phr
Bluelighter
Rio Cocaine Supermarkets Caught in Wall War
Alexandre Marinis
Bloomberg
4.29.09
April 29 (Bloomberg) -- Rio de Janeiro used to conjure up visions of a hedonist paradise of gorgeous women and beautiful beaches.
Those idyllic images were largely obliterated by the international success of films such as “Cidade de Deus” (City of God, 2002), which showed violent gangs of drug traffickers fighting rivals and the police for the control of favelas, the large slums outside Rio.
Now, a decision to build walls around the city’s poorest, most dangerous areas might finally help the government secure control over them and restore the tarnished image of Brazil’s top tourist destination.
The strategy is built on the observation that in Rio cocaine is sold in supermarkets, not dentists’ offices.
In cities where most drug users live outside slum areas, consumers select certain suppliers to obtain illegal drugs the same way they might call a dentist to schedule an appointment. It’s a personal relationship. If the distributor moves, his phone number remains the same and his clients follow him.
The flow of drug traffic in Rio is different, according to José Alexandre Scheinkman, a Princeton University professor of economics. In Rio, most cocaine users can walk to a nearby favela to make their illegal purchases in much the same way they travel only a few blocks to buy milk at the local supermarket. It’s a geographical relationship. Customers will continue to buy from the local market, regardless of who owns it.
Fighting for Territory
Securing a prime location for distribution therefore guarantees not only monopolistic control over the sale of drugs to slum residents, but also the power to attract new customers. It also creates lucrative related markets for illegal weapons and auto parts stripped from stolen vehicles.
These activities combine to make the profits generated by specific locations within a favela considerable. That, in turn, promotes the use of unimaginable violence to acquire and maintain the control over such properties.
Rio’s excessive violence isn’t limited to gangs. It extends to the police. As the supermarket model suggests, whenever local authorities decide to make a genuine effort to combat drug trafficking, they must take control of the favelas. That requires employing much greater force than they would use to arrest a single distributor under the dentist model.
Police Brutality
Rio’s police officers killed 1,330 people in 2007, four times more than the number of people killed by law-enforcement personnel in the U.S. that year and three times more than the number of people killed by the police in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city.
Another Brazilian movie, “Tropa de Elite” (The Elite Squad, 2007) did little to improve the image of Rio’s police by showing their incompetence and corruption, along with the brutal tactics they employ to dislodge the favelas’ drug lords.
The heavy use of force, the widespread perception that many police officers profit from drug-related activities, and a media focus on the wrongdoings of cops rather than drug dealers have all contributed to make Rio’s military police untrustworthy to 56 percent of the city’s residents, according to a 2007 poll by the Institute of Public Safety.
And when a majority of citizens don’t trust the police, they are likely to turn to private militias -- or to drug traffickers themselves -- for basic services that the public sector fails to provide, including personal protection and providing access to electricity, gas or cable television.
Easy to Hide
Such a disorderly environment creates a vicious cycle of codependence between criminals and the residents of slum areas that’s difficult to break and makes the favela a favorite place for drug dealers to hide.
As “The Elite Squad” so vividly showed, it’s extremely difficult even for the best trained, specially equipped and incorruptible police officer to capture drug lords who are aided by slum residents and hide behind piles of debris separated by narrow alleys randomly distributed along steep rocky hills. Many slums are surrounded by areas of tropical jungle, which often allows criminals to disappear in dense vegetation.
Three weeks ago, the government of Rio de Janeiro began constructing 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) of walls around 13 of Rio’s largest favelas. The project prompted comparisons with the old Berlin Wall and Israel’s so-called wall of separation. A Datafolha poll showed Rio’s residents split on the subject: 47 percent in favor of the walls and 44 percent against them. Yet 60 percent don’t think the walls will segregate the poor from the rich.
Rio’s public officials argue the three-meter (10-foot) high walls will prevent the slums from growing out of control and expanding into environmentally protected areas, which is also true. When surveillance cameras are mounted on top of the walls, it may become clearer that the idea behind this project is that it’s extremely hard to capture drug criminals hiding inside a supermarket without walls.
Link!
Alexandre Marinis
Bloomberg
4.29.09
April 29 (Bloomberg) -- Rio de Janeiro used to conjure up visions of a hedonist paradise of gorgeous women and beautiful beaches.
Those idyllic images were largely obliterated by the international success of films such as “Cidade de Deus” (City of God, 2002), which showed violent gangs of drug traffickers fighting rivals and the police for the control of favelas, the large slums outside Rio.
Now, a decision to build walls around the city’s poorest, most dangerous areas might finally help the government secure control over them and restore the tarnished image of Brazil’s top tourist destination.
The strategy is built on the observation that in Rio cocaine is sold in supermarkets, not dentists’ offices.
In cities where most drug users live outside slum areas, consumers select certain suppliers to obtain illegal drugs the same way they might call a dentist to schedule an appointment. It’s a personal relationship. If the distributor moves, his phone number remains the same and his clients follow him.
The flow of drug traffic in Rio is different, according to José Alexandre Scheinkman, a Princeton University professor of economics. In Rio, most cocaine users can walk to a nearby favela to make their illegal purchases in much the same way they travel only a few blocks to buy milk at the local supermarket. It’s a geographical relationship. Customers will continue to buy from the local market, regardless of who owns it.
Fighting for Territory
Securing a prime location for distribution therefore guarantees not only monopolistic control over the sale of drugs to slum residents, but also the power to attract new customers. It also creates lucrative related markets for illegal weapons and auto parts stripped from stolen vehicles.
These activities combine to make the profits generated by specific locations within a favela considerable. That, in turn, promotes the use of unimaginable violence to acquire and maintain the control over such properties.
Rio’s excessive violence isn’t limited to gangs. It extends to the police. As the supermarket model suggests, whenever local authorities decide to make a genuine effort to combat drug trafficking, they must take control of the favelas. That requires employing much greater force than they would use to arrest a single distributor under the dentist model.
Police Brutality
Rio’s police officers killed 1,330 people in 2007, four times more than the number of people killed by law-enforcement personnel in the U.S. that year and three times more than the number of people killed by the police in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city.
Another Brazilian movie, “Tropa de Elite” (The Elite Squad, 2007) did little to improve the image of Rio’s police by showing their incompetence and corruption, along with the brutal tactics they employ to dislodge the favelas’ drug lords.
The heavy use of force, the widespread perception that many police officers profit from drug-related activities, and a media focus on the wrongdoings of cops rather than drug dealers have all contributed to make Rio’s military police untrustworthy to 56 percent of the city’s residents, according to a 2007 poll by the Institute of Public Safety.
And when a majority of citizens don’t trust the police, they are likely to turn to private militias -- or to drug traffickers themselves -- for basic services that the public sector fails to provide, including personal protection and providing access to electricity, gas or cable television.
Easy to Hide
Such a disorderly environment creates a vicious cycle of codependence between criminals and the residents of slum areas that’s difficult to break and makes the favela a favorite place for drug dealers to hide.
As “The Elite Squad” so vividly showed, it’s extremely difficult even for the best trained, specially equipped and incorruptible police officer to capture drug lords who are aided by slum residents and hide behind piles of debris separated by narrow alleys randomly distributed along steep rocky hills. Many slums are surrounded by areas of tropical jungle, which often allows criminals to disappear in dense vegetation.
Three weeks ago, the government of Rio de Janeiro began constructing 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) of walls around 13 of Rio’s largest favelas. The project prompted comparisons with the old Berlin Wall and Israel’s so-called wall of separation. A Datafolha poll showed Rio’s residents split on the subject: 47 percent in favor of the walls and 44 percent against them. Yet 60 percent don’t think the walls will segregate the poor from the rich.
Rio’s public officials argue the three-meter (10-foot) high walls will prevent the slums from growing out of control and expanding into environmentally protected areas, which is also true. When surveillance cameras are mounted on top of the walls, it may become clearer that the idea behind this project is that it’s extremely hard to capture drug criminals hiding inside a supermarket without walls.
Link!
