Brazilian Police Kill On Average 6 People Per Day, Study Says

11/11/2014 - 09h17

Brazilian police killed on average six people per day in 2013, the year that came to a close with a total of 2,212 deaths.

The number was slightly less than in 2012, which had 2,332 killings at the hands of the police.

The data were collected by the Brazilian Public Security Forum, which launches on Tuesday (11) the eighth edition of the annual security guide.

In five years, from 2009 (the first year the forum issued the guide) to 2013, police in Brazil killed at least 11,197 people, which is also equivalent to an average of six homicides per day.

In comparison, in the US there were 11,090 deaths caused by police over 30 years. The Brazilian population is just over 200 million, according to IBGE. The US is estimated at 319 million.

The most lethal police force, according to the study, is in Rio de Janeiro, followed by São Paulo and Bahia.

Although still leading in the fatality ranking, as well as in almost every other year surveyed, Rio police have reduced their number of deaths by half.

In 2009, 1,048 homicides were committed by on-duty police officers in Rio, which is equivalent to 54% of all deaths caused by police in the country that year.

In 2013, there were 416 on record.

Only in 2012, the year that military police in São Paulo faced a "war" with organized crime, with casualties on both sides, did police lethality in Rio fall behind that of São Paulo.

There were 419 deaths in Rio as opposed to São Paulo's 583 that year.

For the executive director of Brazilian Public Security Forum, Samira Bueno, the best news in the guide was Rio's reduced number of police-related deaths.

"Since the implementation of the UPPs, Rio has had a significant reduction in mortality rates. It's the only good news in this sad scenario. Six people dead each day is too many."

São Paulo could even receive similar praise, since police-related deaths fell from 566 in 2009 to 364 in 2013 (down 36%). But this performance is eclipsed by an increase of almost 40% of homicides committed by off-duty police officers.

São Paulo is one of the few states that tracks the number of homicides committed by off-duty officers.

In 2013, 490 police officers were killed in Brazil, 43 more than the previous year. The majority (75.7%) of the officers were killed in off hours.

The most alarming figures come from Rio (104), São Paulo (90) and Pará (51).

Translated by JILL LANGLOIS

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	Editoria de Arte/Folhapress