Public security: present and future

Abstract

AROUND 45 thousand people are victims of lethal crime in Brazil, yearly. Most of the victims are young, poor and black, from the shanty towns located at the large cities. Police are part of the problem: they have been, generally, uneffective, unilaterally reactive, corrupted and brutal, mostly because their organizational structures do not fit their needs to perform constitutional obligations. On the other hand, crime prevention policies are still restricted and fragmented. A dark future can be foreseen if a deep legal and institutional reform is not implemented, and the immediate causes of violence are not targeted.