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Special Report - The military as police: a balance sheet (ISSN 17414474)
Extensive use of the military on two fronts
Though Brazil has a paramilitary police force in every state, plus an élite public security police force on call, it still makes use of constitutional provisions for the deployment of the armed forces to deal with internal security emergencies. It also makes regular use of provisions for joint actions with the police and other government agencies in border areas. Rather than with the armed forces it is with the state-level paramilitary police that it faces problems such as the use of excessive force in crowd control and a propensity to use lethal force against suspected criminals.
- Executive summary
- Under Peña Nieto the military remain in the field
- Extensive use of the military on two fronts
- More troops deployed as violence rebounds after ‘truce’
- Level of violence declines but is still high
- New special units to bolster mass troop deployment
- President gets free hand to deploy military
- One state of emergency after another
- Relying on Carabineros to face two threats
- Military kept out of internal security
- Almost complete militarisation
- Allowing ‘preventive’ use of armed forces
- Trying to assess effects