A survey carried out by the Center for Studies on Public Security and Citizenship (Cesec) shows that 63% of police approaches in the city of Rio de Janeiro target black people. The unpublished data reveal, according to the study coordinator, the sociologist Silvia Ramos, the racist character constituted at the center of police activity in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
According to the survey, a fifth (17%) of these people have already been approached by the police more than 10 times. When looking at the location of the approaches, the researchers realized that activities common to white people are seen as suspicious to black people.
Blacks account for 68% of people approached walking on the street or on the beach, while only 25% of whites are stopped by the police in the same circumstances. The same scenario is repeated, for example, when a black person is aboard a taxi, app car or on a motorcycle, either as a driver or passenger. In all modalities of approach, without exception, blacks are more still than whites.
In most cases, those approached are men, blacks, up to 40 years old, residents of favelas and periphery, with incomes of up to three minimum wages, according to the survey.
“The role of police officers camouflages the equally decisive roles of delegates, prosecutors, judges and penal agents in the daily maintenance and reproduction of racism. We pull a thread: the ‘suspicious element’ is later confirmed as ‘guilty’ and then as ‘convicted criminal’, serving ‘prison time’, which, in turn, produces the profile of the suspect element: the called a vicious circle”, explains Silvia Ramos, coordinator of the study.
A recent example cited in the study was the 21-year-old Yago Corrêa, who was arrested as a suspect after going out to buy bread in the Jacarezinho favela. The boy who works as a delivery boy was at a barbecue when he decided to go out to buy bread. Upon leaving the bakery, he noticed a confusion involving military police and, fearful, took shelter in a pharmacy, where he ended up being detained by the military. After spending two nights in jail, Yago was provisionally released. In the decision, Judge Antonio Luiz Da Fonsêca understood that there were not enough elements to keep the young man in prison. The magistrate also pointed out that the delegate himself questioned his participation in the practice of the alleged crimes. The delivery man has not yet been acquitted.
Who the police choose to search
The suspect element considered by the military police officers, who participated in the focus group in the research, would be that individual with “thin and blond mustache, hair with yellow spots, Flamengo blouse, cap…” that is, the agents described the aesthetics of young people from the favelas. and outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.
For black men the risk of physical search is similar to that of being approached. Half of the respondents were physically searched. Among them, 84% were men, 69% were black, and 70% were residents of favelas and periphery neighborhoods. On the other hand, only 10% of whites are searched.
An excerpt from the research states that: “The traumatic dimension caused by the police approach that pursues the elements they deem to be suspicious goes beyond the approach or the brake of a van. There are other actions by security agents that negatively impact people’s lives. Everyday racism takes shape in these experiences.”
In this edition, other experiences with the police, in addition to the approach, were considered. Among those interviewed, blacks are 70% of those who witnessed the police assaulting people, 79% of those who had their homes invaded and 74% of those who had a relative or friend killed by the police.
The survey also asked respondents about the PM’s assessment of efficiency, respect, racism, corruption and violence. People also gave notes to security forces. The Military Police had the worst performance among the study participants with a score of 5.4. First, the Corps of
Firefighters with a score of 9.2. The PM was disapproved by 45% of the black people interviewed, while 23% of white people and 28% of brown people also do not approve of the institution. Only 3% consider the PM not at all corrupt and 7% as not at all violent.
The first part of the research was quantitative: from a tracking with 3500 people in flow points in the city, 739 detailed interviews were carried out by the Datafolha Institute. The second part was qualitative: focus groups and interviews were carried out with young residents of favelas, delivery men, app drivers, women and police officers. In this way, we arrived at the predominant profile of people considered repeatedly suspicious by the police and chosen for the approaches.
CNN contacted the Military Police to talk about the data listed in this report and awaits a response.
**Racial presumption in the police approach
Last year, the police approach of a black man in Bauru, in the interior of São Paulo, raised discussion about police racism during the trial of the action in the Superior Court of Justice (STJ). At the time, two military police officers, when passing through a region of the city known as a drug trafficking point, came across a situation that they understood as possible flagrant: a black man was standing at the curb in front of a vehicle, as if he was selling or buying something.
The situation, described in this way in the arrest report in the act, raised doubts in the 6th Panel of the STJ regarding racial presumption in the police approach. When the car approached, the car started and the suspect was caught with 1.53 g of cocaine, a fact that led to the conviction of seven years and 11 months in prison in a closed initial regime.
In judgment on September 14, Minister Sebastião Reis Júnior raised the issue in the collegiate. According to the minister, the well-founded suspicion of the two military police officers who were in the vehicle was the color of the suspect’s skin, the only element described by both when justifying the personal search.
“There was no talk about height, physiognomy, whether he had hair, whether he had a beard. The only reference was the black skin. And the situation was of a person standing next to a car,” she said. “For me, it was clear that the reason for the approach was because it was a black person. I have not the slightest doubt about it,” she said.
On the occasion, Sebastião Reis proposed to recognize, ex officio, the approach as null, in the face of the manifest absence of well-founded suspicion that could justify the action of the MPs. But the proposal did not convince the other ministers of the 6th Panel. For them, although the racial component is an intrinsic problem in police matters in the country, the case raises a doubt: if there was an act of racism or if, simply, the police used an expression, even if absolutely unnecessary, to refer to the suspect. , in a descriptive way. The final conclusion of the collegiate was to grant the order to resize the sentence to two years and 11 months of imprisonment, establishing an open regime with replacement of the custodial sentence by two restrictive measures of rights to be fixed by the Criminal Execution Court.
Source: CNN Brasil
