This paper examines the increasing militarisation of Brazilian public security. It argues that the development of democracy is constrained by politicised armed forces and militarised police. Confusing security governance and institutional arrangements and the involvement of the army in policing constrain the development of democracy.
In Brazil, policing duties are undertaken by Military Police forces (undertaking general street policing and traffic supervision at state level), the Civilian Police (crime investigation), the Firefighter Corps (fire control and accidents), the State Military Household (government security and civil defence) and the army. Responding to increasing troop deployment in public security activities, the military created a Doctrine for Operations for Guaranteeing Law and Order (Op GLO) in which the disturbance of public order is loosely defined.
Brazil’s police forces are unequipped, badly trained, underpaid and frequently corrupt. Violence is escalating in Brazil’s major urban centres and there is an increasing loss of popular and federal government trust in state police forces. Public opinion favours an aggressive response to crime and approves of army intervention in public security. The federal military are preparing to play an increased role in the security of Rio de Janeiro. Army policing tactics are inspired by wartime operations.
Brazil’s Constitution gives the the Armed Forces the power to suspend the validity of judicial orders – to legally operate outside of the law. Further, if an Executive order is considered offensive to law and order, the military are constitutionally allowed not to follow it. Governance arrangements are such that:
- Brazil’s Military Police (and Firefighter Corps) are considered auxiliary forces to the army. The military police is under the direct control of the army’s Land Operations Command and is modelled on infantry battalions.
- The Legislative Assembly does not oversee the intelligence branch of the Military Police.
- Members of the state military have two bosses: the state and the federal government.
- The Ministry of Justice’s Public Security National Force, a sort of Federal Military Police created in 2004, is commanded at state level but coordinated federally.
In Brazil, as a result of the transition pact, electoral democracy is combined with authoritarian enclaves deeply embedded in the State apparatus. Brazil’s public officeholders use the army to solve their short-term problems, without accounting for the long-term consequences. This merging of the internal and external security role is dangerous, because:
- It shows that civilian and military elites believe very little in the possibility of a future consolidation of democracy.
- It bestows increasing powers on the military to the detriment of the Police. Increasingly, the Armed Forces, rather than the President or the National Congress, decide what threatens the political system
- It increases the possibility of the arbitrary use of violence, allowing ‘exceptional situations’ to be more frequently evoked and addressed using force.
- It exposes federal troops to direct contact with drug traffickers.
