completely idle at two in the afternoon. This component undoubtedly explains much of
the attraction that the gangs exert over them. Because they do not have any conventional alternative
occupation, the most interesting thing happening around there is the movement. Hence the high
percentage of youngsters who become involved with gangs, be it as occasional drug users or as
actual participants in the group. However, few persist with this involvement in a continuous and
systematic way. This professionalization affects only a few youngsters, who are responsible for a
large part of the crimes committed.

21
VI. INTERVENTION STRATEGIES

At this stage, the need to act at the three levels of problems highlighted by the working groups
became clear. At the institutional level, the idea was to develop more long-term projects that would
be made effective by the various bodies and agencies in charge of preventive policies and programs
geared towards youth and adolescents. Given the pilot nature of the project, this was a more
complicated level of intervention, since it demanded the involvement of agencies responsible for
implementing public policies, which was not the case of the group. This would have meant a
reorientation of the habitual conduct of the many agencies and bodies involved. Traditional social
projects rarely have elements of crime prevention. As the gubernatorial elections were near, the
chosen option was to lobby the victor to incorporate suggestions along these lines. This line of
action of institutionalization of the project proved very successful, as will be seen later.

In terms of organization, there was the need to develop shorter-term measures, whose initial content
was of a more repressive character. This involved some changes to the organizational design of the
relevant agencies. Basically, the discussion was how to give a more organic character and more
effectiveness to actions at this level, especially to police actions in relation to the justice system.
For such, changes in the police forces were introduced, like the creation of a specialized unit for
patrolling risk areas. Furthermore, joint action protocols were developed between the Public
Prosecution Service and the Criminal Courts.
There is also a community level of intervention, which refers to measures to mobilize the groups
and associations present there. Given that one of the problems observed related to the low collective
mobilization capacity that existed there, as well as the resulting absence of control, this type of
mobilization was especially relevant. It refers to one of the projects crucial themes, which is the
empowerment of the local community so that it may take back control over itself.
Lastly, at the individual level, one sought to develop awareness-raising strategies among youngsters
by means of campaigns on TV, on the radio, in schools and through leafleting. One of the notable
aspects detected in the interviews with the working group was the fact that many youngsters seem
unaware of the situation with which they are involved by being in a gang. According to statements
from groups that deal with youngsters carrying out educational measures, although they have a
certain amount of fatalism in relation to their future, there is also some chance of them leaving if
other options are given. Information on the risks of involvement and alternative socialization and
occupation routes seemed like the right path to take, from this perspective.
On the basis of the problems diagnosed, one opted for setting up a working group, with two central
sub-groups, on strategy implementation. The core concept of Working Group aimed at conveying
the idea of a set of diverse agencies, none of which had authority over the others. It was a
collective, integrated form of management. There was no institutional property, and agencies and
bodies were incorporated in a snowball strategy, where different actors were brought into the
nucleus inasmuch as needs were identified. This collective management partly ensured that the
game of vanities and rivalries between agencies did not prevail over the interests of the project. All
were responsible for the successes and mistakes, and nobody would have greater share of the onus
or of the dividends achieved. It also ensured that any problem relating to the agencies would be
solved internally, within the group. In other words, any difference of opinion at the institutional
level or conflict that might exist would be discussed and the solution taken forward by the groups
members. This meant the end of the famous game of pushing responsibilities to other institutions of
the justice system, so that if one failed it was everybodys problem.

The Strategic Interventions

The initial work hypotheses assumed there was an intimate connection between crime and drugs,
hence pointing to a need to increase the costs associated with homicides related to gangs and
trafficking. There were rules that, when broken, implied sanctions and costs in the form of an
intervention in the drug market. Every time there was a homicide, the PM would stage an open-

22
ended occupation of the conglomerates, with special attention to the drug traffickers points of sale.
Search operations to apprehend guns became routine and were intensified. The aim was to make the
sale and consumption of drugs in these places as uncomfortable as possible. The pattern of
victimization, that is, homicides happening at weekends and at night, suggested that the
interventions should be carried out particularly during these periods. Further, undercover policing
investigations were intensified to identify criminal activities. The whole thing was an exercise of
authority simultaneously carried through by the Military Police, the Civilian Police, the Public
Prosecution Service and the courts, charged with producing arrest warrants, and involving careful
investigation of each homicide and related crimes.

The strategy of intervening in markets can be very efficient, given that one is dealing with crimes
that are organized commercially and are geared to markets. Hence, the costs of this type of crime
need to be increased, making it non-profitable. It is a way the state can intervene in this market to
reduce the number of homicides associated with systemic violence. The investigations conducted in
the points of sale indicated that this was a small-scale enterprise. The large transactions did not take
place in the shantytowns. Contrary to the usual image of the dealer, what was observed was that the
sale of drugs turned over relatively small sums. Given that a significant portion was meant for
maintaining the flow of the drug supply and the payroll, any interruption could lead to serious
losses for the gangs.
The Strategic Actions Group was formed with representatives from the Military Police, the Civilian
Police, the Federal Police, the Public Prosecution Service and the Judiciary. The members from the
Public Prosecution Service and the Judiciary had in their specific remits combating intentional
homicides. Prosecutors and judges from the following fields were called to sit on the group:
Childhood and Adolescence, the Jury Court, Criminal Courts, Narcotics Courts, Corrections Courts
and Courts for the Combat of Organized Crime.
At a first stage, the Group met and set out a plan for the intervention, which developed through the
gathering of data and by identifying with photos the main parties involved with homicides,
including teenage transgressors. This was an intelligence activity for the Military, Civilian and
Federal police forces. Fortnightly meetings were held, and emergency meetings were called when a
homicide occurred, to exchange and discuss information coming from each of the bodies involved.
The idea was to develop immediate forms of reaction so as to establish a causality mechanism
between homicides and strategic action.
The information gathered by the Military, Civilian and Federal police forces was forwarded to
prosecutors who would request from judges the issuing of arrest warrants (preventive/temporary)
and search warrants against gang leaders and their main members, as well as apprehension warrants
against adolescent transgressors. All this was done reasonably fast and with as little formality as
possible. The Military, Civilian and Federal police forces organized operations to enforce the
warrants.

Changes in the Police Forces

The data on perceptions of the police led to changes in the allocation of human resources in the
region of the pilot project. The Patrol Group for Risk Areas (GEPAR) was created. The policing
command recruited the officers with the most adequate profile in terms of interacting with the local
community, so as to alter perceptions of the police. Furthermore, some of the more aggressive
policing units were warned to report to the commander and to local managers before the operations.
One might say that this alteration in the relations is one of the key elements for the success of
projects of this nature. Hence the special care in the allocation of personnel and in the planning of
operations to be carried out.

In practice, many conflicts carried on existing. Between and within the police forces, several
actions took place that were disconnected from the aims of the program. The ROTAM battalion,
that conducts ostensive policing in the city, has its own agenda, which apparently means it is not

23
obliged to account for its actions before any local commanders. Equally, the specialized Civilian
Police units act in accordance with the investigations they are conducting and without much
communication with one another. The narcotics division does not let the regional Civilian Police
chief know about the investigations that he/she could be carrying out at the interventions location.
Another confusion occurred within the Working Group. For a long time the project was boasted
about as a police project, which ended up compromising the commitments between the various
participant groups. Rather than a statement of fact, it was a case of institutional arrogance, but one
of a kind that is still very common in police circles.
One of the ways to get round this type of situation was for the commanders, chiefs and top police
managers themselves to take on the overall collective coordination, so that should disputes occur,
they could be resolved at this level.
One of the central problems was to establish a flow of information between the agencies. Because
they are quite formal, legalistic and bureaucratic organizations, relations between them depend on
very formal and slow procedures. If a police station chief needs a search warrant, he/she has to
follow a series of rituals and bureaucratic routines before going out into the streets. Equally, if a
prosecutor needs a police intervention, memos are exchanged and forwarded within routines that
can take days, or even months. The excess of bureaucracy was a recurring complaint at the
meetings that preceded the interventions themselves. The solution was to make the communication
process as fluent as possible through an almost ingenuous means, the exchange of mobile phone
numbers of the projects participants. This contributed to the enhancement of the exchange of
information and to the speeding up of procedures, so that if someone needed an intervention from
one of the participating institutions, all it took was a phone call to the institutional representative.
Hence, the issuing of arrest warrants was speeded up, as were police interventions that might be
necessary, without following the usual slow routine of paper exchanges between the organizations.
Another way of expediting processes came out of discussions on relations between criminal
prosecutors and judges that led to the creation of a joint forum. In it, participants aim to establish
some legal expedients that can speed up the flow of charges until the lawsuit stage, as well as
security issues regarding projects and procedures inside courthouses. For example, this group of
judges and prosecutors sought to develop ways of preventing arrest warrants from being so visible
within courthouses. They would circulate in full view of criminals lawyers and accomplices. The
result was that criminals would always be warned before the police received the documents.
Another notable result of this forum was the establishment of some priorities regarding homicides.
The first was to classify suits that were pending according to the danger level of the defendants.
The information gathered by the police forces would be rapidly forwarded to prosecutors, who
would then request from judges the issuing of arrest warrants (preventive/temporary) and search
warrants against the leaders and main members of gangs, as well as apprehension warrants against
teenage transgressors.

The Large Police Operations

There were two major problems with the large operations. The first was that they were impossible
to maintain in the long run, due to their high cost. Keeping a large number of police officers
occupying an inextricable network of alleys meant a logistically complex and expensive operation,
especially because in these cases it was impossible to count on the cooperation of the local
population.

There was an additional problem: the fact that such operations were leaked to the traffickers by the
very officers due to take part in them. This clearly showed the workings of the network of
corruption and promiscuity that exists between police officers and drug dealers in some of the citys
shantytowns. In fact, there did not always use to be a material exchange or financial benefits, but
rather, a complex web of friendship and kinship ties with gang members, as a result of where the
police officers themselves lived and spent their childhoods.

24
The ineffectiveness of this strategy notwithstanding, the option was made to carry out this type of
operation as an authority exercise of a symbolic character, with the aim of connecting a cause and
an effect: every time there was a homicide, there would be large-scale joint operations. In the case
of Morro das Pedras, the large operations were important as the projects symbolic starting point,
especially since they were conducted jointly.
This group had the advantage of producing results very quickly. By focusing the actions on people
with leverage over local violence processes, the results appeared rapidly. On the other hand, this
was not very simple. While some of them were violent youngsters vulnerable to police action,
others were traffickers with a well-articulated network of legal and informal protection. For
example, the most important one of the latter had never been arrested, though he had always been in
the conglomerate. Apparently, he was one of the main parties interested in ending the cycle of
violence begun by the gang war, and he certainly did not make an effort to end it. Anyway, it was
very clear that although strategic actions produced a significant initial impact, they could not be
sustained over time without social development actions and community mobilization.

The Community Mobilization Group

Social development measures at community level have a very different impact from strategic
actions. Police and justice system actions tend to have an immediate effect, while those relating to
community involvement tend to have effects in the medium and long term. On the other hand, it
was more or less a consensus that repressive measures alone could not be sustained over time
without a minimum of community support. Furthermore, social development measures are what
reduce the recruitment of youngsters by the gangs, with a more lasting effect over violence control.
Professional training workshops can be an efficient tool for occupying youngsters time, as long as
they are well directed.

With this spirit, the strategy for incorporating several bodies and agencies began. Hence, the Belo
Horizonte Municipal Social Defense Council and several public bodies from the regional and
municipal administration added their names to the Federal University of Minas Gerais, the Military
Police and partners from private enterprise, such as CDL, SESI and SEBRAE. The group started
meeting regularly to discuss the articulation of actions implemented by the various partners, the
flow of demands from the community and the evaluation of actions developed.
The incorporation of local community leaders into the group was also defined. They were offered
the course Citizenship and peoples participation in the solving of problems, given by the Belo
Horizonte city council and CRISP/UFMG, where they were presented with a socio-demographic
diagnosis of Morro das Pedras and the communitys main problems were debated. A methodology
of discussion and intervention was presented. Lines of work were developed initially around the
following topics. The first related to information and communication. Actions were implemented of
an educational and informative nature aimed primarily at the young, dealing with the problem of
violence in the region and its main determining factors, emphasizing the nefarious impacts of
violence on the life of individuals and the community. The information and education actions aimed
primarily at informing people about the project and at dissuading youngsters from joining local
gangs and using violence to solve problems. These actions were implemented through the
distribution of leaflets, lectures in schools and an interview in one of the local community radio
stations. There was also the very beginning of actions to provide shelter and protection for victims
of violence, which added to already existing activities to accompany youngsters under the Assisted
Freedom program.
Because the project did not have any financial backing, it sought to maximize, optimize and
rationalize the municipal resources meant for the regions professional qualification needs, income
generation projects, cultural projects, sports projects and leadership training courses, with priority
for the young clientele in situations of risk. Other partnerships sought to involve local public
services in the Project, such as municipal and state schools, health units, the Military Police, NGOs,
the Tutelage Council, the Family Support Nucleus etc.

25
A local reference group was constituted to facilitate the community mobilization activities. Its role
was to identify local problems and demands. It also served to disseminate information and orient
the community. The meetings were monthly. In the first few meetings only a small number of
suspicious residents took part, for there was a history of frustrating experiences with the authorities.
As the results started to show, the number of those in attendance grew significantly. Some meetings
had over fifty participants from the community.
The first and most permanent challenge before the working groups was developing channels of
communication with the youth actually involved with crime and delinquency. As a rule, social
projects and actions in shantytowns do not reach youngsters at risk of becoming involved with
violence but, rather, those who would never have problems with it. Their involvement in such
projects was proof precisely of this. The difficult thing was to reach those youngsters directly
involved with the gangs. This task was a thorny one, inasmuch as the professionals from various
social areas were very much afraid of them. Incidentally, this fear was one of the main motivating
factors for their involvement with gangs, and not by chance: many enjoy making people be afraid of
them.
Already in August, at the start of the project, a meeting was held to explain to the residents what
would be done. One of the communitys first contributions was to suggest a change in the projects
name. Initially it was called Homicide Control in the City of Belo Horizonte, a rather technical
name. The local people requested a new name right from the start. They did not want their
community to be identified immediately with homicides. This, in fact, was a recurring complaint
during the meetings: the stigma of violence associated to the community. An NGO from the
communication field then developed the brand for which the project became known: Fica Vivo
(Stay Alive/Stay Sharp). The name meant at the same time a request and a warning to young
people.
The setting up of an institutional protection network for youngsters who were ready to abandon the
gangs was one of the basic pillars. Nothing new was being sought, just the targeting of resources
already in existence at the level of the city council, voluntary organizations and organizations of
reference for citizens, and using the know-how of organizations such as the Assisted Freedom
program and the UFMG health program as important contributions to the assistance of teenagers at
risk of becoming involved with gangs. Sexuality problems that might end up leading to violent
events were approached by a team from the UFMG Medical School, which also took charge of
providing guidance on several issues related to adolescence and puberty.
The program for the fulfillment of socio-educational measures Assisted Freedom was
fundamental in establishing a more direct channel of communication precisely with those
youngsters that conventional social programs do not manage to reach. But the most meaningful
result of the contact with these teenagers was to understand a little of the cognitive and symbolic
universe within which the gangs operated and ended up becoming the focus of youngsters
attraction. Several interviews were conducted with youngsters who in principle would have nothing
to do with more violent crimes, otherwise they would not have the right to benefit from the
measure. However, many were deeply involved with gangs, and through them it was possible to
have an insight into the recruitment and the careers in gangs. An important item of information that
the interviews helped uncover was that, unlike the common belief within and without the
community, involvement with gangs has no glamour or attraction for those already inside. Fear is a
constant partner due to the conflicts with other groups. One of the interviewees, a 14-year-old who
suffered from gastritis, could only sleep under the influence of sedatives. He feared that at any
moment, in an alley or the most unexpected of places, he could be the victim of the fury of his
enemies in the shantytown.
Another curious item of information was that the geographic universe of action of the gangs is very
small. It does not even include all the space of the conglomerate, but is restricted to the few square
meters of the gangs jurisdiction. Any movement outside this jurisdiction or outside the
conglomerate required much caution and a certain amount of logistical preparation. Curiously, the
lords of life and death were not masters of their own movements, maintaining their reign of terror in

26
a geographically limited space, a few meters away from the houses where they were born and
raised.
In one of the interviews with these youngsters, the attraction exerted by the leaders was very
explicit: people were afraid of them, they were desired by women and always had new cars or
motorbikes. Furthermore, the media constantly adulated them, as has already been discussed. In
other words, no other reference was offered to them, so that they aspired to what was immediately
available. They did not intend to become liberal professionals or teachers because they knew this
was beyond their grasp. But not trafficking: it was close, available and accessible.
The dramatic part of all these cases according to the interviewees was that nobody had ever told the
other side of this story of apparent success. Life was short and death was violent and brutish, as
in a hobbesian nightmare. This concrete perspective of a violent death for an adolescent is virtually
inexistent until it presents itself in the shape of gun battles with other gangs or the police. With the
imminent and absolutely unforeseeable closure of their fifteen or sixteen-year-old immortality,
many of them end up regretting their choice, even though it is late in the day. In the words of one of
them, if someone had told me before
A major national and regional TV network became interested in these issues and decided to sponsor
and broadcast during local news programs a series of vignettes with interviews telling the other
side of the story of gang involvement.
The relationship with the media was a crucial factor for the project. The strategy adopted was to
supply as much data as possible to journalists through a media relations service set up with this
goal. The aim was to eliminate the manipulation and the ambiguities created by the security bodies
traditional policies. Further, the strategy minimized significantly the effect of parallel information,
often with questionable intentions.
Ideas Out of Place
Many communication strategies were developed on the basis of international experiences. In
Boston, they also adopted the line of demystifying criminal activities by putting up in public places
a series of posters showing which gang members were in jail, which had been killed etc. Generally
speaking, the idea was to deconstruct the image of the local heroes, depicting them as people who,
in the end, could not be taken as a reference for anything.
Based on these well-intentioned ideas, some members of the group, whose task was to give lectures
in schools, took this material to show to students. To their surprise, there was a generalized ill
feeling. They realized, then, that some students were relatives of those on the posters, and even the
teacher was the sister of one of them. This episode made very clear something that from a more
theoretical point of view was paradoxical, revealed by the analysis of data. The cohesion among
members of communities often results in bonds of this nature and does not necessarily mean they
are predisposed to exercising forms of social control. The question was, is it possible to maintain a
certain degree of social cohesion with low levels of efficacy in violence control, as well as of social
capital?

27
VII. AND THE RESULTS?

Many results were achieved after a few months of the projects implementation. To begin with, in
the first few months a significant drop in the number of homicides in the conglomerate was
achieved: over 40%. Between August and November 2001 there were 14 homicides in the area,
while for the same period of 2002, there were 7. The same occurred in relation to the period
immediately before the project: 15 homicides between April and July 2002, falling to 7 between
August and November 2002.

The impact of the project spread to the surrounding area as well. Comparing the period between
August and November 2001 with the same period in 2002, there was a significant drop in
homicides within a 300m radius of the conglomerate, from 11 to 6. This also applied to stick-ups of
bakeries, down from 13 to 4. Furthermore, other violent crimes rates also fell, a result not originally
anticipated by the projects formulators.
However, later on when the new state governor took over, there was an increase in mortality among
gang members for reasons related to the projects institutionalization and to the reaction of
conservative sectors of the police forces. With the restructuring of the security sector by the new
state government and the incorporation of the project as a state policy, there were virulent reactions
inside the police force, often leading to explicit acts of sabotage against the program.
To complete the picture of dark clouds in the sky literally in this period, a long spell of heavy
rains led to some mudslides and to a tragedy in the conglomerate, when almost every member of a
family was buried to death. This paralyzed the project for nearly two months, as well as creating
much ill will among the locals towards the city council.
However, the participation of less conservative groups of the police forces allowed the community
mobilization activities to continue, even if precariously. This facilitated a violence reduction
process witnessed by several spectators. This pacification is also witnessed by several people who
live in the conglomerate and its surroundings. It is said that the sound of gunshots is now much
rarer than before the project began. The residents of neighboring areas are emphatic in attesting to
the end of the routine gun battles that used to happen there every weekend. The feeling of security
that this represents is indescribable.
Local residents say they have taken back spaces of the shantytown. Traffickers still occupy some
places, but not as ostensibly as before. Firearms are less visible and residents can circulate in any of
the vilas. From the point of view of local people, this reclaiming of the space by the community is a
priceless gain.
Although nothing spectacular in fact happened at the prevention workshops, the community
mobilization actions generated a significant gain in terms of the communitys social capitalization.
This was particularly relevant, since one of the objectives was precisely the empowerment of the
community. Notwithstanding the State-oriented and ideological utopias that some projects of this
nature tend have, without the support of local residents the chances of success are significantly
reduced. It was very clear that the activities of the Strategic Actions Group meant only to lay down
the conditions for this community empowerment to take place. There were no logistical conditions
for maintaining the groups major actions for a long time. For any intervention to be successful, the
support of local residents was necessary.
One episode illustrates unquestionably this new phase in local life. During the period of the June
saints days festivals, the city council promised to help fund the conglomerates traditional party.
When the moment arrived to meet certain costs, the city pulled back, leaving the organizers in an
embarrassing situation. At this moment, one of the local dealers showed up graciously offering his
support. Perhaps for the first time ever, the offer was politely refused. Instead, a collection was
made among local shopkeepers, who did not hesitate to help.
The residents of Morro das Pedras recognize that much has changed after the project. Today, gangs
and trafficking are still markedly present in the shantytown, but without the centrality of the past.
The project had to be clear from the very beginning that it did not aim to reduce the dealing or

28
consumption of drugs, which would entail another type of strategy. Eliminating the most nefarious
consequences of the drug trade was already a major feat, in particular the fall in homicides and the
reclaiming of spaces by the community.

29
VIII. PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS

The simultaneous nature of actions of various sorts in this kind of project requires a balance
between them that is not always possible to stipulate adequately. The need for a multi-agency
approach is something easy to say but difficult to carry out. Many actions implemented by some
agencies do not have repercussions for other groups simply due to an absolute lack of
communication and articulation between them. With respect to the integration of the police forces,
as well as theirs with other groups, it is possible to notice some of the difficulties of this type of
approach. There exists an institutional insulation, which is not a prerogative of the police forces
alone, but also of welfare organizations that prefer to work without the involvement of police
officers. As a result, on many occasions the actions of the Strategic Actions Group and of the Social
Mobilization Group were disjointed, despite the projects coordination efforts. Furthermore,
sometimes certain isolated initiatives proliferated, but the groups and organizations responsible
were not articulated with the activitys sector coordination.

The same happens with police operations, sometimes with tragic results. Officers from other areas
and units made some disastrous incursions, without communicating this to those in charge of the
area or to the projects coordination. Some incursions ended with fatal victims among the residents,
which generated great animosity towards the police forces, hence compromising the nature of the
project. During one of them, a movement of residents blocked one of the citys most important
avenues in protest against the arbitrary action of a group of police officers.
On many occasions, these actions and units were not identified, which raised generalized suspicions
as to the motives of these operations.
The circulation of information is another factor that must be developed between the two groups.
Often, the occurrence of a homicide was not conveyed to the mobilization group or even to the
coordination, which would find out about it from the newspapers. This led to much embarrassment
during the community forums.
Another aspect of the information issue that was difficult to deal with, related to the organization
and circulation of data about the gangs. In this type of group, rotation and the creation of new
groups is the norm. The police forces, on the other hand, make their tasks routine whenever they
can, following the bureaucratic logic of their organization. This ends up making them incapable of
accompanying this dynamic. Actually, following the dual logic of every police organization, those
in frontline activities possess much of this information, even if in a diffuse and fragmented way.
The command posts do not have adequate mechanisms for incorporating a more detailed analysis of
the gangs.
Another compromising organizational aspect was the rotation of officers involved with the
project, leading to an unending process of learning the methodology and the fundamentals. For
such, it was necessary to develop some way of transmitting this information as efficiently as
possible, by organizing the projects documentation. Fixing police officers in their posts is a basic
commandment of community policing. But knowing the right moment to remove them when they
have become too immersed in the local environment is a management task that is not always easy
to define with clear rules.

The Institutionalization of the Project

With the election of a new governor who had chosen public security as one of his campaigns
central themes, and who had seized upon the homicide control program to be one of the central
pillars of his government, Fica Vivo passed to a different level. The university no longer led the
process. Actually, CRISPs role had always been to incubate and develop an intervention
methodology. Academic and research institutions have the advantage of being neutral. However, it
was not meant as an executor of public policies, merely as a developer and evaluator of projects,
models and methodologies. In this sense, projects like Fica Vivo depend on governmental actions,

30
in a field where governments have been shown to be wrong over the years, judging by the results
achieved.

On the other hand, there exist powerful interests acting against civilian interference in the police
forces. Some such interests are obscure, others are simply corporatist. There are groups without any
interest in external forms of control over police activity because this would mean making
transparent certain arrangements and business deals that they would rather keep in the shadows.
Others wish to maintain control much as any corporatist interest of whatever professional category,
that is, little civilian control over police activities. Governors do not have any influence over the
operational and administrative command of the police forces due to the constitutional format to
which they are subordinated. It is very difficult to have a results-oriented management in such a
corporatist context, for not even the posts of those in charge of producing these results are in the
hands of civilian executives.
For the government, all this meant a great challenge, and the first few months of the security field
were to show this very clearly. Because of numerous changes implemented in the public security
structure, old structures and interests initially sought to react and boycott a series of innovative
initiatives. One of the reactions was the tug-of-war between the new governor and police unions,
whose real motive was to establish who would call the shots. This conflict ended up leading to an
increase in violent crime rates without precedent in the history of the city or of the metropolitan
area. In the period just before and in the first year of the new government, violent crime rates rose
by over 75%. It was as if the police forces were staging a de facto strike. The maintenance of
sectors not in tune with the new proposals led to serious management problems. These resulted in
the abandonment of a series of innovative initiatives and proposals in favor of the old hard-line
management that had always yielded poor results.
Curiously, during this turbulent period, and despite the initial impact, Morro das Pedras was one of
the places in the city where crime rates rose the least. The management structures were kept,
through the commanders and some station chiefs. This meant that the area as a whole benefited.
These issues pointed to a re-think or a re-modeling of the project, which now would have an
institutional structure, but also the heavy bureaucratic inertia of the states day-to-day functioning.
But that is another story.

31
IX. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beato, Cludio C. Crime, Polcia e Espao Urbano. Mimeograph. Centre of Brazilian Studies,
Oxford University. 2005.

CRISP. Victimization Survey in Belo Horizonte. 2002.

Decker, Scott H. and Van Winkle, Barrik. 1996. Life in the Gang. Cambridge University Press.

Goldstein, Herman. 1990. Problem-Oriented Policing. McGraw-Hill, Inc.

Goldstein, Paul and Henry H. Brownstein, Patrick J. Ryan, Patricia A. Bellucci. Crack and
Homicide in New York City: A Case Study in Epidemiology of Violence. In Graig Reinarman
(ed.) Crack in America. University of California Press. 1997

Johnson, Bruce, Andrew Golub and Eloise Dunlap. The Rise and Decline of Hard Drugs, Drug
Markets, and Violence in Inner-City New York. In Alfred Blumstein and Joel Wallman. The
Crime Drop in America. Cambridge University Press. 2000.

Kennedy, David. 1996. Pulling Levers: Getting Deterrence Right. National Institute of Justice
Journal. U.S. Department of Justice. July. 1998.

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