Pagina dettaglio corso numero uno

by Laura Squillace, Research Fellow at the University of Milan

On the morning of Tuesday, October 28, in Rio de Janeiro, specifically in the Complexo do Alemão and the Complexo da Penha (a conglomerate of approximately 26 favelas), a large-scale police operation took place, considered the deadliest ever carried out. The Operação Contenção (containment operation) aimed to combat organized crime, particularly the activities of the criminal faction Comando Vermelho (CV), literally “Red Command”.

The operation involved a massive deployment of forces: helicopters, armored vehicles – including tanks – nearly 100 arrest warrants for alleged members of the Comando Vermelho, and 2,500 law enforcement officers. Among them were members of the Civil Police and Military Police, including the BOPE, the Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais, the Special Police Operations Battalion created to intervene in high‑risk territories, such as the favelas controlled by drug traffickers.

As commonly occurs in such operations, traffickers responded with firearms – the shootouts lasted approximately 12 hours – and, on this occasion, they also employed drones to drop grenades on police forces and set public buses ablaze to erect barricades. The situation quickly escalated into urban guerrilla warfare, resulting in the deaths of 121 people, including four police officers. However, this number may rise, as residents of the Complexo do Alemão and Penha continue to recover bodies, some showing clear signs of torture, in the Serra da Misericórdia, an area that witnessed multiple clashes between police and traffickers. The operation has been widely classified as a mere chacina – that means a massacre – by non-governmental organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, all of which have called for an independent and prompt investigation.

First of all, it is crucial to noted that the “marvelous city” (cidade maravilhosa) – the nickname for Rio de Janeiro referring to its natural beauty – is also known worldwide for its high levels of violence, inequality, and urban segregation. The latter clearly separates the asfalto (literally, “asphalt,” i.e., the more urbanized formal area) from the favelas (informal poor settlements).

Most of the city’s favelas, located not only in the peripheral zones, but also close to the wealthier, central neighborhoods, live under the armed control of the three main criminal factions present in the Latin American metropolis: Amigos dos Amigos, Comando Vermelho, and Terceiro Comando. These territories suffer from high levels of criminalization, characterized by a strong territorial and social stigma that affects residents, who are often considered, almost automatically, bandidos (criminals).

The primary economic base of these groups derives from drug trafficking and illegal arms trade, and, notably, from activities that intersect with the formal economy such as providing basic services (electricity, gas, water, and transportation) to local communities. Armed confrontations often arise not only from rivalries over territorial control but also from police interventions seeking to curb faction expansion.

Since the 1990s, in the aftermath of the military dictatorship, security policies in Rio de Janeiro have predominantly relied on repressive interventions: direct confrontations with armed traffickers aimed at arresting faction leaders and seizing drugs and weapons. Although some operations have resulted in arrests and confiscations, the overall evidence indicates that these measures fail to stem the expansion of criminal networks or their territorial control, thereby underscoring the ineffectiveness of such strategies.

Conversely, the collateral consequences for residents are evident: disruptions to daily activities, closure of schools, universities and health clinics, the constant risk of stray bullets, and profound psychological impacts. A recent study by UNICEF, undertaken in collaboration with other institutions, highlighted that in areas under armed control, student learning outcomes are lower and school dropout rates higher compared to non-trafficked areas. Within this context, young people grow up absent a state presence and with limited future prospects – dependent almost exclusively on criminal networks or, in more favorable cases, on civil-society projects that may make a meaningful difference.

Understanding how an operation of this magnitude could be carried out within a democratic society – and even lauded as a success by the Governor of Rio de Janeiro, Claudio Castro (affiliated with the right-wing Partido Liberal, the same party as former President Jair Bolsonaro) – requires a careful examination of social responses to crime and the cultural and social dynamics that sustain them.

Residents of Rio de Janeiro, particularly those living in favelas, inhabit a daily reality in which violence has become, to some extent, normalized. Over time, they learn to coexist with it, incorporating it into their everyday routines – a phenomenon I have observed firsthand over years of study and research in the city. However, this violence is not evenly distributed: it primarily affects the working classes and racialized groups. It is young Afro-descendant men from favelas or peripheral urban areas who become the main targets of urban security policies – perceived as “public enemies,” associated with armed trafficking, and disproportionately represented among homicide victims in the country. As Loïc Wacquant and David Garland explain, such groups are often treated as undeserving. Furthermore, their lives—as well as those of favela residents more broadly – are reduced, in the words of Giorgio Agamben, to “bare life”, deprived of civil and political rights and exposed to sovereign power.

Just like the homo sacer, these human lives are considered so worthless that killing them is effectively unpunishable. In this regard, as Governor Castro explicitly stated, the only victims officially recognized in Operação Contenção were the deceased police officers, whereas the other deceased citizens were socially constructed as, in Nils Christie’s terms, suitable enemies: individuals without the power to resist the social label imposed on them, dehumanized and perceived as such a threat that they justify extraordinary and exceptional measures.

The police in Rio de Janeiro are trained within this context – a constant “war on drugs” – in which illegitimate violence is never truly called into question.

Public security remains a central political issue in Rio de Janeiro, and ahead of upcoming state elections, the Governor likely sought to send a symbolic signal of firmness and determination against crime.

By contrast, less lethal operations, such as Operação Carbono Oculto, coordinated by the Federal Police – which investigated links between crime and illicit capital, dismantling a money-laundering network and targeting the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) in São Paulo – garner far less public attention. Similarly, initial UPPs (Pacifying Police Units) programs aimed to reverse the repressive urban security model by promoting community policing.

In conclusion, what is required is a security policy capable of disrupting the economic mechanisms sustaining criminal factions, rigorously investigating their connections to both the formal and informal markets, halting the flow of arms and ammunition, and conducting independent investigations into potential corruption within law enforcement and governmental institutions. Yet, the daily logic of Rio de Janeiro’s police runs counter to these principles, promoting lethality in line with the enduring motto “bandido bom é bandido morto”, i.e. a good bandit is a dead bandit, as incisively documented in 2017 by Ignacio Cano, Julita Lemgruber, and Leonarda Musumeci.

Rio de Janeiro urgently requires a comprehensive reform of public security and law enforcement, enabling authorities to operate without resorting to militarized strategies that have repeatedly proven ineffective for both police officers’ safety and the residents of favelas.