A Bite with No Teeth: How Repression and Corruption Made Rio’s Gangs Tougher

• In Event: Criminal Politics in Brazil

Abstract

Rio de Janeiro has been struggling for decades with the violent criminal activities of drug dealing gangs. These groups, often heavily armed and territorially entrenched, vie for territory with rivals and security forces. Since the 1980s, authorities have been trying to eradicate these criminal groups – with little success, considering the gangs’ survival and expansion ever since. This paper adopts a novel evolutionary perspective to expose the sources of the resilience of Rio’s gangs. In particular, the paper argues that thirty years of lethal police repression have reinforced the gangs’ innate resilience, while ignoring the persistent issue of police corruption. Security forces have historically sought to “disarticulate” gangs by imprisoning their members, often killing them instead in the process. Over time, this strategy favoured gangs who were able to easily substitute their losses and adjust their structure accordingly, thus making them more resilient. At the same time, the police forces’ failure in fighting internal corruption allowed local arrangements between police forces and gangs to emerge. These arrangements consisted in regular bribes paid by gangs to prevent effective repression of their illicit activities. A pretence of repression thus actually hides complex local relations that mix coercion and voluntary exchanges.

Author

• Andrea Varsori, University of Huddersfield