IPS-English BRAZIL: New Security Plan Combines Prevention and Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:21:47 -0700 BRAZIL: New Security Plan Combines Prevention and Punishment Fabiana Frayssinet RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 22 (IPS) - After deploying the federal police in Brazil's most violent cities, the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is now implementing integrated social policies as the preventive arm of its new public security programme. The National Public Security and Citizenship Programme (PRONASCI) launched on Monday will invest some 3.3 billion dollars up to 2012, in the 11 most violent metropolitan areas in the country. According to President Lula, the plan will counter violence ”with the firm hand of the state, and with democratic conviction,” after having learned, he said, ”that certain types of human behaviour cannot be solved with more beatings and with ever more crowded prison cells.” Justice Ministry figures indicate that out of 420,000 young prison inmates in Brazil, 65 percent are aged between 18 and 24, and 70 percent are repeat offenders. They mainly come from the most marginalised strata of the population, and one-third have not even completed their primary education. PRONASCI will finance the building of 160 new prisons, including separate units for the youngest prisoners, as well as measures and activities to integrate them back into society and to encourage them to study while they are in jail. Economic aid will also be provided for mothers of young people in at-risk areas, a project called ”Mothers of Peace.” While the government will try to increase wages and housing for the police, as well as combat police corruption, it will also make a National Security Force of 500 officers available to states in emergency situations. The plan contains 95 actions to be carried out in an integrated fashion by federal, state and municipal governments, said Justice Minister Tarso Genro, with the aim of ”changing the paradigms of security programmes, by including social projects.” Not entirely innovative, points out sociologist Ignacio Cano, at the Rio de Janeiro State University's Laboratory for Analysis of Violence. In an interview with IPS, the expert said that the new programme, which is intended to act as the ”preventive arm” of security, is consistent with traditional social policies that began to be adopted in Brazil since the administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003). They include social measures, especially in education and employment generation for young people in outlying slum neighbourhoods in cities like Rio de Janeiro, Victoria and Sao Paulo, he said. Cano said, however, that the new programme has ”got it right,” not only in its geographic coverage but also the age-group it has targeted: young people aged 15 to 29 in the most marginalised areas. But the programme, in his view, also has another aim. ”The government needs political cover to justify the harsh crackdown” that is currently happening in shantytowns like Rio de Janeiro's ”favelas”, he said. On the one hand, ”young people are being killed in police round-ups, but on the other, something is being done towards prevention,” Cano added. Rubem César Fernandes, executive director of the non-governmental organisation Viva Rio, which works against violence, says the government plan is important because it includes measures that are ”not only for police and prisons,” and ”aims to integrate repression and prevention.” According to Fernandes, it is not a question of ”choosing one or the other. It is necessary to invest as much in punishment as in prevention.” The activist noted that opinion polls show that the middle classes stress the need for repressive action -- more police, more prisons -- while the poor emphasise social action, such as more education and employment. ”But everyone believes that both approaches are necessary. The challenge is to get it all right. The script is there; the difficult thing will be putting it into practice,” he said. Brazil has an annual homicide rate of 29 per 100,000 population, according to the Justice Ministry. On average, 40,000 people are killed every year -- ”an ocean of murdered people,” said Antonio Carlos Costa, president of another non-governmental organisation, Rio de Paz (River of Peace). PRONASCI ”is an unprecedented step in the history of our country, a balanced approach to dealing with the most serious social problem the country faces today,” Costa told IPS. ”But what we must understand is that we are fighting a cancer that has already metastasised, and the situation is extremely serious. It demands much deeper solutions, such as a reform of the criminal code,” he said. As an example, Costa mentioned the need for ”laws that are robust enough to persuade delinquents that crime doesn't pay.” At the same time, help is needed for children who are not in school, as well as measures for fair income distribution, and ”citizenship programmes in the favelas, to avoid the social tragedy of extreme poverty which is related to the violence and killings,” he said. ***** + BRAZIL: Schools as Tools to Combat Violence (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38887) + BRAZIL: ‘I'm the Only Gang Member Alive and Free' (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38774) + BRAZIL: Youth Still in Trouble, Despite Plethora of Social Programmes (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37163) + Viva Río - in Portuguese (http://www.vivario.org.br) + Río de Paz - in Portuguese (http://www.riodepaz.org.br) (END/IPS/LA IP PR HD CV CS/TRASP-VD-SW/FF/DCL/07) = 08230043 ORP001 NNNN