Democratic governance, violence, and the (Un)rule of law

Daedalus

Volumn 129, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 119-143

  Pinheiro, Paulo Sérgio ^a,b  

^a Department of Political Science ^*

^b UNIVERSITY OF SÃO PAULO   (Brazil)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33748167004     PISSN: 00115266     EISSN: 15486192     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (59)

1. See Arquidiocese de São Paulo, Brasil Nunca Mais (Petropolis: Vozes, 1985), 85-88.
2. Nilmário Miranda and Carlos Tibúrcio, dos filhos deste solo (Mortos e desaparecidos politicos durante a ditadura militar: a responsabilidade do Estado) (São Paulo: Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo/Boitempo Editorial, 1999), 15-16. The government's special commission on political disappearances, at the Ministry of Justice, established by the law 9140/95, recognized that the Brazilian state was responsible for the disappearance of 148 people until May of 1998 (besides the 136 already recognized in the annex of that law). The commission continued its work in 1999.
3. Jeffrey Alexander, "Aspectos não - civis da sociedade. Espaço, tempo e funcäo," Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais 33 (12) (February 1997): 175-176.
4. Sérgio Adorno, "Insegurança versus direitos humanos: o governo FHC (1995-1998) entre a lei e a ordem," Tempo Social 11 (2) (October 1999).
5. Sérgio Adorno, "O Gerenciamento Público da Violência Urban: a justiça em Ação," in Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro et al., São Paulo sem medo (São Paulo: Garamond, 1998), 227-246.
6. See, for instance, Robert Sampson: "Once crime reaches a certain level, a lot of gang violence we see is reciprocal. . . . Acts of violence lead to further acts of violence. You get defensive gun ownership. You get retaliation. There is a non-linear phenomenon. With a gang shooting, you have a particular act, then a counter response." In Malcolm Gladwell, "The Tipping Point," The New Yorker, 3 June 1996, 32-38.
7. Of course, this perception may be influenced by an increasing exposure to violence, notably through the media. But despite that, it is extremely revealing of insecurity and disorder as unsolved problems. See Nancy Cardia, coordenação, Attitudes, Normas Culturais e Valores em relação à violência em 10 capitais em capitais brasileiras (Brasília: Ministério da Justiça, Secretaria de Estado dos Direitos Humanos, 1999), passim.
8. Even if the crimes of homicide may be affected by the underregistration that characterizes all the information on crime, the data on mortality, reasonably systematized under the same criteria throughout the country, offer a situation extremely close to reality. See Ministério da Saúde, Fundação Nacional de Saúde, Departamento de Informática do Sistema Único de Saúde, Coordenação de Informações de Saude, Sistema de Informações de Saude, SIM, IBGE in IBGE, Departamento de População e Indicadores Sociais, Síntese de Indicadores Sociais 1998 (Rio de Janeiro: IBGE, 1999), 49.
9. For data about France and other European countries, see France, Ministère de l'Intérieur, État de la Criminalité et la Délinquance en France et dans l'Union Européenne (Paris, 1997);
10. for the United States, see U.S. Department of Justice, Uniform Crime Reports (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1996).
11. "Arquitetura da Violência," Folha de S. Paulo, 17 October 1999, sec. 3, 3.
12. IBGE, Síntese de Indicadores Sociais 1998, 19.
13. In the state of São Paulo (54.7 homicides per one hundred thousand) and in Rio de Janeiro (53.7 homicides per one hundred thousand) there are approximately seven hundred homicides a month, or twenty-three a day, or one an hour. Sistema Único de Saúde, "Arquitetura da Violência," sec. 3, 3.
14. In 1995, the most populated and/or affluent regions had the highest mortality rates by homicide per 100,000: North, 28.5; Northeast, 28.8; Southeast, 63.70; South, 23; Center-West, 38.2. But if we consider each state individually, this tendency is no longer true. Some of the Brazilian states with the highest rates are those that are more populated, such as Rio de Janeiro, 114.7; and São Paulo, 68.8. The smallest rates belong to Minas Gerais, 11.9; Santa Catarina, 12.3; and Rio Grande do Norte, 14.7. But Pernambuco, 65.9, is not the most populated nor the most affluent and yet it has the third highest rate after Rio and São Paulo. IBGE, Síntese de Indicadores Sociais 1998, 47-48.
15. See MJ (Ministério da Justiça), CEDEC (Centro de Estudos da Cultura Contemporânea), Mapa de Risco da Violência Cidade de São Paulo (São Paulo: CEDEC, 1997), 4.
16. Mapa de Risco da Violência Cidade de São Paulo Ibid., 7-11.
17. Amartya Sen, "The Economics of Life and Death," Scientific American (May 1993): 46.
18. See Albert Levy, "L'espace public peut être incivil," Le Monde (16 janvier 1998): 15.
19. See Loic J. D. Wacquant, "Banlieues françaises et ghetto noir américain: de l'amalgame à la comparaison," French Politics and Society 10 (4) (1992): 81-97.
20. For a discussion on the state monopoly of physical violence see Norbert Elias, "Violence and Civilization: The State Monopoly of Physical Violence and its Infringement," in John Keane, Civil Society and the State (London: Verso, 1988), 177-198.
21. The expression "credible threat of violence" is from Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, Homicide (New York: Aldine de Gruyter Press, 1988), passim.
22. Robert Wright, "The Biology of Violence," The New Yorker, 15 March 1995, 73.
23. "Survey Brazil," The Economist (27 March 1999): 14.
24. Human Rights Watch, "Brazil," World Report 1999 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1998), 103-109.
25. I owe this information to Christian Geffray.
26. Veja 32 (9) (8 dezembro 1999).
27. Lia Osorio Machado, "Movimento de Dinheiro e Tráfico de Drogas na Amazonia," in Maurides de Melo Ribeiro and Sergio Dario Seibel, Drogas, Hegemonia do Cinismo (São Paulo: Fundação Memorial da América Latina, 1997).
28. "Survey Brazil," 14.
29. The 1996 Latin American Barometer survey showed that, when asked how much confidence they have in the police, 21 percent of Brazilians answered "some," 35 percent answered "a little," and 39 percent declared to have "no confidence at all." With respect to confidence in the judiciary, the results are astonishingly similar: 28 percent answered "some," 35 percent "little," and 39 percent "none." Latin Barometer, June 1996, 35.
30. Leandro Carneiro, "Para medir a violência," in Dulce Pandolfi et al., Cidadania, Justiça e Violência (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 1999), 175.
31. Paul Chevigny, The Edge of the Knife (New York: The New Press, 1995), passim.
32. I am relying on Paulo Mesquita Neto, "Pesquisa e prática policial no Brasil," versão revisada do texto preparado para apresentação no seminário "Agenda de Colaboração Sociedade/Polícia," mimeo, 11 June 1999, 18.
33. Paulo Mesquita Neto, Agenda de Colaboração Sociedade/Polícia, Ibid., 19-20.
34. Human Rights Watch, "Brazil," World Report 1999.
35. Mesquita Neto, "Pesquisa e Prática Policial no Brasil," 8.
36. "Summary of the cases from Human Rights Watch, "Brazil," World Report 1999.
37. See Claudio Júlio Tognolli, "O Dedo de Badan Palhares," Caros Amigos (5) (September 1999): 17-19.
38. The trial for the remaining 152 defendants is pending a decision of the Ceara's State Justice Court on an appeal by the Public Ministry asking for the verdict to be annulled.
39. See Maria Teresa Sadek and Rogério Bastos Arantes, "A crise do judiciário e a visão dos juízes," Revista da USP 21 (Março-Abril-Maio 1994): 39.
40. Sergio Adorno, "Racial Discrimination and Criminal Justice in São Paulo," in Rebecca Reichmann, Race in Contemporary Brazil (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 123-138.
41. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, "Democracia, derechos humanos y desarollo economico y social obstáculos y resistencias. El caso de Brasil," paper, Santiago de Chile, Centro de Derechos Humanbos de las Nacionales Unidas, Seminario Latino Americano de Expertos, 1991.
42. "The Cost of Criminal Justice," Trends: UNCJIN (United Nations Criminal Justice Information Network) Crime and Justice Letter, special issue, November 1991.
43. Sadek and Arantes, "A crise do judiciário e a visão dos juízes."
44. Sadek and Arantes, "A crise do judiciário e a visão dos juízes." Ibid.
45. U.S. Government, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1994, report submitted to the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate and the Committee on Foreign Relations, House of Representatives by the Department of State (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1995).
46. The ratio of prison inmates per one hundred thousand inhabitants increased in 1995 from 95.47 to 108.36 in 1997. The Penitentiary Census, Ministry of Justice, March 1998, indicated that there is one prisoner for 923 Brazilians. In the state of São Paulo, that rate is double the national rate: 198.66, or one prisoner for 503 people. In the period from 1950 to 1997 the population of the state of São Paulo increased 39 percent and the number of prisoners rose by 239 percent.
47. International, Aqui ninguém dorme sossegado (São Paulo, Porto Alegre: Seção Brasileira da Anistia Internacional, 1999), 1-2.
48. "Relatório da Visita da Commissão Teotônio Vilela a Febem Imigrantes," mimeo, São Paulo, October 1999; and summary of cases from "Brazil," Human Rights Watch 2000 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999).
49. Andrew Hurrell, "Power, Principles and Prudence: Protecting Human Rights in a Deeply Divided World," in Tim Dunne and Nicholas J. Wheeler, Human Rights in Global Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 283.
50. This is called the "boomerang pattern" by Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikking, Activists Beyond Borders (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 13.
51. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro and Paulo Mesquita Nero, Texts from Brazil, special ed. (Fifty Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) (Brasilia: Ministry of External Relations, May/August 1998), year II-n.6, passim.
52. Juan Carlos Portantiero, "La Sociedad Civil en América Latina: Entre Autonomia y Centralización," in Peter Hengstenberg, Karl Kohut, and Gunther Maihold, Sociedad Civil en America Latina: representación de interesses y gobernabilidad (Caracas: Nueva Sociedade, 1999), 37-38.
53. The expression "early warning system" is from Dick Messner, "Organizaciones No-Gubernamentales; nuevas esperanzas o actores sobre-estimados? Processos de Búsqueda en América Latina y experiencias de los países industrializados," in Hengstenberg, Kohut, and Maihold, Sociedad Civil en America Latina, 442-444.
54. "Survey Brazil," 14.
55. Human Rights Watch, "Brazil," World Report 1999;
56. "Brazil," Human Rights Watch 2000.
57. See Jean Paul Brodeur, "Comments on Chevigny"
58. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, "The Rule of Law and the Underprivileged in Latin America," in Juan Méndez, Guillermo O'Donnell, and Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, The (Un)Rule of Law and the Underprivileged in Latin America (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 1-18, 71-86.
59. Messner, "Organizaciones No-Gubernamentales," 448-449.