The Politics of Police Violence in Democratic Brazil

University of Miami
The Politics of Police Violence in Democratic Brazil

Author(s): Ronald E. Ahnen
Source: Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Spring, 2007), pp. 141-164
Published by: Distributed by Wiley on behalf of the Center for Latin American Studies at
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The Politics of Police Violence
in Democratic Brazil
Ronald E. Abnen
ABSTRACT
More than a decade after Latin America's most recent turn to

democracy, unchecked police violence and torture continue and in
some cases have increased. This study examines police killings in
19 Brazilian states from 1994 to 2001 and finds that democracy has
not substantially reduced these types of human rights violations, for
two reasons. First, underlying social conflict has continued to exert
a significant impact on the lethal use of force by police officers.
Second, pro-order political coalitions, generally represented by
right-wing politicians, have blocked effective measures to control
police violence and have implemented public safety measures that
stress the use of force. The analysis emphasizes the nonteleological
nature of democratization processes and demonstrates the strength
of political forces working to maintain "illiberal democracy."
Since the fall in

democracy of 1985,
the Brazilian military
human rights dictatorship
conditions in that and the can
country return
best to
be described as very grave and, in some places, degenerating. Of
course, the human rights agenda no longer focuses on the rights of
politicians to criticize the state openly, but instead on the torture, dis-
appearance, and assassination of common citizens by the military and
civil police forces or other state agents. Studies indicate that since the
return to democracy, the rate at which Brazilian police officers kill or
torture their fellow citizens has not only risen substantially in some
locales, but clearly constitutes excessive use of force and therefore
abuse of basic rights (Caldeira 2000; Chevigny 1995; Mendez et al. 1999;
NEV 1993). For example, in 1992, according to official statistics, Sao
Paulo police were responsible for 1,470 civilian killings, or roughly 16
percent of all homicides in that state (Holston and Caldeira 1998).
Both conventional wisdom and several cross-national studies sug-
gest, however, that democratic governance is significantly associated
with less human rights abuse, especially in terms of the violation of a
person's physical integrity by state agents (Davenport 1995, 1999; Fein
1995; Henderson 1991; Poe et al.1999; Poe and Tate 1994). At the heart
of this democratic proposition lies a simple logic: when given a
choice, voters will turn out of office leaders who do not rein in police
abuse against common citizens like them. In addition, democratic
institutions underscore negotiation, dialogue, and nonviolent resolu-
141
142 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 49: 1
tion of conflict, which should also lessen human rights violations

(hereafter HRVs).
Brazil therefore presents a particularly puzzling case, because HRVs
have increased since redemocratization. This study demonstrates that
Brazil's fluctuations in police violence occurred not in spite of its tran-
sition to democracy but partly because of it. Democracy gives citizens
the opportunity to elect leaders who offer a heavy hand (mdoforte) in
dealing with the problem of crime and violence. When such candidates
take office, they often institute changes in public safety policy that
repress crime in ways that violate citizens' basic rights.
This study examines the rate of police killings in 19 Brazilian states
from 1994 to 2001 in light of partisan electoral politics. The two major
police forces in each state are the military and the civil police. Each has
a different role. The military police are responsible for day-to-day polic-
ing of the streets, both preventing and repressing crime. The civil police
are also known as the investigative or judiciary police, for their role is
limited to criminal investigations. Because the police forces in Brazil are
organized administratively at the state level of government, this study
focuses on the political, ideological, and partisan identification of state
governors. It posits that the partisanship of government leaders is a key
explanatory variable in determining the rate that police officers employ
deadly force. The study's findings show that the rate of police killings is
significantly lower in Brazilian states that are led by an executive from
the left or center left as opposed to the center, center-right, or right.
This study begins with a review of the literature on cross-national
studies of human rights violations in general, and studies of human
rights and police violence in Brazil in particular. It proposes a basic
model of police violence in Brazil that takes electoral incentives into
account. The model is tested using two estimates of the number and rate
(per one hundred thousand residents) of police killings, and an estimate
of the percentage of all reported homicides attributed to the police. The
study finds that partisanship remains a robust determinant of the rate of
killings by both the military and civil police forces.
RESEARCH ON HUMAN RIGHTS
In examining the literature on human rights abuse, the discussion here

is limited to violations of physical integrity of the person; that is, free-
dom from torture, disappearance, and extrajudicial killings. This litera-
ture can best be divided, according to methodology, into two camps:
cross-national analyses and case studies. In the past two decades, schol-
ars conducting cross-national research on human rights abuse have
made significant improvements both in methodology and in greater cov-
erage of countries and time periods (Davenport 1995, 1999; Fein 1995;
AHNEN: POLICE VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL 143
Henderson 1991; Poe et al. 1999; Poe and Tate 1994). As Davenport
points out, these studies are grounded in rational choice theory, and
conceptualize political repression as
a strategic choice that governments make among a number of

options in an attempt to bring about and maintain political quies-
cence. Governments are expected to employ repressive behavior
when the value of quiescence and the probability of success are
high and costs are low. Governments are less likely to violate human
rights, however, when the value of quiescence and the probability
of success are low and costs are high. (Davenport 1999, 95)
A key finding of these studies is that democratic governance has an

independent and significant impact on reducing human rights viola-
tions. It is interesting, however, that these studies differ substantially
regarding the theoretical relationship between these variables. At least
six different explanations have been offered to account for this positive
association. Democratic leaders are more responsive to citizen demands,
thus attenuating social conflict and eliminating the need for repression
(Henderson 1991). Democracy provides nonviolent channels to settle
disputes when they arise (Henderson 1991). Democracy allows for the
removal of leaders who would be ready to use repression against the
citizenry (Poe and Tate 1994). The civil liberties necessary for democ-
racy allow for widespread revelations by the media of the activities of
human rights abusers, thus bringing the weight of national and interna-
tional opinion to bear on government leaders and lowering the propen-
sity to abuse basic rights (Poe and Tate 1994). Citizens in democracies
are socialized, and operate in a political culture that values nonviolence
in dispute settlements (Mitchell and McCormick 1988). Finally, civil
society in democracies is freer and better able to create mechanisms of
control over the state's monopoly of the legitimate use of force (Chevi-
gny 1995).
This literature suffers from two serious problems. First, as noted
above, the relationship between democracy and human rights violations
is overdetermined. The difficulty is that even when a statistically signif-
icant association between the variables is found, the researcher is still
ignorant as to which of the six causal mechanisms (or which combina-
tion of the six) is responsible for generating the results. To resolve the
problem, researchers must utilize alternative indicators that more closely
approximate the specific theorized cause linked to democracy.
The second problem is that the opposite direction of the hypothesis
is rarely entertained in the literature on human rights, at least not theo-
retically; that is, that human rights conditions may deteriorate with the
onset of democracy. Nevertheless, several studies include theoretical
notions that support such a finding. One exception is Fein's 1995 study
of human rights abuse and regime transitions. She finds that human rights
violations are greater under nascent democratic regimes than under either
established authoritarian or democratic regimes. Fein explains that the
transition to democracy opens new avenues (both legal and political) for
the excluded masses to rebel against the propertied class. Repression
increases as the latter fears the victory of a populist government, poten-
tially directly threatening their interests. In addition, several recent studies
of democracy in Latin America demonstrate how democratic governance
in the region does not function adequately to ensure the protection of
basic freedoms enjoyed more widely in the postindustrial democracies
(Collier and Munck 2001; Collier and Levitsky 1997; Diamond 1996, 1999;
Dimenstein 1996; O'Donnell 1993, 1998, 1999).
Democracy may be associated with an increase of HRVs for several
reasons. As Fein theorizes, democracy may provide the opportunity for
the marginalized classes to gain a populist victory, thus creating incen-
tives for the middle and upper strata to employ repression in efforts to
prevent it (Fein 1995). In a climate of growing crime and violence, citi-
zens in newer democracies may vote for candidates who promise to
reestablish order through greater use of repression. Another reason is
that civil society in newer democracies is often more fragile because of
a lack of resources and leadership experience, and therefore less likely
to fulfill its role of holding abusive state agents accountable for their
actions. The deteriorating economic and social conditions that helped
usher in the transition to democracy can foster popular discontent and
the concomitant use of repression by the elite to maintain public order.
Furthermore, state institutions designed to protect individual rights (e.g.,
the judicial system) are often weak or only unevenly available to citi-
zens, thereby allowing state agents to engage in repression with
impunity and encouraging such action in the future.
Given these several reasons that democracy should help to improve
human rights conditions and another several to explain why it might
not, I argue that the impact of democracy on respect for basic rights is
indeterminate a priori, and depends on the social, political, and eco-
nomic context in which it operates.
This study seeks to make a significant contribution to the debate on
the causal mechanisms by which democracy affects human rights con-
ditions by focusing on partisanship and electoral politics with respect to
public safety policies while controlling for important social and eco-
nomic conditions. By employing variables that are more closely linked
to the theorized propositions, we can surmount the problem of overde-
termination and deepen our understanding of the specific links between
democracy and human rights violations.
In addition to regime type, several structural variables have received
wide support in the literature on HRVs because they alter the costs and
benefits of repression in the eyes of government leaders. Lower levels

of economic development, for example, are associated with greater
repression because scarcity is higher, and therefore conflict between the
haves and have-nots is more acute (Poe and Tate 1994). Rapid rates of
economic development generally increase repression because such
growth is often uneven, generating swift economic dislocation and
greater conflict among citizens (Olson 1963). Both poverty and inequal-
ity exacerbate the poor's jealousy of the rich, prompting the former to
rise up against the latter and generating incentives for greater repression
(Henderson 1991). Cano and Santos (2001) employ urbanization as a
key determinant of the general homicide rate in Brazilian states. It can
be argued, however, that higher levels of urbanization are expected to
be associated with greater police violence because the highly dense
urban areas are where most of the drug-trafficking networks and other
criminal activity that the police repress are found.
Turning to case studies, scholars focusing on police violence under
democracy in Brazil have, to date, put forth only broad sociopolitical
explanations of human rights abuse. Chevigny (1995), for example,
offers the pacification thesis. Here, police violence is viewed as the
product of the natural progression from a traditional society to a more
modern one. During an initial stage, citizens use force individually to
provide their own security. At a subsequent stage, these citizens become
horrified at the levels of violence in their society and decide to restrict
their ability to use force against one another (e.g., by adopting strict gun
laws), thereby granting a greater monopoly on the use of force to agents
of the state. Chevigny argues that citizens accept these restrictions only
in exchange for greater control over their police forces.
Pereira (2000) argues that Brazil's bifurcated society has led to a
type of hybrid regime type he calls "elitist liberalism." In his view,
democracy (and its concomitant respect for individual rights) is firmly in
place for the upper and middle classes of Brazil, but is only weak and
fragile for the poor masses. With highly limited access to the state insti-
tutions designed to protect their rights, the poor bear the brunt of police
violence, which the elite employ to obtain the poor's quiescence in
Brazil's extremely unequal society. Pereira's argument suggests that
human rights conditions will improve only when elitist liberalism is
overthrown and the principles of democracy are extended to protect all
citizens. Neither of these theories, however, sheds light on how positive
transformations toward greater protection of rights might occur. Most
important, as phenomena of society as a whole, such theories cannot
account for the ample variation in police violence observed in Brazil.
Other case studies of police violence in Brazil emphasize how insti-
tutional and policy factors play a significant role in reducing such vio-
lence. These factors include improved police training, higher salaries,
stricter use of force guidelines, and reduced levels of impunity (Bicudo

1994; Cano 1997; de Amorin Ratton 1996; Mesquita Neto 1999; O'Don-
nell 1999; Pinheiro 1996). While these factors probably do shape the
propensity of police officers to use deadly force, reliable and compara-
ble data on these variables across the Brazilian states are not available.
More fundamentally, however, these policy prescriptions are probably
tied to the political project of government leaders according to their ide-
ological leanings.
PUBLIC SECURITY, ELECTORAL INCENTIVES,

AND PARTISANSHIP
Issues of crime, public safety, and the arbitrary use of (often lethal) vio-
lence are pressing electoral issues that one can reasonably expect voters
to consider when casting their vote. Indeed, then presidential candidate
Jos6 Serra declared public security the most important issue of the 2002
presidential campaign (Jornal do Brasil 2002). The key theoretical con-
tribution of the present analysis is that it does not assume a strong
homogeneous concern across all citizens for greater protection of rights,
as the logic laid out by Davenport above suggests. Instead, the public
safety issue is problematized, conceptualized as a political partisan issue
that boils down to stressing one of two major goals.
The first goal is greater control of crime and increased public safety.
Often, leaders confronted with rising crime reach toward a simple solu-
tion: increased (and often more violent) police action. Concern for indi-
vidual rights (especially the rights of those being pursed by the police)
can weaken in such a context, even to the point of being nonexistent.
Politicians who take this stance are often labeled law and order candi-
dates, though their policy prescriptions are most often heavy on order
and very light on law. This position can be called the public order posi-
tion.view.
this Governor Luis Antonio Fleury of S.o Paulo (1990-94) promulgated
[t]he fact that this year there were more deaths caused by the [mil-
itary police] means that they are more active. The more police in
the streets, the more chances of confrontations between criminals
and policemen. . . . From my point of view, what the population
wants is that the police act boldly. (Quoted in Holston and Caldeira
1998, 272)
The opposing viewpoint is that the problems of crime and violence

must not be solved by trampling the very rights that engendered the
struggle for democracy and against the military dictatorship. Candidates
who profess this view emphasize rooting out police corruption, retrain-
ing police officers, creating an ombudsman to hear civilian complaints
against the police, and so on as major public safety platforms. More

broadly, these candidates argue that social and economic reforms, espe-
cially more resources for education, health, and employment genera-
tion, hold the greatest promise for solving the crime problem. This can
be called the individual rights position.
More sophisticated versions of this latter position marry the twin
goals of police restraint and reduced crime, claiming that crime will be
reduced only when the police forces consist of honest individuals acting
in a professional manner, equipped with more sophisticated tools than
just a handgun. For example, in his book on public safety, which helped
launch his successful gubernatorial bid in Rio de Janeiro in 1998,
Anthony Garotinho declared, "We propose a broad coalition and
democracy against barbarity: 1) the law is the limit of authority, 2) with
respect to public safety, the trade-off between efficiency and civil rights
is false" (Garotinho et al. 1998). Whether such a trade-off actually exists
or whether it is possible to marry the two goals is irrelevant to the pres-
ent analysis. The trade-off often appears real to candidates and voters
alike in considering their preferred positions and making appeals or in
making voting decisions.
The key hypothesis in this study is that governors on the right or
center-right favor the public order position and that therefore their states
exhibit higher rates of police killings, while politicians on the left or
center-left favor the individual rights position, and their states have
lower rates of police killings. The reasoning behind this hypothesis is
found in the historical roots of contemporary conservative and liberal
philosophies. Heywood (2003) notes, for example, that traditional con-
servative views stress that human nature is "imperfect" and that individ-
uals are generally motivated to act based on their "fear [of] isolation and
instability" (75-76). Thus, conservatives emphasize the need for main-
taining social order through a rigorous application of the law, even at
the expense of some liberty. Liberal philosophy, on the other hand,
posits the primacy of the individual to act as he or she sees fit. Left to
themselves, individuals will behave well, and the government would do
best to control the actions of individuals as little as possible (Heywood
2003, 28-30). Thus, the leftist approach to public safety policy empha-
sizes protecting the rights of individuals apprehended by the police and
the need to reduce and punish possible excess use of force against cit-
izens by police officers.
It is interesting that these views do not overlap neatly with eco-
nomic class. As Mainwaring et al. (2000) show, support for the left par-
ties often comes from the middle class, while the conservative parties
have a strong base in the more underdeveloped areas of the country
(68-71). This finding echoes poll research indicating that the acceptance
of violence as a means of social control among the citizenry is stronger
in underdeveloped areas in Brazil. In 2002, for example, 29.4 percent of

Brazilian respondents overall indicated that it is either right or usually
right for a police officer to kill a suspect after being apprehended, but
the respective average for the north and northeastern regions of the
country was 36.4 percent and for the remaining regions 26.0 percent.
Likewise, when asked about whether the police could physically beat a
suspect in order to obtain a confession, 35.9 percent of all Brazilians felt
that this was right or usually right, but the percentage rose to an aston-
ishing 45.1 percent in the northern and northeastern states and fell to
35.5 percent in the other states (PESB 2002).
CONTROL VARIABLES
Previous analyses have found support for a number of factors as signif-

icant determinants of human rights abuse, including lower levels of eco-
nomic development, rapid rates of economic expansion, higher rates of
poverty and inequality, the presence of civil or international war, and
greater population density. This study uses five control variables:
* Number of nonpolice homicides in the state

* Illiteracy rate
* Infant mortality rate
* Level of inequality
* Population density
Police violence is expected to increase in the face of higher homi-

cide rates as governors feel the heat from voters to provide adequate
public security. The remaining four variables control for social condi-
tions that the literature has widely suggested exhibit a positive associa-
tion with police violence. High rates of illiteracy and infant mortality are
chosen as indicators of lower levels of economic development. We
would expect the use of deadly force by police officers to increase
where illiteracy and infant mortality are higher because social conflict
among classes is sharper at lower levels of development. In addition, a
less formally educated citizenry will be less capable of organizing itself
to serve as an oversight body of the police forces. More police killings
are also expected where inequality is higher because the poor become
jealous of the rich and rebel against the social system that has left them
materially behind. In response, the rich attempt to thwart their efforts
via repression.
With respect to population density, two hypotheses are possible.
First, we might expect more police killings in the less densely populated
areas of the country, where politicians often act in collaboration with
local judges and law enforcement to control what is essentially a small
fiefdom. On the other hand, we might expect more police killings in the
more densely populated areas as a reaction to a greater intensity of vio-
lent criminal activity. Thus the expected direction of the relationship
between population density and police violence remains undetermined.
DATA AND METHODOLOGY
The most consistent and reliable figures on police killings in Brazil come
from the Database on Criminal Violence (Banco de dados sobre violdn-
cia, BDV) maintained by the National Human Rights Movement (Movi-
mento Nacional de Direitos Humanos, MNDH), in Brasilia. The BDV
consists of data about all homicides reported in several newspapers in
each state to ensure the most complete and comprehensive account of
homicides possible. Data collection is carried out by local human rights
organizations affiliated with the MNDH. Collection began in 1992 with
only 5 of 27 states participating that year and the next. Participation has
waxed and waned to the present, with some states joining the project
while others have dropped out. The original database contained infor-
mation on 107,984 homicides, including 8,035 attributed to police offi-
cers and municipal guards from 1994 through 2004. Since the inclusion
of states and years is unbalanced, this study attempts to minimize bias
by including only those states that reported data for at least four years.
The resulting dataset contains information on 99,724 homicides, includ-
ing 7,834 alleged killings by police officers reported in newspapers in
19 states between 1994 and 2001. The analysis uses a pooled time series
regression analysis with panel corrected standard errors on a dataset of
127 cases.
Previous research has demonstrated convincingly that official data

on police killings in Brazil are incomplete and unreliable. The federal
government has only recently begun to compile public security statistics
nationally (Ministry of Justice 2002). Unfortunately, even these federal
government tallies take for granted the reliability of the statistics
reported by states. While the federal government does maintain rela-
tively reliable data on general homicides for all states, these figures are
not sorted by alleged perpetrator.
In his very careful study of military police violence in Rio de
Janeiro, Cano (1997) shows that the methodology employed to record
police killings is quite unreliable, especially due to duplicate paperwork
filed for many cases (15-18). Cano painstakingly corrected the account-
ing errors regarding homicides by the military police from 1993 to 1996
by reviewing each case of the use of force. His research provides the
most meticulously corrected and accurate data available on police
killings for Rio de Janeiro to date. Unfortunately, however, his data
cover only killings by the military police from 1993 to the first half of
1996, and data from the BDV overlap with his dataset for only three
years (1994-96). Nevertheless, the coefficient of correlation between
Cano's data and the BDV is .972, further suggesting that the BDV data
are both accurate and reliable.1
The BDV dataset comprises more than 40 separate categories of
police officers, disaggregating, for example, instances in which a mili-
tary or civil police officer is on or off duty, and cases in which the offi-
cer is acting with others, such as criminals, death squads, and private
security guards. Information about which police force (military or civil)
the alleged perpetrator belongs to is often unavailable. The current
analysis collapsed the BDV categories into only three classifications: mil-
itary police (including any category that includes the military police per
se, whether on or off duty or acting with other agents), civil police
(including all categories that include civil police except those that com-
bine military and civil police, which are included in the former), and
other police (where no indication of force is given). The analysis is sep-
arated into three parts: killings by the military police, the civil police,
and all police (includes military, civil, and the residual police categories
summed together).
The use of data gathered from newspapers has the danger of intro-
ducing a bias among the more populous states and thereby the ques-
tion of reliability. Specifically, newspapers in such states report a far
lower percentage of homicides than those in the less populous states.
The explanation for this is clear: because newspapers in populous states
have so many homicides to cover, they limit their reporting to the more
newsworthy ones. Of course, one could argue that killings by police
officers are exactly the type of homicide that would not go unreported,
thus reducing if not eliminating this bias. Yet with rates of underreport-
ing of homicides as high as two-thirds or more in some states, this
seems unlikely.2 A comparison of the official homicide statistics as
reported by the Ministry of Health with the BDV demonstrates that the
bias is statistically significant (see table 1).
This study uses a simple and straightforward correction to this pos-
sible bias and runs the analysis on both the raw and corrected data. The
correction is based on the assumption that the number of police killings
reported in newspapers is indeed underreported, but that because
police killings are more interesting to the public, the underreporting rate
is probably not as high as the general underreporting rate. Therefore I
split the difference and estimate the number of police killings left unre-
ported to be 50 percent as high as the general underreporting rate. For
example, if newspapers in a particular state and year report 40 homi-
cides by police and exhibit an overall reporting rate of homicides of 80
percent (underreporting rate of 20 percent), we may estimate 5 addi-
tional homicides, for a total estimate of 45 police killings.3 In addition
Table 1. Average Annual Rate of Homicides as Reported in

Newspapers, 19 Brazilian States, 1994-2001
Reported
Rate (%) Population
Roraima 122 197,919
Acre 130 343,837
Tocantins 78 1,114,498
Sergipe 59 1,691,489
Amazonas 82 1,897,778
Federal District 52 1,934,875
Rio Grande do Norte 50 2,630,959
Alagoas 78 2,693,274
Piaui 151 2,718,521
Espirito Santo 116 2,905,256
Paraiba 140 3,357,516
Goias 52 4,769,428
Pari 84 5,768,451
Ceari 92 6,939,375
Pernambuco 50 7,534,110
Rio Grande do Sul 33 9,889,365
Bahia 102 12,881,865
Rio de Janeiro 30 13,703,318
S~o Paulo 31 35,398,542
Pearson Correlation -0.47 p = .02
Note: States are listed from least to most populous.

Sources: MNDH, BDV; IBGE estimates for 1998 population based on 1996 and esti-
mated growth rates.
to the actual number, this analysis also calculates the rate of police
killings per one hundred thousand residents in the state and estimates
the model using it (both actual and estimated). Further, the model is
used to estimate the percentage of all homicides in each state that are
alleged to be committed by police officers.
Operationalization of Independent Variables
The key independent variable in this study is the position of the gover-
nor on the left-right spectrum of political ideology. Political parties in
Brazil are known for their relative weakness and lack of coherence.
Indeed, party switching is endemic; many politicians belong to as many
as seven different parties over the course of their political careers.
Because partisanship does not correlate well with specific public policy
positions taken by individual politicians, finding support for this hypoth-
esis should not be easy. This variable is operationalized into three cat-
egories: right, center, or left. Right and center-right parties are based on
Mainwaring et al.'s classification (2000, 31-32) and Power's surveys of
the Brazilian Congress throughout the 1990s (Power 2000). Considered
to be at the ideological center are governors from two parties: the Party
of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB) and the Party of Brazil-
ian Social Democracy (PSDB). The rest of the governors are from par-
ties considered to be of the left.4
For the remaining independent variables, the number of nonpolice
homicides is estimated by subtracting the number of police homicides
from the total. Data on homicides are available from the Brazilian Min-
istry of Health's database on mortality (DATASUS 2002).5
Methodological Considerations
As is standard with pooled time series, heteroskedasticity across panels

is assumed here.6 Since this dataset contains more panels than time peri-
ods, autocorrelation is less of a problem, and therefore least squares
dummy variables regression is used. This consists of OLS regression
with panel corrected standard errors. The complete model is as follows:
depvar = a + 1,popden + 32nphom + P33right + 34rt2020
+ 15i11+ P6infmort + e
Depvar is one of five dependent variables (number of police homicides,

number of estimated police homicides, police homicide rate, estimated
police homicide rate, and the percentage of all homicides that are attrib-
uted to the police) for each of the three police categories (military, civil,
and all). Popden is population density per square kilometer; right is the
party of the governor; rt2020 is the ratio of the top 20 percent of income
earners to the bottom 20 percent-an indicator of inequality; ill is the
rate of illiteracy; and infmort is the rate of infant mortality.
FINDINGS
The first important finding is that the number of police homicides varies
significantly by police force (see table 2). That is, military police officers
are responsible for five times as many homicides as civil police officers.
Of course, the military police force in each state is generally larger, but
usually in a ratio of about three to one. Therefore, even for their respec-
tive size, the military police are more likely to use deadly force than the
Table 2. Homicides by Police Officers in 19 States, 1994-2001
Number Percent
Military Police 6,021 76.8

Civil Police 1,067 13.6
Other Policea 747 9.5
All Police 7,835 100.0
"Includes police officers not identified by force, and may include both civil and mil-
itary police officers.
Source: MNDH, BDV.
civil police. This finding was expected, however, given the nature of
respective policing duties noted above.
A second finding is that the level of police homicides varies sub-
stantially across Brazilian states, as measured in two different ways. First,
the percentage of all homicides attributed to the police is very high in
three states with percentages above 15 percent: Rio de Janeiro, Para, and
Bahia (table 3). The state with the fourth-highest percentage of reported
police homicides (Rio Grande do Norte) has only about half those per-
centages (7.8 percent); from there the percentage declines slowly to 2.9
percent for Roraima. With respect to the rate of police homicides and
estimated police homicides, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia again demonstrate
accentuated levels, while Parai falls in ranking to eighth place and Acre
jumps to second place (figure 1, p. 155). If the high rankings of Rio de
Janeiro and Bahia with respect to police homicides per one hundred
thousand residents bear out the conventional wisdom that police vio-
lence takes place primarily in large urban centers, the ranking of the two
smallest states of Acre and Roraima does not confirm that notion. With
respect to the rate, these two states have the second- and seventh-most
violent police forces among the states considered, while Rio Grande do
Sul, a very populous state with a very large capital city, has the least.
Examining the trends of police violence across years from 1994 to
2001 reveals both good and bad news (figure 2, p. 156). The good news
is that rate of homicides by all police officers has declined generally
over the period in question. The overall rate of estimated police homi-
cides decreased by almost 9 percent, although the trend does show sub-
stantial fluctuations. For example, estimates show that the rate at which
the military police employed deadly force grew steadily for two years
through 1996, dropped for one year, then peaked in 1998. Sharp
declines in reported police homicide rates are evident in 1999 and 2000,
but the trend moves sharply upward again in 2001. Figure 2 also
demonstrates that the rate for total police killings is clearly driven by
homicides by military police officers. No strong patterns of homicides
Table 3. Homicides by Police Officers as Percentage of All Homicides

as Reported in State Newspapers, 19 States, 1994-2001
Military Civil Other All

Police Police Police Police
Rio de Janeiro 15.2 1.7 0.2 17.0

Para 9.1 3.9 2.5 15.4
Bahia 8.1 4.7 2.7 15.4
Rio Grande do Norte 4.8 1.1 1.8 7.8
Piaui 5.1 1.2 1.0 7.2
S~o Paulo 5.9 0.1 0.8 6.8
Alagoas 4.4 1.2 1.0 6.6
Federal District 4.7 0.9 0.9 6.6
Pernambuco 4.4 1.5 0.4 6.3
Paraiba 4.2 1.0 0.5 5.6
Sergipe 2.2 2.2 1.1 5.5
Goias 3.4 0.7 0.5 4.6
Acre 2.7 1.3 0.4 4.4
Tocantins 3.4 0.7 0.2 4.3
Rio Grande do Sul 3.2 0.4 0.6 4.2
Ceari 3.3 0.5 0.2 4.0
Amazonas 2.0 0.6 1.0 3.6
Espirito Santo 2.8 0.2 0.2 3.2
Roraima 0.6 1.5 0.8 2.9
Note: Based on available data.

Source: MNDH, BDV.
by the civil police emerge from the data. The rate of homicides by the
civil police is much lower than that of the military police-again, more
than the difference in size of the two forces would account for. Reported
civil police homicides declined by nearly 45 percent from 1994 to 1997,
but the trend has been upward since then.
We can now examine the rate of police killings using a pooled time
series regression analysis.7 The first results correspond to five different
modes of the dependent variable with respect to the military police
(table 4, p. 157). When predicting the number or estimated number of
reported homicides attributed to the military police, all the control vari-
ables except inequality and illiteracy are statistically significant and in
the expected direction. The coefficient for illiteracy does not reach sta-
tistical significance, and inequality lies in the opposite direction from
that hypothesized above. The overall model explains roughly 70 percent
of the variance in the number of police homicide victims across states
and years. The substantive finding with respect to political partisanship
Figure 1. Rate of Reported and Estimated Police Homicides

in 19 States, 1994-2001
5 0 OReported
N Estimated
4
RJ AC BA SP PE ES RR PA AL DF SE RN AM GO PB TO PI CE RS
is that the number of police homicides in a given state and year

increases by an average of 24 to 43 when the governor comes from a
party of the right. The standardized (beta) coefficients show that parti-
sanship is not as important as population density and nonpolice homi-
cides in predicting military police homicides.
With respect to the rate of police homicides, the overall model
accounts for much less of the variance among states when only the
reported rates are used (R2 = .23), but does about twice as well when
the estimates are used (R2 = .44). The political variable is again signifi-
cant, and lies in the expected direction in both models. An increase of
0.1 in the rate of killing per 100,000 when the governor is of the right
may not sound high, but in a state like So Paulo, this suggests an extra
33 police homicide victims every year, after controlling for the other
variables. The beta weights are stronger here with respect to the other
variables, however, and roughly on par with nonpolice homicides and
about half to a third as important as population density. All variables
reach statistical significance (p < .05) in the final model, but the surprise
here is the negative association with the nonpolice homicide variable.
Again, the substantive conclusion with this model is that the police
account for 1.2 percent more homicides in states that are governed by
the right, controlling for the other variables.
Turning to the civil police, the overall model performs much less
well, which is not surprising, given the low variation noted in civil
Figure 2. Rates of Reported and Estimated Police Homicides by Year,

1994-2001
1.6 - Mil. Police

- - Civil Police
1.4 -_ _ .. - - A ll Police - Est. Mil. Police
- " - Est. Civil Police

1.2 - -- Est. All Pce
1.0
0.8 1
0.6
0.4 ,,.-
0.2 "1 - "9 -1996' 1997 _19 199 20.20

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
police homicides (see table 5, p. 158). Still, only one variable achieves
statistical significance in all five estimations and lies in the expected
direction: the political variable. With respect to the number of police
homicides, the results indicate that states with governors from parties of
the right report between 3 and 5 more homicides by the civil police
when controlling for the other variables. An examination of the beta
weights of the partisan variable reveals substantial variation and leads
to no straightforward conclusions. Probably most interesting here is that
the nonpolice homicide variable performs much less well in these
models, and in two of them does not reach statistical significance. This
result indicates that lethal violence by the civil police is much less linked
to the overall crime and violence exhibited in the state.
An analysis of total reported police killings yields results similar to
the findings for the military police alone. The major difference is that
the coefficient for the political variable rises; to wit, states governed by
executives from the right exhibit between 31 and 51 more police homi-
cide victims than those governed by a center-left or left party. In addi-
tion, the coefficient for the rate of police killings rises between .23 and
.33 per 100,000. Again, in a large state such as Sdo Paulo, this signifies
between 76 and 100 more police homicides per year when the state is
governed by the right.
Table 4. Regression Analysis of Homicides by the Military Police as Reported in Stat
Estimated Mil
Military Police Homicides Military Police Hom
Coeff. Std. Err. Beta Coeff. Std. Err. Beta
Constant 20.7 14.7 65.5* 28.2 .367*

Population density .368*** .039 .400 .901*** .064 .459
Nonpolice homicides .067*** .004 .620 .128*** .007 .558 1.5
Right-wing governor 24.0*** 5.67 .186 43.8*** 13.0 .
Inequality -2.04*** .549 -.149 -5.84*** 1.06 -.177
Illiteracy
N 127 127 1
R-square .70 .71
Estimated Military Police Homicides Military

per 100,000 Percentage of All
Coeff. Std. Err. Beta Coeff
Constant .943*** .226 .045***

Population density .007*** .001 .593 .0002*
Nonpolice homicides 2.9e-04*** 8.9e-04 .210 8.73e-0
Right-wing governor .294* .129 .172 .01
Inequality -.031** .011 -.149 -.001***
Illiteracy .001** 2.57e
N 127 12
R-square .44 .
Notes to tables 4, 5, and 6: *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001; only trimmed models shown. Sources: MNDH
Table 5. Regression Analysis of Homicides by the Civil Police as Reported in Statew
Estimated Ci
Civil Police Homicides Civil Police Homi
Constant 4.65 3.87 13.0* 5.70 .133
Population density .034** .013 .199 .104** .035 .312
Inequality -.406* .172 -.142 -.981"** .274 -.176
Right-wing governor 4.47** 1.56 .188 3.20* 1.37 .06
Illiteracy .395*** .068 .250 .387*** .092 .125
Infant mortality .160* .055 .003
Nonpolice homicides .005*** .001 .252 .006*** .002 .155 -3.5
N 127 127 1
R-square .13 .13
Estimated Civil Police Homicides Civil P

Constant .438* .190 .018***
Population density 8. 1e-04* 3.5e-04 .226
Inequality -.015* .007 -.254 -4.6e-04**
Right-wing governor .092*** .025 .187 .0
Illiteracy 3.0e-04*** 5.2e
Infant mortality .006*** .001 .194
Nonpolice homicides
N 127 127
R-square .12 .07
Table 6. Regression Analysis of Homicides by All Police as Reported in Statewide
Estimated A
All Police Homicides All Police Homic
Constant 24.9 19.8 82.5* 33.0 .708*

Population density .371*** .030 .350 .978*** .083 .439
Nonpolice homicides .080*** .005 .652 .149*** .006 .576 1
Right-wing governor 31.2*** 6.18 .213 50.8*** 12.0 .16
Inequality -2.03** .743 -.115 -6.52*** 1.26 -.175
Illiteracy
N 127 127 1
R-square .69 .71
Estimated All Police Homicides All Po
Constant 1.67*** .320 .088***

Population density .009*** .001 .642 2.5e-04
Nonpolice homicides 2.7e-04** 8.5e-05 .185
Right-wing governor .230* .091 .118 .01
Inequality -.053*** .012 -.227 -.003***
Illiteracy .001"** 3.6e
N 127 127
R-square .46 .29
CONCLUSIONS
This study advances our understanding of the relationship between

democracy and the protection of basic rights in several ways. First, schol-
ars must be ready to buck the conventional wisdom regarding the rela-
tionship between human rights and democracy, and to examine the con-
ditions under which democracy (in its minimalist electoral form) might
also lead to more human rights violations. Second, this analysis brings to
light a subtle and important assumption that runs through much of the
democratic consolidation literature: that members of a society do not nec-
essarily share an equal interest in promoting the effective guarantee of
physical integrity rights for all citizens. In short, the politics of democrati-
zation are distinct from the politics of democratic consolidation. This is
especially true if what we mean by democratic consolidation is not only
the growing assurance that democratic governance will not be reversed,
but the deepening of democratic principles so that state institutions treat
all citizens in ways that protect their individual rights no matter what.
Understanding partisan politics is key to understanding outcomes of
human rights conditions in nascent democracies. The analysis here
demonstrates that governors on the right end of the spectrum are associ-
ated with significantly greater rates of killing by the military and civil
police forces. Partisanship was shown to be a robust explanatory variable
in predicting rates of police violence using both raw data and superior
estimates, though not the only or even the most important determinant.
If partisan politics is key to understanding the lethal use of police
force, the analysis also clearly demonstrates that controlling or dimin-
ishing key social maladies could greatly contribute to fighting this prob-
lem. Lethal police violence significantly increases in densely populated
areas and areas where the level of homicides is already high. Key indi-
cators of poverty, such as the levels of infant mortality and illiteracy,
often proved significant determinants of police violence, as expected.
When controlling for these variables, however, inequality was often sig-
nificant but consistently opposite to the hypothesized direction. This
research demonstrates, then, the link between economic policy and the
use of lethal violence by state agents.
The good news here is that police violence can be reduced once
politicians find political support for such a policy among the electorate.
Ultimately, however, this is bad news for those who believe in the basic
principles of liberal democracy, for the protection of individual rights
should not depend to such a large extent on the partisanship of the
executive. After all, the rights guaranteed by the constitution do not
change with the arrival of a new governor. Instead, supporters of a
strong human rights agenda must implement rights protection mecha-
nisms that are either legally difficult or politically costly to change. In
this way, the protection of fundamental rights for all citizens will slowly
become less a partisan issue, as members of different classes come to
understand the inherent value of liberty for all. Such institutionalization
of rights protection is, of course, itself a partisan political issue in the
short run. Thus, we might still expect parties on the left to take the lead
in implementing such rights-enhancing reforms.
Finally, there is no guarantee that the right political conditions exist
to achieve such strong democratic consolidation. As many scholars have
noted, the democratic regimes we observe in Latin America are wanting
in important respects-so important that many scholars refuse to clas-
sify them as democracies. Research on the politics of human rights pro-
tection can help us understand the extent to which achieving a more
inclusive democratic governance might be possible.
NOTES
Research for this project was supported by a grant from the Faculty Devel-
opment Fund of St. Mary's College of California. The National Human Rights
Movement of Brazil also generously provided access to its database on violence,
without which this project could not have been completed. I wish to thank
Jonathan Hartlyn, Claudio Fuentes, Susan Weissman, and four anonymous
reviewers for very helpful comments on various drafts of the manuscript. All
errors or omissions are my own.
1. P-value for the correlation is .075 for a one-tailed test. The average
number of police killings across the three years is 280 in the BDV and 318 in
Cano's data, a difference of 38, or less than 14 percent. As expected, the BDV
data undercount Cano's reported number of military police killings.
2. It is curious that newspapers in some states report a total number of
homicides greater than the official government figure for that year. Nevertheless,
the Health Ministry notes that its statistics are not complete, and typically include
only about 80 percent of all deaths, though the number should theoretically also
be higher for homicides. For greater discussion on this point see Cano and
Santos 2001; Amorin Ratton 1996.
3. Another plausible assumption is that police officers have more resources
with which to hide their misdeeds, and therefore the underreporting of killings
by police officers should not differ from the general underreporting rate. This
estimate is also calculated, but analysis of the results shows that the substantive
conclusions of this study do not change under this assumption.
4. The coding is right or center-right = 1, center = 0, left or center-left = 1.
Data available from Nicolau (1998) and TSE (2002).
5. As per Cano and Santos (2001), this analysis recognizes the incomplete-
ness of Ministry of Health data. Especially noteworthy is the undercounting of
homicides; many deaths from external causes are listed as "indeterminate"
(meaning unsure if they were accidents, suicides, or homicides) because of
police and other pressure on coroners' offices. After carefully studying data on
deaths from both the Ministry of Health and the Public Safety Office in Rio de
Janeiro, Cano and Santos's solution is to count as intentional homicides 10 per-

cent of the total number of deaths due to external causes but listed as indeter-
minate. This study likewise calculates this figure employing data from the Min-
istry of Health (DATASUS 2005) and then subtracts the number of reported
police homicides to arrive at the number of estimated nonpolice homicides. All
data by state and year on the other control variables are available from IBGE.
6. Substantive results do not change when first order panel specific auto-
correlation is assumed.
7. For each estimation, a full model was run, and then trimmed by exclud-
ing variables one at a time that did not reach the .05 level of statistical signifi-
cance. Only trimmed models are presented here.
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The Politics of Police Violence in Democratic Brazil

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The Politics of Police Violence in Democratic Brazil

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University of Miami

The Politics of Police Violence in Democratic Brazil

More than a decade after Latin America's most recent turn to

Since the fall in

tion of conflict, which should also lessen human rights violations

RESEARCH ON HUMAN RIGHTS

In examining the literature on human rights abuse, the discussion here

a strategic choice that governments make among a number of

A key finding of these studies is that democratic governance has an

benefits of repression in the eyes of government leaders. Lower levels

stricter use of force guidelines, and reduced levels of impunity (Bicudo

PUBLIC SECURITY, ELECTORAL INCENTIVES,

The opposing viewpoint is that the problems of crime and violence

against the police, and so on as major public safety platforms. More

in underdeveloped areas in Brazil. In 2002, for example, 29.4 percent of

Previous analyses have found support for a number of factors as signif-

* Number of nonpolice homicides in the state

Police violence is expected to increase in the face of higher homi-

DATA AND METHODOLOGY

Previous research has demonstrated convincingly that official data

Table 1. Average Annual Rate of Homicides as Reported in

Note: States are listed from least to most populous.

Operationalization of Independent Variables

As is standard with pooled time series, heteroskedasticity across panels

depvar = a + 1,popden + 32nphom + P33right + 34rt2020

Depvar is one of five dependent variables (number of police homicides,

Table 2. Homicides by Police Officers in 19 States, 1994-2001

Military Police 6,021 76.8

Table 3. Homicides by Police Officers as Percentage of All Homicides

Military Civil Other All

Rio de Janeiro 15.2 1.7 0.2 17.0

Note: Based on available data.

Figure 1. Rate of Reported and Estimated Police Homicides

is that the number of police homicides in a given state and year

Figure 2. Rates of Reported and Estimated Police Homicides by Year,

1.6 - Mil. Police

1.4 -_ _ .. - - A ll Police - Est. Mil. Police

- " - Est. Civil Police

0.2 "1 - "9 -1996' 1997 _19 199 20.20

Constant 20.7 14.7 65.5* 28.2 .367*

Estimated Military Police Homicides Military

Constant .943*** .226 .045***

Estimated Civil Police Homicides Civil P

Constant 24.9 19.8 82.5* 33.0 .708*

Constant 1.67*** .320 .088***

R-square .46 .29

This study advances our understanding of the relationship between

Janeiro, Cano and Santos's solution is to count as intentional homicides 10 per-

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Constant .943* .226 .045*

Constant 1.67* .320 .088*