Brazil's Bloody Cycle: Politics and Violence

Brazil's recent police operation in Rio de Janeiro's favelas left many dead, raising questions about the country's approach to crime and politics.

Over 2,500 officers, backed by drones and armored vehicles, stormed the areas, resulting in dozens of deaths.

• Governor Cláudio Castro called it a success.
• For the families of the victims, it was a tragic loss.

A Deeper Issue: Violence as Governance

This event highlights a deeper issue: Brazil's political system often relies on violence to maintain control.

• For decades, efforts to combat organized crime have not reduced its power but have instead made repression a tool of governance.
• The so-called war on drugs has become an industry that trades lives for political gain.

The Cycle of Repression

• Since Brazil's redemocratization in 1985, every administration has promised to end the reign of traffickers through tougher policing, but each has overseen more deaths.
• Between 2014 and 2024, police operations killed 60,394 people.
• In Bahia alone, police killed 1,556 people in 2024, more than all police killings in the United States that year.

The Paradox of Repression

• Despite these efforts, Brazil remains a key player in the global cocaine trade.
• The spectacle of repression feeds political life.
• Governors pose with seized drugs, and body counts are read like electoral polls.

The Symbiosis of Violence and Politics

• The symbiosis between violent repression and politics has created a market for security.
• Police, gangsters, and politicians all profit from the cycle of repression and fear.
• Confidence in law enforcement is low, yet funding and autonomy for militarized policing keep expanding.

Organized Crime's Evolution

• Groups like the Comando Vermelho and Primeiro Comando da Capital now operate as diversified conglomerates involved in gold mining, cyberfraud, and public procurement.
• In the Amazon, criminal economies are even more expansive, with traffickers, miners, and local officials operating through shared logistics and protection schemes.

The Timing of Mega-Operations

• The recent raid in Rio unfolded just as the city prepared to host the C40 World Mayors Summit, sending a message to the world that Rio is tough on crime.
• Some speculate that Governor Castro, a staunch ally of former President Jair Bolsonaro, sought to embarrass President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on the eve of the U.N. climate change summit.

The Cycle of Violence

• The spectacle of repression only deepens the cycle it claims to confront.
• Violence becomes an instrument of political projection, aimed at both international and domestic audiences.
• Beneath the theatrics lies an institutional machine that is remarkably consistent.

The Architecture of Coercion

• Special police units, emergency decrees, and legal immunities have become permanent features of Brazilian public security governance.
• The same tactical infrastructure used against violent traffickers now targets squatters, protesters, and other vulnerable people.
• What began as a war on illicit drugs has become a template for coercive rule, expanding wherever the state feels threatened.

The Legacy of Prohibition

• The result is a set of legacy infrastructures of drug prohibition—the interlocking apparatuses, economic circuits, and moral narratives that allow violence to reproduce itself.
• These structures now operate independently of drug policy itself.
• Even if prohibition were to end tomorrow, the infrastructures that it built would endure.

The Illusion of Success

• **Hard-line defenders point to the rec