The senator (), pre-candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, presented on June 18, in , a set of 12 proposals for public security brought together in a plan called “”. The launch brought together allies such as the senator (PL-PR), pre-candidate for the Government of Paraná, and the federal deputy (PL-SP), former Secretary of Public Security of São Paulo and pre-candidate for the Senate.
Among the measures that Flávio defends are the construction of five new maximum security federal prisons inspired by por, the reduction of the age of criminal responsibility, the tightening of the rules for sentence progression and the classification of criminal factions, such as CV () and (Primeiro Comando da Capital), as terrorist organizations.
The announcement of this plan comes at a time when public safety is the main concern of Brazilians. According to one, violence tops the list of problems highlighted by voters, cited by 30% of those interviewed, ahead of corruption (19%) and social problems (16%).
In the opinion of Luiz Fábio Paiva, coordinator of the Violence Studies Laboratory at UFC (Federal University of Brazil), the plan lacks detail and technical consistency, because it ignores the country’s public security and justice system.
“We have police forces, a justice system, laws and a legal system. It is not like this, by shouting or by performance, that a president will transform things that are not even within his competence”, he states.
Paiva says that the document brings together generic proposals, without explanation about their implementation, and points out that the debate on public security needs to consider the economic circuits that support organized crime, such as drug trafficking, which involves different social layers and also public agents. “These are populist measures, without evidence, that do not attack the real causes of violence in the country”, he concludes.
For security and defense analyst Alessandro Visacro, the plan has little practical application. He extends the criticism beyond the opposition and says that the debate on security in Brazil is shallow.
“That’s a campaign piece of advertising, more than a serious, articulated, confrontational proposal. Brazil doesn’t have a state policy, it has a government program, and government programs are nothing more than paper, a declaration of intent with very little applicability.”
Lawyer and professor of criminal law Gustavo Scandelari also criticizes the package, but assesses that the proposal brings an isolated success by providing for logistical reinforcement in the country’s currency.
“The so-called ‘border system’ could represent an advance because it means improving the conditions of Brazilian public security forces. Investments in ballistic vests, weapons, vehicles, ammunition and surveillance equipment are necessary to repress violent crime”, says the jurist.
When analyzing the proposals to tighten legislation, sociologist Carolina Grillo, professor at the Fluminense Federal University, says that they are manifestations of “criminal populism”, a phenomenon in which the public security agenda is appropriated for electoral purposes.
“In this case, the extreme right shares the lay opinion that crime is the result of impunity,” he states. According to Grillo, the toughening of penalties and the increase in incarceration have not historically produced the reduction in crime promised by its defenders.
The sociologist also criticizes the reference to the model adopted by El Salvador. “Mass arrests are extremely expensive, they tend to violate a series of constitutional guarantees and they do not have the expected effect of dismantling organized crime,” he states.
Regarding the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility, she argues that increasing the number of young people in prisons only contributes to pushing them towards organized crime. Factions already dominate these environments.
Regarding the proposal to classify criminal factions as terrorist organizations, he states: “This is a theoretical and conceptual inaccuracy. Terrorism provides political or religious motivation to change a country’s system, while criminal factions in Brazil aim purely and simply at profit.”
Security and defense analyst Alessandro Visacro partially disagrees with Carolina Grillo’s argument. For him, the fact that the factions aim for profit and do not have a traditional political ideology does not negate the fact that they use terror, in practice. However, he also takes a stand against Flávio Bolsonaro’s proposal to legally stamp the groups as terrorists.
“If we simply take Brazil today, in legal terms, and classify any criminal organization as terrorist, you will create an obstacle to confronting it”, explains Visacro, pointing out that the measure would burden the PF () by giving legal protagonism to the institution. “You can label it or not, in Brazil it will be the same, because we will continue to be negligent and negligent”, he concludes.
On the other hand, criminal lawyer Gustavo Scandelari sees strategic advantages in the proposal for financial suffocation that the terrorism stamp would bring, although he maintains restrictions on the general package.
“The advantage is to allow greater investments in repression and provide access to international cooperation tools that help locate goods, companies and people more quickly. Financial asphyxiation tends to constitute a more effective attack against organized criminal groups.”
When questioned by the report, he replied that he “awaits the details of the ideas presented this Thursday by the pre-candidate so that it is possible to carry out a technical analysis and issue an institutional position on the topic.”
