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UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
A Violent Symbiosis: Gangs, the State, and the Rise in Crime in São Paulo
by
Maria Carolina Ford
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
DEAPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCES
CALGARY, ALBERTA
JANUARY, 2015
© Maria Carolina Ford 2015
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Abstract
This thesis is concerned with the unexpected rise in violence in São Paulo after a decade of
consistent decline, from 2000-10. Using the Complex Adaptive System framework, this thesis
argues that the Primeiro Comando da Capital “First Command of the Capital” (PCC), the most
influential prison gang in Brazil, developed an accommodating relationship with the state,
making them both equally responsible for the rise in crime. The thesis is chronological, based on
the three major PCC rebellions/attacks since its creation, in 1993. Those moments represent the
break of an unstable truce between the state and the PCC, and are critical to reveal how the state
fails to curb organized crime. The constant crime rise after 2012, however, suggests that in thelong-term, the state has strengthened the PCC.
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Preface
I am Brazilian, and I moved to Canada in 2011.This thesis was motivated by my curiosity to
unveil the causes of crime in Brazil, and more specifically in São Paulo, where I grew up
learning how to explore and respect the city boundaries that are not on the map.
I still remember my professor at the Law school, a renowned criminal judge, receiving a phone
call from a “source”, in the middle of my class, telling him about the PCC curfew impositions
back in 2006. In less than half an hour, the entire university was evacuated.
Back in 2000, my family faced the loss of my grandfather, victim of a bank robbery. As a
citizen, I spent my years as a young adult sensing and negotiating spaces where I could feel safe, but at the same time be outside of the bubble where most of the upper middle class is confined.
As a graduate student, I sought to explain, empirically, the actual actors and their roles in
dictating how violence operates in both the symbolic and physical spaces in São Paulo.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Dr. Pablo Policzer, who was always so kind and patient in his guidance. During
this process, Dr. Policzer pushed me to my very best, and, at each step of my thesis, amplified
my perspective and academic skills.
I also would like to thank the Department of Political Science of the University of Calgary for
my funding, as well as for being so accommodating with my personal journey and needs.
Finally, I appreciate the endless support of both the Department Manager, Ella Wensel, and of
the Graduate Administrator, Judi Powell, whose help always went well above their call of duty.
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Dedication
To my parents, Rosemary and Antonio Narciso, for putting my education in front of their own
dreams. To my husband, Derek Ford, for his patience and partnership.
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Table of Contents
Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Preface................................................................................................................................ iii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iv
Dedication ............................................................................................................................v Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi List of Tables List of Tables ............................................................................................ viii List of Figures .................................................................................................................... ix List of Symbols, Abbreviations and Nomenclature .............................................................x Epigraph ............................................................................................................................ xii
1. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................1 1.1 The Problem ...............................................................................................................1 1.2 Literature Review ......................................................................................................4
1.2.1 The Paradox of Crime Rise ...............................................................................5 1.2.2 Successful Public Policies ...............................................................................10 1.2.3 Unsuccessful Public Policies ...........................................................................13
1.3 Analytical Framework .............................................................................................16 1.3.1 Complex Adaptive System Framework ...........................................................17
1.5 Methodology ............................................................................................................24 1.5.1 Narrative Analysis ...........................................................................................25
1.6 Chapter Outline ........................................................................................................25
2. BUILDING THE SYSTEM ...........................................................................................29 2.1 Background ............................................................................................................29 2.2 Origin of Organized Crime ....................................................................................33
2.2.1 The Party ..........................................................................................................35
2.2.2 Prison Expansion as a Response to Human Rights Violations ........................38 2.3 Leapfrogging Strategies .........................................................................................45
2.3.1 Bargaining Mutinies for Transfers ...................................................................45 2.3.2 Elimination of Rival Gangs .............................................................................49
3. TURF WAR IN THE CRIME WORLD ........................................................................54 3.1 PCC’s Internal Crisis .............................................................................................57 3.2 Crime migration .....................................................................................................64 3.3 RDD .......................................................................................................................69 3.4 Cell Phones and Attorneys Arms Race ..................................................................73 3.5 The mega-rebellion of 2006 ...................................................................................75
4. KEEPING THE STATUS-QUO ....................................................................................76 4.1 The Attacks of 2012 ...............................................................................................77 4.2 Managing Sovereignty ...........................................................................................81
4.2.1 Engaging Members and Sympathizers .............................................................81 4.2.2 Ethos ................................................................................................................84 4.2.3 Street-level Influence .......................................................................................88
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5. COUNTER-FACTUAL ANALYSIS AND FINAL REMARKS .................................92 5.1 Counterfactual Analysis .........................................................................................93
5.1.1 Would the PCC have attacked in 2012 if ROTA’s executions had not happened? 94
5.1.2 Would the PCC have attacked if the municipal elections had not happened? .97
5.1.3 A possible supplementary factor- Did the PCC benefit from Rio de Janeiro’s curbin violence? ....................................................................................................100 5.2 Final Remarks ......................................................................................................108
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List of Tables List of Tables
Table 1. State-PCC CAS strategies from 1993-2001.................................................................... 33
Table 2. State-PCC CAS strategies from 2001-06........................................................................ 57
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List of Figures
Figure 1. Crime growth percentage in the last five years (2010-14) .............................................. 2
Figure 2: Jail population growth ..................................................................................................... 3
Figure 3. TIT FOR TAT between the state and the PCC.............................................................. 19
Figure 4. State-PCC CAS ............................................................................................................. 21
Figure 5. State-PCC CAS by levels of analysis ............................................................................ 22
Figure 6. The 10 Most Dangerous Prison Gangs .......................................................................... 34
Figure 7. Inmates at the São Paulo state: Evolution of transfers from the SPP to the SAP(1994-2006). .......................................................................................................................... 43
Figure 8. Prison riots in São Paulo state (1990-Feb. 2001). ......................................................... 48
Figure 9. Dead prisoners in the state of São Paulo (1990-2010) .................................................. 52
Figure 10. PCC’s hierarchical structure in prison ......................................................................... 60
Figure 11. PCC’s organizational chart .......................................................................................... 61
Figure 12. Structure of the Civil Police in 2001 ........................................................................... 66
Figure 13. Cargo vs. bank robbery evolution in the state of São Paulo (2005-13). ...................... 68
Figure 14. Police officers killed on duty from 2011-2014............................................................ 79
Figure 15. Brazilian GDP (2000-2013) ..................................................................................... 110
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List of Symbols, Abbreviations and Nomenclature
Symbol Definition
ADA Amigos dos Amigos “Friends of Friends” AUC Autodefesas Unidas de Colombia “The UnitedSelf-Defense Forces of Colombia”
Barrio 18BRICS
18 Street GangBrazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
CAS Complex Adaptive SystemCDL Comando Democrático da Liberdade “Democratic
Command of Freedom” CRBC Comando Brasileiro Revolucionário da
Criminalidade “Revolucionary BrazilianCommand of Criminality”
CPICV
Comissão Paralamentar de Inquérito“Parliamentary Inquiry Commission” Comando Vermelho “Red Command”
DAS Divisão Antissequestro “Antikidnapping Division” DEIC Departamento Estadual de Investigações
Criminais “State Department on Criminal Investigations” Departamento de Investigações sobre o CrimeOrganizado “Department on Organized CrimeInvestigations”
DEPEN Departamento Penitenciário Nacional “NationalPrison Department”
DIG Divisão de Investigações Gerais “Division ofGeneral Investigations”
DISCCPAT Divisão de Crimes contra o Patrimônio “Divisionof Crimes Against Property”
DIVECAR Divisão de Investigações sobre Furto e Roubos deVeículos e Cargas “Division against Car andCargo Robberies”
DTO Drug Trafficking Organization
FARC Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionárias Colombianas“Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia”
HTV High-valued Target Operations INFOPEN
LEP
Sistema Integrado de Informações Penitenciárias“Integrated System of Penitenciary Information” Lei de Execuções Penais “Criminal ProceduresCode”
MS-13 Mara Salvatrucha 13MOCO Mexican Organized Crime Organizations NGO Non-governmental Organization
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OAS Organization of American StatesPCC
PROAR
Primeiro Comando da Capital “First Command ofthe Capital” Programa de Acompanhamento de Policiais Militares Envolvidos em Ocorrências de Alto
Risco “Monitoring Program for Military PoliceOfficers Involved in High Risk Incidents”PSDB Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira
“Brazilian Social Democracy Party” PT Partido dos Trabalhadores “Worker’s Party” RDD Regime Disciplinar Diferenciado “Differentiated
Disciplinary Regime” ROTA Rondas Ostensivas Tobias de Aguiar “Tobias de
Aguiar Ostensive Patrol” SAP Secretaria de Administração Penitenciária
“Secretariat of Security of São Paulo”
SS Seita Satânica “Satanic Sect” SSP-SP Secretaria de Segurança Pública de São Paulo“Secretariat of Security of São Paulo”
TCC Terceiro Comando da Capital “Third Commandof the Capital”
UPP Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora “PeacemakerPolice Units”
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Epigraph
There is no easy way to make sense of how public security in this wealthy andglobal mega-city could have devolved into a clannish blood feud.”
Graham Denyer Willis, São Paulo: Insecure Citizens, All Of Them
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1. INTRODUCTION
The Problem
Between 2000- 10 the homicide rate in the Brazilian state of São Paulo declined sharply. From
34.18 homicides per/100,000 in 2000, the rate fell to 10.49/100,000 in 2010, a steep 70%
decline. São Paulo state Governor Geraldo Alckmin celebrated the apex of this trend in 2011,
when for the first time since statistics started being compiled in 1999, the state presented a
murder rate of 10.08/100,000 per capita. The rate was close enough to 10, which the World
Health Organization (WHO) considers non-epidemic. By contrast, in the same year, the rate in
Rio de Janeiro was as twice as high at 24/100,000, and the national rate was 21/100,000. Other
crimes in São Paulo have also dropped, albeit not as sharply. Car robbery, for instance, has
dropped 24% in São Paulo over the decade.
Given this long- term decline in criminal violence, it was especially surprising — to policymakers
and observers alike — that the more recent crime rate has once again spiked sharply upwards.
The consolidated data to date (see Figure1) shows that first and second degree murder rates have
gone up 11.8% between 2010 and 2012 and is now 6.3% higher than the 2010 landmark. By
looking upon a broader category, of violent crimes (which includes, besides first and second
degree homicides, robbery, robbery followed by death, rape, and kidnapping) minus first and
second degree homicide rates, the data shows that by the end of 2014, these crimes would have
increased some 40 per cent.
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Figure 1. Crime growth percentage in the last five years (2010-14)
Source: Data adapted from SSP-SP, 2014. Note: The crime rates of 2014 were projected based on the first quarterly report.
These figures allow us to draw two conclusions: First, that the first and second degree homicide
rate spiked significantly in 2012, and then returned to previous levels, but is still higher than it
was in 2010.And second, in regards to the rest of violent crimes, that there is a constant increase
since 2010, especially after 2012. Despite the fact that the growth curve of first and seconddegree homicides and other violent crimes behave differently, it is clear that the growth of
violent crimes resumed in the state of São Paulo, particularly after 2012.
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
C r i m e G r o w t h P e r c e n t a g e
Years
Crime Growth Percentage in the Last Five Years
1st and 2nd Degree Homicides Other Violent Crimes
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Why did the crime rate suddenly spike upwards in 2012, after such a long period of decline? A
fact which makes the puzzle even more intriguing is that the jail population in São Paulo has
never been as large. Since 1995, jail population increased nearly four-fold in São Paulo, leading
the state to hold 40% of the inmates in the country. To illustrate this steady increase, in 2011 the
daily arrest rate was 26.04, and in 2012 it jumped to 81.85 (SAP 2012). Figure 2 shows that,
despite the remarkable expansion of the prison system, the rapid growth in jail population
contributes to a ballooning effect. Taking into account that the number of arrests and the jail
population has been increasing, it is incongruent that crime rates also have. More than
worrisome, these figures call for further research.
Figure 2: Jail population growth
Source: Data retrieved from the National Prison Department (DEPEN), 2014.Mass incar ceration has been the kernel of São Paulo’s security policy. For a decade, its
efficiency has been uncontested — more than that, it has been praised as the main reason of the
1 3
8 , 1 1 6
1 4 4 , 4 3 0
1 5 3 , 0 5 6
1 5 4 , 6 9 6
1 6 3 , 9 1 5
1 7 0 , 9 1 6
1 8 0 , 0 5 9
8 8 , 9 9 2
9 0 , 6 9 6
9 5 , 5 8 5
9 9 , 6 0 5
1 0 1 , 7 7 4
9 8 , 9 9 5
1 0 0 , 0 3 4
2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 7 2 0 0 8 2 0 0 9 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 1
JAIL POPULATION GROWTH
Jail Population Prison System Capacity
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crime drop during between 2010-2010. The recent rise in crime, however, demonstrates that
jailing, in the long- run, was not a successful public policy1.
Thus, based on this dilemma, we posit the following research question: Why did the jail policy
fail to curb crime in São Paulo state?
Literature Review
The first section of the literature review discusses the paradox of the rise in crime, despite the
effort made in policing and correctional measures. Mass incarceration, high- value target
operations (HVT) and liken mano dura policies from all around the world, but especially in Latin
America, seem to be fomenting organized crime and drug trafficking, instead of curbing it. This
section debates the efficiency of zero tolerance policies, and argues that criminals are often not
solely responsible for the rise in crime. Furthermore, it reveals the negotiation between the state,
society and criminal actors as an unorthodox but often successful measure to contain crime and
drug trafficking.
The second part of the Literature Review incorporates the case of São Paulo into the broader
discussion presented in the first section, i.e., of zero tolerance security policies followed by crime
rise. There are two different explanations for the problem of violence in São Paulo. The first
defends that the last decade’s drop in crime in São Paulo is due to successful security public
policies. The second, on the other hand, rejects state efficiency and claims that the drop in the
1 It is worth noticing that mass incarceration is a public policy that reflects a legitimate effort from the government,and its failure is not attributable to corruption. Despite the fact that corruption is present and plenty in the São Paulogovernment, this study differs from the issues found in typical criminal networks inside the state. Drug cartels formcriminal networks with the state all over Latin America, including São Paulo’s neighbor Rio de Janeiro. However,the government of São Paulo and the PCC are in a truly antagonistic relationship, and their interactions are of a morecomplex nature of well- known state-gangs criminal rings.
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homicide rate in São Paulo is actually attributable to the Primeiro Comando da Capital “First
Command of the Capital”, or simply the PCC, a powerful organized crime organization which is
in the core of this research. By the same token, this train of thought suggests that extrajudicial
executions should be blamed for the rise in the homicide rates after 2012. Despite more aligned
to the latter than to the former explanation, the present thesis points towards a third one, that the
state and the PCC are both equally responsible for the status quo of violence in São Paulo, be it
of low or high crime rates. Thus, the level of violence is a by- product of these agents’
interaction.
1.2.1 The Paradox of Crime Rise
For the last decade, a few Latin American countries have employed heavy -handed policing
measures, or mano dura policies, intending to control endemic violence and tackle the drug trade
market. As a result of this all-out-war-against-gangs-atmosphere, except from Colombia,
organized crime managed to adapt and resist. Consequently, criminality has escalated after the
mano dura plans, with few poignant examples in the literature to prove it. The Global Study on
Homicide 2011 performed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shows,
for instance, that according to the percentage of homicides by firearm in the sub-regions of the
world, the three first places are led by South America, Caribbean and Central America,
respectively (UNODC 2011, 10, fig.). Therefore, the region shares coincidental security policies
and disastrous results.
José Miguel Cruz (2012) has a relevant study on the Salvadoran gangs. After several years
process tracing gang members, the scholar documented the deterioration of the relationship
between the state and organized crime. El Salvador has two main transnational gangs (formed by
Salvadoran nationals who immigrated to the United States), the Mara Savatrucha Thirteen (MS-
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13) and the Barrio 18 “18 Street Gang”, both having a total of 21,000 Salvadoran members.
According to the scholar, during the 1990s, these gangs perpetrated minor felonies, but since the
government followed Honduras in the implementation of mano dura plans, both gangs became
big- time mafia.
The overall homicide toll rose from 40/100,000 to 62/100,000 from 2003-06 in El Salvador; by
2010, it was 71/100,000. According to Cruz, the government carried out a series of iron fist
policies, such as a reform of the penal law to permit the imprisonment of suspicious-looking
individuals and the banning of young people grouping. These measures resulted in 30,000
arrests, “...which had the unintended effect of transforming prisons into new centers of gang
live” (2012, 33). The scholar concludes that imprisonment policies played a crucial role in the
raise of violence in the country, “That penitentiary, as well as many others overcrowded by
gangs affiliated with the same criminal network, ended up being a transnational node for
criminal activities”(32). However, a recent truce between the government and the two
Salvadoran gangs in August 2012 — facilitated by the Roman Catholic Church, managed to halt
the bloodshed.
In a six-month period, homicides dropped by 32 percent, kidnappings by 50 percent and
extortion nearly by10 percent. Besides having immediately removed 30 gang leaders to less-
restrictive conditions, the government promised to provide televisions and increase visiting
rights, among others. Despite being tenuous, the truce has been showing positive results so far.
Unlike mass imprisonment, a negotiated truce seemed to be effective in curbing criminality. The
pact’s symbolic image is that of six gang leaders laying down their heavy weapons on the feet of
the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza. All in
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all, Cruz demonstrates how unorthodox security methods might successfully replace orthodox
ones in the fight against crime.
Mexico is another nation which has been suffering tremendously from violence brought by its
Mexican Organized Crime Organizations (MOCOs). Noel Maurer (2012) asks why there are
homicide rates around 40/100,000 in the Northern part of the country, where there had been a
significant drop from 17/100,000 in 1997 to a little under than 10/100,000 in 2007. After the
success of Plan Colombia and the closure of drug routes in the Caribbean, the Calderón
administration decided to dismantle drug cartels in Mexico, what, to the author, generated a
“horizontalization” in drug syndicates structure and, consequently, more crimes. In his words,
The sufficient condition for the violence explosion, however, was the Calderónadministrations’ crackdown on the cartels. The crackdown drove up the costs of the drugtrade, and caused the cartels to expand horizontally into new drug routes and newcriminal markets. Moreover, the arrests of cartel leaders caused internal organizations to break down, allowing specialized divisions (such as the Zetas or La Línea) to go into business by themselves. The result has been an escalation of violence and a widespreadgrowth in extortion. (203, 15)
Following the same trend, Felbab-Brown (2012) argues against high-value target (HVT)
operations to combat organized crime. In a comparative study between Colombia and Mexico,
the author sought to understand the lessons that the latter can learn from the former. Her major
finding, which is in line with Maurer’s argument, is that breaking up the Colombian cartels was
only a successful policy because both the Medellin and Cali cartels had been functionally
destroyed before the deposition of their leaders (2012). Then, “… the lesson that Mexico should
have drawn from the Colombian case is that merely breaking up the cartels is insufficient; the
state needs to increase its presence in a multifaceted fashion” (Felbab-Brown, 2012, 50).
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Felbab-Brown also claims that counter-insurgency operations, which became popular after the
murder of Pablo Escobar, are not really effective, since replacing a drug trafficker is easier than
replacing a terrorist. Furthermore, not even in Colombia has the state filled the vacuum it left
after dismantling the cartels. The paramilitary groups Autodefesas Unidas de Colombia “The
United Self-defense Forces of Colombia” (AUC) and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionárias
Colombianas “Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia” (FARC) created a political umbrella
that should had been promoted by the state in the first place. The scholar suggests that targeting
the middle strata of drug cartel organizations, a policy already attempted by the United States
and United Kingdom, is a better strategy than targeting their leaders.
Finally, a recent report released by the Organization of American States (OAS) reencounters the
literature on law enforcement above. The report “Drugs in the Americas” (2013) provides a
detailed analysis of drug production, trafficking and distribution, as well as the relationship
between drug trade and organized crime. The facts are striking per se, but when considering that
the OAS is a Cold War designed institution with conservative contours, they become even more
powerful.
In sum, the report acknowledges that hard-line strategies such as war on drugs have failed 2. The
document is structured in thematic scenarios and predicts an overall environment for the
continent between 2013 and 2025. First, the report claims that the problem lies neither on better
law enforcement nor on regulation framework, but on grass-root measures — these range from the
well-known basic rights such as employment and education to harm-reduction programs and
legalization of drug possession.
2 Despite choosing to cite the OAS here, this is a widespread argument. The Global Commission on Drug Policy, forinstance, was the first influential group to provoke the debate (GCDP 2011).
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some of these strict policies, such as mass incarceration, actually contribute to increase crime
rates. Therefore, criminals cannot be exclusively blamed for crime rise, since harsh security
policies also play a role in it. Second, the literature discusses how negotiation may play a
positive role in refraining criminality, offering an option to zero tolerance policies. The next
section brings the broader discussion to the state of São Paulo, where pundits disagree as to
whether the government plays either a positive or a negative role in trying to contain crimes.
1.2.2 Successful Public Policies
In regards to successful public policies, Goertzel and Kahn (2009) note that homicide rates
between 2001 and 2007 in São Paulo state dropped by half. Furthermore, they attribute this fact
to two different causes — gun control legislation and more effective policing methods. In their
opinion, “the turning point in the state’s criminal homicide rate came at the peak of this increase
of imprisonments” (404). They observe that, if in the first quar ter of 1996 the number of monthly
imprisonments was 18,602, it jumped to 30,831 in the first quarter of 2001, settling back to
approximately 23,000 a month after that (404). Worth noticing is that the imprisonment policy
described by the authors starts as a response to the mega-rebellion of 20014. All in all, they
attribute the homicide decline to successful security policies, against which criminals tend to
react,
The attacks by organized crime are a response to police crackdowns that have put largenumbers of offenders in crowded prisons and removed thousands of handguns fromcirculation. These police measures have substantially lowered homicide and some other
violent crime rates. This does not generate dramatic new stories on television footage, butit does make life safer for the average citizen or visitor to São Paulo. (Goertzel and Kahn2009, 407)
4 In 2001 the PCC made its first public appearance, simultaneously mobilizing 29 state prisons in joint mutinies. This episode became known as the mega-rebellion of 2001.
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According to Goertzel and Kahn’s argument, organized crime attacks are simply a response from
the criminals to the effectiveness of mass imprisonment. However, the 2009 article did not
foresee 2012 as a pivotal moment that caused an increase in crime rates. This thesis rejects the
efficiency of mass incarceration. However, it is harder to contest the effectiveness of gun control
legislation, also pointed out by Goertzel and Kahn.
By the end of 2003, the National Congress enacted the Law n° 10.826/03, known as the “law
against guns”. The law imposed measures which sought to control the flow of firearms into the
country, and made it illegal to own guns that are not registered or to carry guns outside of one’s
homes or business. Moreover, it instituted background checks for gun purchases and raised the
minimum age for gun purchases to twenty-five. Penalties for those overriding the law also
increased, including tougher fines and prison sentences. On the top of the national law, a
volunteer disarmament program took place in 2004, from which the state could buy back over
450,000 guns.
In 2004, for the first time in more than a decade, firearm mortality declined eight per cent from
the previous year at the national level. Firearm related hospitalizations also decreased 4.6 per
cent (Ministerio da Saúde, 2012). The reversal of this trend encouraged an interdisciplinary study
(Marinho de Souza et al 2007) aimed at verifying the correlation between those changes and the
new legislation. For that, the scholars used the linear -regression approach similar to that used to
measure model mortality rates in the analysis of predicted hospitalizations. The effort undertook
resulted in interesting findings. Firearm-related deaths and hospitalizations are not well
distributed in the country (577). Whereas some Brazilian states such as São Paulo, Mato Grosso,
Sergipe and Paraíba faced a decrease of more than 30 per cent in deaths, other ones, such as
Amazonas and Pará (notorious by their land dispute) actually had their rates increased.
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Notwithstanding, the total of averted potential deaths was 5,563 at the national level. The study
also identifies São Paulo’s success as an outlier, having the state the highest rates of gun buy-
back in the country: 188.8/100,000 per capita. The aforementioned scholars believe that the
state-level police promoted the disarmament program as well as strictly enforced gun control
laws. Whereas the average national rates arrest for firearm possession in 2004 was 40/100,000,
in São Paulo it was 50/100,000 (Marinho de Souza et al. 2007, 580-81).The trend in decrease of
firearm-related deaths, however, did not endure,
The evolution [of firearm-related deaths] along those decades was not homogenous.Between 1990 and 2003 the increase was relatively systematic and regular, at anaccelerated pace: 7.3 per cent a year. After the peak of 39.3 thousand deaths in 2003,figures, at first, dropped to approximately 36 thousand, but after 2008 they keptoscillating around 39 thousand a year. The disarmament campaign, launched in 2004,seemed to be a significant factor to explain this change. Data shows, however, that if this policy could curb the trend of accelerated firearm-related deaths which prevailed in thecountry, it did not have enough effectiveness to revert the process and decrease thefigures. (Weiselfisz 2013, 9-11)5
Besides demonstrating the limited effect of gun control measures, the “Mapa da violência 2013”
also points to the fact that there are 3.8 million firearms in possession of criminals in Brazil
(Weiselfisz 2013, 9). Offenders, by definition, offend the establishment; and therefore would not
feel encouraged to join the government’s buy-back program. Gun seizures, on the contrary, may
have disrupted criminal activities but, regardless of all efforts, disarming an arsenal close to four
million guns takes more than a law and a campaign. Public opinion also reflected population’s
concern with gun control measures in a national referendum on arm collection.
5 Translation by the author. Note that all the translations from originals in Portuguese in this entire document were made by theauthor, unless when otherwise specified.
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Concerned with the possibility of deprivation of self-defence rights among armed criminals who
would not follow gun control legislation, nearly 65 per cent of Brazilians overwhelmingly
rejected a ban on firearms in October 2005. Despite the fact that only one per cent of the
population holds guns6, the 2005 referendum demonstrated that the vast majority praises for a
right that they do not exercise. In conclusion, gun control measures may not have caused a steady
drop in firearm-related deaths, but it has created some impact in São Paulo’s homicide drop, and
should compound the set of explanations to the phenomenon.
1.2.3 Unsuccessful Public Policies
An opposite interpretation of the problem comes from Feltran (2011), who disbelieves the
renowned achievements of paulista 7 security policies. Possibly the most compelling study on the
impact the PCC exerts at the streets belongs to this author. The sociologist spent over five years
performing a field work in the impovishered district of Sapopemba, in the East zone of São
Paulo, which has around 300,000 inhabitants. His work is of extreme significance because he
argues that the drop in homicide rates of the last decade is actually due to the PCC, the most
powerful Brazilian criminal organization today. To the author, a guideline imposed by the group,
of prohibition of murder in the streets, is actually the reason why homicide rates have dropped so
dramatically. Since the PCC has reached the monopoly of the crime world, it has also become
the maximum authority of this dominium.
Any execution must be pre-approved by the PCC leadership, and this mechanism turned murder
into a last resort solution. From this, one can deduce that the credits the government takes for
6 This figure is highly controversial. In Brazil, unlike in the United States, Switzerland or Canada, gun possession is verystigmatized by society. Therefore, many of those who hold guns do it in secrecy, not even registering the weapon with theauthorities. The “Mapa da violência 2013” shows that there are approximately 8.5 million unregistered guns in Brazil(Weilselfisz, 2013, 9).7 Paulista is how people born in the state of São Paulo are designated.
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curbing violence in the city actually belongs to the PCC. What the media calls the PCC factor 8
is, in fact, Feltran’s argument (2011), which also implies a total subversion of order, since
criminals would have a much higher impact enacting a set of laws than the state itself.
The public health report “Decline in homicide rates in São Paulo, Brazil: a descriptive analysis”
(Perez et al. 2011) shows the homicide drop all over the country, and notably in São Paulo. The
most important lesson to abstract from the report, which focuses on quantitative analysis, is that
the value of homicide rates increases significantly by disaggregating the variables. After
employing this technique in the homicide data of São Paulo city the study verifies that, despite
the general drop in homicide rates, the drop was more expressive in areas of extreme social
exclusion and among males aged between fifteen and thirty-four, exactly the areas and the age
group that the PCC influences the most. In the author’s words, “… [the] data indicates, thus, that
the drop in homicide rates of São Paulo may have happened due a change in the pattern of
criminal and community violence” (Perez et al. 2011, 24). If by disaggregating the variables the
report shows that the homicide drop affected more some age groups and communities, the “Mapa
da Violência de 2011” (Waiselfisz 2011) shows a dislocation of crime across the state of São
Paulo.
The “Mapa da Violência de 2011” (Waiselfisz 2011), confirms the homicide drop all over the
country, highlighting São Paulo as an outlier. However, the report identifies a dynamic
dislocation, of both “dissemination and interiorizing” (Weiselfisz 2011, 57) of homicide, which
is shifting from metropolitan areas to rural areas — phenomena that can be seen in every state of
8 To see a couple examples of the use of the term, refer to Dias, Camila Nunes. “Matemática da Violência” ‘The Maths ofViolence’ O Estado de São Paulo 04 Nov 2012. Web. 18 April 2013 and Rocha, Bruno Lima. “Fator PCC, Desinformação eHipocrisia Oficial” ‘PCC Factor, Disinformation and Official Hypocrisy’ O Globo [Brasília], Blog do Noblat 14 Nov 2012. Web.18 April 2013.
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the country. This double process suggests two things: 1) that homicide is not dropping as much
as first perceived, but is actually moving towards the interior of the country; 2) in the case of São
Paulo, particularly, the interiorizing of crime coincides with the security policy of interiorizing
prison establishments. This thesis argues that this is not exactly a coincidence. This works since
the PCC rules the prison system9: by spreading the facilities, the government is also enlarging the
area where the PCC acts.
While Feltran draws on the PCC strength to justify the homicide drop of the last decade, Risso
(2014) holds the Military Police of São Paulo accountable for the raise in homicides after 2012.
In her diagnosis of the recent spurt in homicide rates in São Paulo city, Risso concludes,
An examination of the incidences of deaths due to police intervention in this case revealsa significant involvement of police officers as perpetrators of intentional homicides in thecity of São Paulo. Of the overall total of cases with known perpetrators, the police wereresponsible for 58.8 per cent of the homicides reported in 2012 and for 53.1 per cent inthe first half of 2013. Consolidated analysis of all intentional homicides in São Pauloreveals that the police were responsible for 21 per cent in 2012, i.e., one in every five
killings in the city was committed by a police officer. In the first semester of 2013, it wasa lower proportion of 17.6 per cent. Despite the reduction observed in 2013, these datareveal a totally unacceptable volume of deaths. It is critical to determine thecircumstances in which these shootings are taking place (2014, 8).
As perpetrators of violence, police officers are actually contributing to the increase in murders
after 2012.
The fact that 79% of these police officers were off duty by the time of the incident (Risso 2014,
8) suggests that these killings might be related to extra judicial motivations. Withal, by analysing
Police Incident Reports from January 2012 to June 2013 and highlighting the main
9 The PCC’s domain over the prison system is explained in detail in this thesis, especially in Chapters 3 and 4.
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characteristics of victims by perpetrator status, Bento and Rechenberg (2013) noticed that for the
occurrences that were reported as “signs of execution”, 95% were committed by unknown
offenders and 52.6% took place in the second half of 2012 (22). In addition, during this period,
79% of all the homicides are of unknown authors (Bento and Rechenberg 2013, figure 1).
According to the rationale of the second explanation, rule of law is subverted: to some extent, the
PCC would be responsible for the crime drop and the police force for its raise.
This project’s intent, therefore, is to go beyond the dichotomy state effectiveness versus state
ineffectiveness by proposing a novel reasoning for the problem of criminality in São Paulo.
Neither the state nor the PCC can be blamed alone for the violence in the state. Willis (2014)
asks for “a greater focus on urban informality” in order to make sense of the puzzle. By resorting
to informal institutions and complex adaptive system methodological frameworks, this thesis
aims to respond to Willis’ challenge of explaining why São Paulo has become so violent.
Analytical Framework
Understanding the unexpected rise in violence in São Paulo requires a comprehensive analysis of
the problem, as well of the actors involved in it. The scholarship has been studying public
security policies, and organized crime separately, to make sense of violence. However, studying
the state of São Paulo and the PCC in isolation does not account to explain the phenomenon of
violence, because it is the interaction of these two agents that clarifies the puzzle of criminal
levels in the state.
Despite the fact that a couple of studies already suggest a causal relationship between the
expansion of the prison system and the PCC strengthening, (Dias 2011; Adorno and Salla 2007)
and that there is a study of violence in Brazil resorting to a network approach (Arias 2006), there
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is not yet a study that focuses on the interaction of actors as being the core explanation of
violence in São Paulo. In this sense, this thesis proposes the use of Complex Adaptive System
framework in order to unpack the series of interactions between the state and the PCC, and,
therefore, explain the evolution of crime in São Paulo.
1.3.1 Complex Adaptive System Framework
Complex Adaptive System (CAS) is a theoretical framework that resorts to Darwinian
evolutionary principles for explaining an agent’s adaptive path. In this model, context,
relationship and agency matters. Hence, the study of agents considers interactions with the
surrounding environment, and, more importantly, it takes into account the dynamics of how a
certain agent responds to this environment. CAS has been employed in different disciplines,
from molecular biology to computer sciences, and represents a scientific movement towards the
understanding of entire systems, as opposed to the dissection of its parts,
The greatest challenge today, not just in cell biology and ecology but in all of science, isthe accurate and complete description of complex systems. Scientists have broken downmany kinds of systems. They think they know most of the elements and forces. The nexttask is to reassemble them, at least in mathematical models that capture the key propertiesof the entire ensembles. (Stogatz 2001, 268)
Because the problem of violence in São Paulo is ascribable to both the state and the PCC, the
CAS framework is a useful analytical tool to this single case study. Among various CAS models,
the most suitable to study the state-PCC system is the asymmetric predator-prey arms race10
.
The system fits into a typical arms race in the sense that, “An adaptation in one lineage (eg.
10 In this evolutionary model, two different species co-evolve in an arms race between the predator species and its prey or between the parasite and its host (Vermej 1987). This model is an asymmetric arms race since the selection pressure works on opposite sides.
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predators) may change the selection pressure on another lineage (eg. prey), giving rise to
counter-adaptation” (Ibid).
If this occurs reciprocally, “an unstable runaway escalation or ‘arms race’ may result” (Dawkins
and Krebs 1979, 489). In this case study, the state fits in the predator and the PCC in the prey
roles. In the same manner, the state-PCC system fits into an asymmetric arms race since,
“An asymmetric arms race might be called an ‘attack-defense’ arms race. It is one inwhich offensive adaptations on one side are countered by defensive adaptations on theother. Swords get sharper, so shields get thicker, so swords get sharper still. Most of the
familial biological examples are asymmetric as in the predator-prey or the parasite-hostasymmetry.” (Ibid. 491)
Identifying the state-PCC system as asymmetric sets forth an important implication, that is, that
the PCC has an inherent advantage over the state. According to the life-dinner principle, the
agent who is under stronger selection pressure than another tends to have advantage in that
particular arms race (Ibid., 494). More specifically, Dawkins and Krebs defend that a specialist
has advantage over a generalist.
In order to illustrate this idea, there is a series of arguments. First, whereas the PCC is fighting
for its existence, the state is just enforcing the law, and, at most, reinforcing its own legitimacy11.
Second, whereas the PCC is specialized in its own endeavors, the state has to combat crime in
general, including the PCC’s rival gangs. The relationship between the state and the PCC is a
typical predator-prey one and the two actors make use of various strategies in order to
accomplish their goals. Since the PCC’s primary goal is to survive, the group resorts to more
11 The validity of this argument could be easily contested if the government, in spite of the state, were considered as the predator,since governments also fight for its survival in times of re-election. Refer to Chapter 4 for an illustration of how governmentsreacted to the pressure made by the PCC in times of re-election.
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adaptive strategies than the government. The life-dinner principle, thus, accounts for the
imbalance of strategies expounded by this thesis, which justifies the focus on the PCC rather than
the state’s strategies.
Nonetheless, during most of the time both players are resorting to a simple strategy: TIT FOR
TAT (see Figure 3). By applying Holland’s genetic algorithm to the Prisoner’s Dilemma game,
Axelrod noticed that the population quickly evolved towards TIT FOR TAT, which “is a strategy
of cooperation based on reciprocity” (1997, 16).Cooperation derives from the threat of
retaliation, and this feature is present in the state-PCC complex system because defection is
usually too costly for both parties. Therefore, what is seen is that the constant game of TIT FOR
TAT keeps an unstable truce, which is eventually broken (illustrated in the system by the mega-
rebellions of 2001 and 2006 and by the attacks of 2012, which will be further discussed).
Figure 3. TIT FOR TAT between the state and the PCC
State TIT
PCCTAT
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Whenever there is a defection in the TIT FOR TAT game, it means that the system reached
unintended consequences. Those are not caused by accident. The system breakdown, from time
to time, relies on its complex nature, to which the CAS framework sheds light. Correspondingly,
Alxelrod’s typology of variety, interaction and selection (2001) are useful concepts to deduce the
state-PCC system behavioural patterns. The next section explains how these concepts are
incorporated into the analysis.
Additionally to recurrent terms, there are key CAS processes that permeate the entire analysis.
First and foremost, it is important to reiterate that this thesis is based on the study of the state-
PCC complex system, and not of its isolated parts. This system has two main agents, the state
and the PCC, that interact with each other in different spaces, using different strategies and
artifacts. Each of these agents also has its own population and sub-populations, of various types
and agents. The evolution of the state-PCC system, and the outcomes that it produces in crime in
São Paulo, depends on three main CAS processes: variety, interaction and selection.
Variety is a central feature of any population, since it increases its survival rates when facing a
threat. In the predator-prey state-PCC system, keeping variety within the population, as well
attacking each other’s variety, is a key success factor. Interaction, in its turn, is the most evident
process of the state-PCC system, and is responsible for its very creation: without interaction, the
main agents would not have formed a system. Lastly, selection is a key process for agents to
choose strategies and interfere in their own and each other populations. Variety, interaction and
selection, hence, are key CAS processes to the state-PCC system (see Figure 4), because in a
typical predator- prey CAS, predators are ultimately attempting to terminate the prey’s
population.
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Before presenting the key CAS processes in more detail, there is the need to unpack the levels of
analysis in which they apply to. This work offers to explain violence in São Paulo through the
interaction of a complex system, instead of its isolated parts. Nonetheless, the understanding of
the system itself requires the analysis of variety, interaction and selection at different levels. In
this sense, the key CAS processes are applied in five different levels, since they may be used
intra and inter populations, with one agent trying to target the other. The different levels of
analysis, thus, are: 1) state-state; 2) state-PCC; 3) PCC- state; 4) PCC-PCC; 5) PCC- rival gangs.
Figure 4. State-PCC CAS
In sum, variety, interaction and selection, and its underlying mechanisms and principles,
incorporate the analysis of the state-PCC complex system (see Figure 5) to decode their
strategies separately, but without losing site of the holistic approach.
In order to unravel this puzzle, it is important to understand that much of the crime in question
involves a complex set of relationships between the police and a particular group of organized
criminals, the PCC.
Main Agents CAS
State PCC
Variety
Selection
Interaction
State-
PCC CAS
System
CAS Key Processes
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Figure 5. State-PCC CAS by levels of analysis
1.4 Argument
On May 28 2012, a special police force called Rondas Ostensivas Tobias de Aguiar “ Tobias de
Aguiar Ostensive Patrol” (ROTA), notoriously known for their brutality, allegedly killed 5 men
in a car pack who belonged to the PCC. Because of this disruption, the gang reinstated
previously existing “rules of engagement” for dealing with the police. One of these states that if
a policeman captures one of its members and executes instead of arresting him, then the PCC cell
State-
State
Recombines and
increases thevariety of the
police forces andthe prison system
Selected the RDD
as a different
strategy
State-
PCC
Constructs barriers
with prison
transfers to isolatePCC's leadership,
curbing interaction
Removes barriers
with prisontransfers to create
interactionbetween the PCC
and its enemies
Redistributes the
stress of thesystem interacting
and negotiationgwith the PCC
PCC-
PCC
Recruits membersand fellows bystrict selection
Keeps hegemony
through specific
prison rules
PCC-
State
Promotes riots to
obtain prison
transfers and
removeinteraction
barriers
Redistributes the
stress of thesystem interacting
and negotiatingwith the state
PCC-
Rivals
Decrease variety
through violence
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in the region will kill city police officers. After this has occurred, crime rates in the state spiked.
The peak of violence was in October, when murder rates rose 80%, compared to the previous
year.
Despite still engaging in its activities — drug trafficking being the most profitable one — the
PCC was not openly disturbing or terrorizing the population since 2006, the year of the group’s
biggest wave of attacks. Since then, the media and most of the pundits assumed that the gang had
been contained by the government. Contrary to the official discourse, however, the gang was
never close to being dismantled. The shift in the nature of the attacks, aimed primarily at police
officers, highlight that the criminal organization not only still has teeth, but has the power to
show them. This means that, in São Paulo, between 2006 and 2012, low crime rates and illegality
coexisted harmoniously, in a bizarre accommodating relationship. Thereby, the research question
opens up analysis of the interaction between the state and this gang.
Second, this study finds a positive relationship between the expansion of the prison system and
the growing strength of the PCC. In bief, the research showed that: a) despite the fact that there
were low crime rates in the state until the attacks of 2012, the PCC had never been stronger; b)
despite the unprecedented expansion of the prison system in São Paulo, the quality had not
improved and there is still prison beds deficit; c) in practice, the PCC rules the prison system,
and used its hegemony over other gangs to expand its influences from prison to prison; d) the
PCC’s power is not exclusive to the prison system— on the contrary, prisons operate as a
fortress to the gang, from where the PCC’s values, principles, commands and rules emanate and
reverberate; e) the PCC’s control over prisons counts on the leniency of the state, which, afraid
of inevitable rebellions, allowed the group to overtake the system; f) if, in the first decade of the
century, violence dropped in São Paulo, it was due to a frail accommodating relationship
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between the state and organized crime, at which both, side by side, formed a racketeering
network.
In short, this project argues that jails have not curbed crime in São Paulo. Instead, and contrary
to what they were assumed to do, they strengthened the very organization they were supposed to
stop12. Since the research reveals that prisons are the primary locus for the PCC’s evolution, the
expectation that its concrete walls would prevent the gang expansion is a fallacious idea.
“Adaptive behavior in prison is maladaptive behavior outside” explains Marieke Liem (Gudrais
2013), who argues that imprisonment refrains inmates to cope on the outside. All in all, this
single case study lends evidence to another unsuccessful mass incarceration policy.
Methodology
The methodology behind this project consists in process-tracing and narrative analysis. Counter-
factual analysis is employed in the conclusion to consider competing explanations. In order to
employ these methods, the research relies on secondary sources (books, biographies, theses,
dissertations, reports, journal articles, press media articles, and even investigative novels) and on
primary sources (governmental data, general studies on violence produced by competent Non-
governmental Organizations, NGOs, and other institutions, consolidated statistics, and
governmental press releases). In order to account for competing explanations to the problem and
to verify the boldness of this hypothesis, Chapter 5 also employs counter-factual analysis.
12 The creation of criminal organizations as a nefarious and unintended consequence of incarceration policy is a problem that extrapolates to other regions on the globe. There is evidence, for instance, that the Islamic State (ISIS),was actually created inside of Camp Bucca, in southern Iraq, an American War Prison. Camp Bucca was a focal
point to the group, since it put in contact terrorists from all over who could very hardly meet under any othercircumstances. The American government also color-coded daitenees’ uniforms by their importance, which enabledthe inmates to create what would later be Isis’ hierarchy (Chulov 2014).
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Galliher and Cain (1974) acknowledge that most of the studies on mafia rely upon secondary
sources and primary data instead of questionnaires, interviews and ethnography, due to
methodological constraints involved in researching organized crime. The same thought applies to
this thesis — methods such as field work and interviews were discarded for time constraint and
safety issues.
1.5.1 Narrative Analysis
Narrative analysis deserves further explanation, since it is the core method of this thesis. The
method was chosen since it allows working with many variables in a small n study and unfolding
to what extent the entire argument rests upon the validity of each causal linkage. Further,
narrative analysis shows sensitivity to detail, process, and causal complexity, “narrative analysis
entails a major shift towards disaggregation, along with a highly self-conscious focus on the
historical sequences in which these disaggregated elements appear” (Mahoney 1999, 1164). This
project aims at analysing and processing various elements of an adaptive system. Narrative
analysis is a suitable tool to identify and debrief the adaptive strategies, the causal chains of
which they are part, their points of intersection and their unfolding processes that are consistent
with a broader, overarching macrocasual argument.
Chapter Outline
The chapters portray an analysis of the paulista prison system (and the complex adaptive system
that grows within it, in three different moments — 2001, 2006, and 2012. Each of these moments
coincides with an unstable moment of the system: the so- called mega-rebellions of 2001 and
2006, and the attacks of 2012. That being said, it is important to clarify that the chronological
landmarks were chosen not only to narrate the evolution of the PCC, but, foremost, to help to
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debrief parts and interaction mechanisms of the state-PCC CAS. Therefore, the periodization
adopted in this thesis was determined in compliance with the CAS analysis. As previously
mentioned, all three landmarks reflect a crisis in the system. Notwithstanding, prior to each
crisis, the state-PCC system experienced expansion.
Chapter 2, Building the System, which landmarks the mega-rebellion of 2001, depicts the
creation of the state-PCC system. The chapter is divided into two major sections. The first,
Background, provides an outlook of the prison system before the PCC’s creation, in 1993. The
chapter first examines the roots of organized crime in Brazil, and identifies how prisons have
been used as hubs for its creation and reproduction, pattern that goes back to the 1970s.
Following that, the chapter addresses human rights abuses from the authorities and their
relationship with the role played by the PCC in representing the incarcerated population against
the government. Next, the section assesses how the expansion of prisons was first designed as a
solution to an overcrowded system, and how this measure failed to solve the problem of
overpopulation due to the coexistence of authoritarian and democratic initiatives in public policy.
The second section of Chapter 2, Leapfrogging Strategies, shows how the PCC took advantage
of an expanding, although constantly overcrowded, prison system, for employing strategies to
strive. This is achieved by analysing how the PCC bargained with the state promoting prison
riots in exchange for transfers, and, most importantly, its nefarious implications in expanding the
group. The chapter follows by showing how the incarcerated population changed over time, and
it identifies violence as a crucial strategy for the PCC to eliminate rival gangs and promote
selection.
Chapter 3, Turf Battle in the Crime World, which landmarks the mega-rebellion of 2006, shows
the expansion of the system. The second moment marks the mega-rebellion of 2006, the apex of
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tension between the state and the gang. This is when most of the active interactions between the
state and the PCC took place, marking a phase when state attempted several different strategies
to try to curb the group. Chapter 3 first draws on the PCC’s internal crisis to explain how the
group adapted its organizational chart to a more horizontal structure, assuring enough variety in
its population to react to state measures against its top echelon. The chapter explains how the
state adapted its organizational chart as an attempt to curb the PCC’s highly profitable activities,
and how the PCC managed to overcome these restrictions by exploring new enterprises, in a
mechanism here named crime migration.
The chapter, then, assesses how the state exploited its resources, by creating a more severe
modality of prison transfer — the Regime Disciplinar Diferenciado, the ‘Differentiated
Disciplinary Regime’, or RDD. Then, the chapter identifies how the partnership between the
state of São Paulo and the federal government in building federal maxi- prisons to curb the
organized crime, ended up by failing. Through the federal maxi- prisons, the PCC has now
expanded to other states, in a process that mimics what already happened in São Paulo. The
chapter concludes by conducting the analysis of the arms race between the government and the
PCC on the use of cell phones and attorneys in the prison system.
Chapter 4, Keeping the Status Quo, which landmarks the attacks of 2012, marks the
consolidation of the system. It begins by analysing how the PCC resorts to symbols, soft power
and a unique ethos to perpetuate its hegemony in and out the prison system. Despite the fact that
the PCC reigns in the criminal world, there are constant threats, coming both from the state and
from other minor gangs, which put at stake the PCC’s position. This chapter, then, examines a
series of rules created by the group to foster and keep the flow of interaction among criminals,
from inside and outside of the prison system.
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Chapter 5, Counter-factual Analysis and Final Remarks, examines a series of counter-factual
questions, which aim to verify as to whether some variables have a causal relationship or a
simple correlation with the PCC’s resurgence in 2012. Despite the fact that this research f ocuses
primarily on the state-PCC interaction as the primary explanation for the crime rise in São Paulo,
there are possible competing explanations to the puzzle. The section analyses a series of counter-
factuals to the attacks of 2012, because this is the landmark of the crime rise and, therefore,
represents the PCC’s influence in the spike in crime. Lastly, the Final Remarks outlines the
limitations and contributions of the thesis and invites the scholarship to further explore this
thesis’ theme.
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2. BUILDING THE SYSTEM
The First Command of the Capital, PCC, founded in the year of 1993 in a huge and tireless fight
against the oppression and injustices of the concentration camp that was the Taubaté CustodyPrison, has as its motif Freedom, Justice and Peace
-PCC Statute, article 11
2.1 Background
This chapter first assesses the origins of organized crime organizations in the Brazilian
dictatorship (1964-85). While focusing primarily on the creation of the state-PCC system, the
first part of this chapter argues that, from the beginning, there is an intricate relationship between
imprisonment and the PCC. Before addressing the creation of the government-PCC system, a
brief historical account of the prison system under the state’s full domain is necessary to
understand the context within which the gang originated. In sequence, the chapter addresses how
the PCC managed to expand and become hegemonic in the prison system.
The study of the origins of organized crime in Brazil is conducive to this research since there are
many parallels between the contexts in which the first criminal organizations and the PCC were
created. First and foremost, both the first Brazilian criminal organizations and the PCC
originated inside of the prison system. In both cases, criminal organizations were founded in
opposition to an abusive prison system, in which human rights violations was an ongoing issue.
Also, prisoners who were specialists in bank heists became the heads of organized crime, and
passed their know-how onto the rest of the prison population (Leeds 1996).
The shared roots between the first criminal organizations and the PCC in jails stands out,
however, because in both historical moments organized crime was an unintended consequence of
an abusive prison system. Despite in a different fashion, the prison system overrode human rights
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both during the Brazilian dictatorship and the PCC creation. In the first case, human rights
violation occurred because the government treated political prisoners as common criminals, and
because jail conditions were precarious. In the second case, however, an overcrowded prison
system was an enough condition for the rise of organized crime in São Paulo.
The first section of this chapter, then, draws a parallel between the origin of the first organized
crime organizations in Brazil, during the dictatorship, and the rise of the PCC, identifying an
overcrowded and abusive prison system as the link between the two periods. Also, it identifies
that the misuse of the prison system, in both periods, generated unintended consequences,
culminating in the strengthening of organized crime. During the dictatorship, the misguided use
of the prison system occurred by mixing political and criminal groups. Twenty years later, by the
creation of the PCC, an inconsistent policy of prison expansion without quality improvement had
the PCC building as the counterpart.
The chapter is laid to explain how the misled policies including the prison system enabled the
creation of organized crime, first during the Brazilian dictatorship and then in São Paulo, two
decades later. Drawing this parallel is important not only to delineate the coincidences between
the two historical moments, but also because the inheritance left by the dictatorship led the state
to implement ambiguous prison policies over the following decades. Post-dictatorship, the prison
system expansion was two-folded: for some governors it had a humanizing purpose, aimed at
distressing an overflowing system by the creation of prison beds; for other governors, however,
the expansion of the prison system represented only the infrastructural arm of a broader project
of mass incarceration. The inconsistency of this policy, then, offered the PCC the conditions to
expand among the prison population.
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Once the background which allowed the PCC’s creation has been described, the chapter draws
on the strategies the PCC used to grow in an expanding prison system. The second section of this
chapter, Leapfrogging Strategies, seeks to demonstrate how the group expanded hand by hand
with the prison system, and how the misleading strategies chosen by the government ended up
contributing to its growth. The premise of the constitution of the state-PCC CAS system is that it
was created in prisons. Overall, the prison system in Brazil enabled the emergence of well
organized groups, and it was later dominated by the PCC, starting from São Paulo. This section,
Leapfrogging Strategies, accounts for the evolution of the state-PCC CAS system until 2001,
when the first mega-rebellion and major disruption in the system took place.
This section intends to unveil the strategies that the state used in an attempt to curb the PCC’s
expansion, as well as the PCC’s strategies to expand. Considering that both parties depend on
interacting with each other in order to achieve its goals, and that this a typical predator-prey
CAS, each action one part takes (TIT), will be replied with a reaction by the other (TAT). The
TIT FOR TAT game, however, is employed at many levels during the first stage of the system
(1993-2001), when the interactions happened to be more intense. During that period, the section
analyses the CAS interactions at the state-PCC, PCC-state, and PCC-rival gangs levels.
First, at the state-PCC level, the section shows how the government made use of prison transfers
as a strategy to curb the PCC expansion. The state transferred PCC leaders (TIT) to try
demobilize the group’s structure and to generate conflicts between PCC members and other rival
groups. In return (TAT), the PCC promoted prison riots to protest against those transfers. Prison
transfer is a bi-directional strategy as, at the PCC-state level, the PCC also resorted to transfers to
achieve its goals. Interestingly, the PCC purposefully promoted prison riots (TIT) demanding
transfers (TAT), because the group desired to increase the group’s range and the variety of its
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members. Prison transfers, thus, is a double-edged strategy, because both the PCC and the state
used it to seek different objectives.
In regards to the key CAS processes outlined in Chapter 1, prison transfers affect the interaction
patterns among inmates, in the sense that they both construct and remove barriers in the physical
space. From the state’s standpoint, transfers impose barriers to interactions among some agents,
who are separated and placed in different spaces. From the PCC’s standpoint, however, the
transfer intentionally provoked by uprisings remove physical barriers between inmates who were
formerly doing time in different facilities. Therefore, prison transfers are a strategy that alters
interactions by constructing and removing barriers. Also, aware that some prisons offer better
conditions than others, inmates follow this sign and force transfers to a more conducive facility.
Side by side with interaction, variety is a process involved in the strategy of prison transfers.
While the state believed transfers would decrease the PCC’s variety, the PCC used them to
increase it. Finally, the section studies the strategies at the PCC-rival gang level. The PCC, once
again, resorted to prison riots (TIT) to promote enough instability in the prison system in order to
select the agents among the prison population. By promoting riots, the PCC intended to
overthrow and demobilize the rival gangs, as well as to select allies and separate them from
enemies. Riots targeting rival gangs would end up either reflecting as prison transfers
(abovementioned) or would escalate to murders (TAT), practice part of the selection process.
Besides selection, the attacks of the PCC against rival gangs also affected interaction processes.
The PCC draws on some tactics used by its rival gangs to overthrow them. The group copies
enemies’ strategies, but adapts them to its own rational. This way, the PCC imposed its
sovereignty over rival gangs, but without excluding traits and strategies that were proven to be
successful to strive in the prison system before. Table 1 summarizes all the strategies, at different
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levels, that were present during the first phase of the state-PCC CAS system, between 1993 and
2001. As it follows, the chapter explains in detail what this preview discusses.
Table 1. State-PCC CAS strategies from 1993-2001
Level TIT TAT Strategy
State
-
PCC
Transfer Riot Decrease Variety/ Construction of Barriers
PCC-
State
Riot Transfer Increase Variety/ Remove Barriers
PCC-
Rival
Riot Murders Selecting Agents
2.2 Origin of Organized Crime
The relationship between imprisonment and the strengthening of organized crime organizations
is not new nor exclusive to São Paulo. Examples of gangs originated inside of the prison system
abound, but most impressive is the fact that they spilled over to the outside and, eventually, to
other countries. Figure 6 shows the10 most dangerous world prison gangs, including those whose
members are present in more than one country’s prison system.
What makes the Brazilian case stand out is that organized crime in Brazil was originated by the
encounter of leftist political prisoners with common prisoners in prison establishments13. Leeds
(1996), argues that organized crime is a product of the dictatorship. Leftist political militias once
13 A very similar story applies to Colonial Vietnam, at the prison of Poulo Condoro, in Con Son island. By arrestingmembers of the Indochinese Communist Party in the same part of Poulo Condoro, the party gained strength andrecruits, wrote its own manifesto and ran its own indoctrination class in the prison. Since most of the leadership andlower ranks that later defeated the French and the Americans met at Poulo Condoro, this prison became known as“the communist university”.
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financed themselves with bank robberies, what required understanding of sophisticated security
systems. Political inmates slowly started to pass forward their knowhow about organized
sophisticated crimes along with their political awareness to regular prisoners, with whom they
shared jails.
Figure 6. The 10 Most Dangerous Prison Gangs
Source: Connoly 2013.
Overtime, this process led to the creation of organized crime in Brazil. Leeds’ analysis of the
origins of organized crime in Brazil allows one to infer that the state acts as enabler: “In an
effort to ‘protect society’ from the two perceived evils of common criminals and leftist political
militants, the Brazilian state inadvertently created the form of organized crime against which
now seems compelled to protect society” (51). Leeds goes further, and states that in Brazil there
are two oppressive forces against the population: drug organizations and the security forces. To
her, what justifies police abuses today is that, during the dictatorship, the state assigned a
military role to a civilian police force, which has been carried out until now.
An investigative journalist, Amorim (2011), has added more to Leeds’ argument. By unfolding
the origins of the Comando Vermelho “Red Command” (CV) group from Rio de Janeiro, the first
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and still the largest Brazilian criminal organization, Amorim allows his reader to imply that there
is a pattern in the origin of criminal organizations in Brazil. The CV was created inside of the
Ilha Grande prison, the first maximum- security prison of the country designed to receive
political prisoners during the military dictatorship (1964-1985)14.The nickname of the Ilha
Grande jail was Devil’s Caldron, an analogy to the Devil’s Island prison colony, from the book
and namesake film Papillon (1973). Invisible to human right observers, prisoners faced the worst
possible living conditions, and decided to fight against it. Yet twenty years later, the creation of
the PCC also derives from a context of human rights abuse in prisons .
2.2.1 The Party
The PCC was created in an abusive prison facility. The gang was appealing to other prisoners
since its creation was based on class struggle against the state, what became the PCC’s flagship.
There are two different versions about the creation of the gang; nonetheless, both are poignant
examples of a group of prisoners who got together willing to react to unbridled state power.
According to a statement of one the PCC’s founders, Geleião15
, the PCC was created during a
soccer match at the Anexo da Casa de Custódia de Taubaté, on August 31, 1993. The teams that
were playing were the “First Command of the Capital” (whose players were inmates from the
capital of the states) and “The First Command of the Country” (whose players were from the
countryside). After some provocation, such as “I will drink your blood,” Geleião broke the neck
of one of his adversaries. The fight resulted in another death of a member of the First Command
14 Secluded in an island (Ilha Grande), the facility was built during the First Republic (1889-1930) as a sanitary surveillancecheckpoint for people with typhoid fever and tropical diseases coming from Europe and Africa, respectively. In the 1920s, it wastransformed in a prison for the elderly and prisoners about to complete their sentences, and only in 1960 it turned into a highsecurity prison.15 The eight founders of PCC are; José Márcio Felício, AKA Gelião ‘Big Jello’ ; Mizael Aparecido da Silva, AKA ‘Miza’; CesarAugusto Roriz Silva, AKA Cesinha; Wander Eduardo Ferreira, AKA Cara Gorda ‘Fat Face’; Isaías Moreira do Nacimento,A.K.A., Esquisito ‘Weirdo’; Ademar dos Santos , AKA Dafé ‘Faith’ and Antonio Carlos dos Santos , AKA Bicho Feio‘UglyBeast’. From those, the first three played an important role in the expansion of the group and only Gelião remains alive.
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of the Country. Afraid of reprisals on the part of correctional officers, the teammates of the First
Command of the Capital agreed amongst themselves that any offense directed to one of their
members would be taken as an offence against the entire group. This self-protection agreement is
popularly understood to be the “mythic” foundation of the PCC.
A version told by Jozino (2005) disputes this myth with another story. By September 2, 1993,
eight inmates at the Anexo da Casa de Custódia de Taubaté killed two prisoners and threatened
another five, if the prison administration did not attend their needs. They demanded for the end
of cell ransacks, more sports, paid-work opportunities, and the dismissal of the director José
Ismael Pedrosa16. Led by the group of eight, 130 prisoners played Russian Roulette with jail
guards until the military police took over the prison. Regardless of which story accounts for its
formation, the fact is that the PCC was born in an authoritarian jail facility.
Taking custody only of inmates with prior disciplinary issues, the Anexo da Casa de Custódia de
Taubaté was notorious for human rights violations. Prisoners were locked in the cells for twenty-
three hours a day. During the remaining hour of sunbathing, talking was not allowed. Among the
abusive measures, the staff beat prisoners with iron bars; introduced bugs in their meals or
rationed it to surviving limits; kept the flushing valve of toilets outside of the cells activating
them according to their will; and left the cells with inhumane sanitary conditions. The prison was
only shut in 2003, but ten years before, as a product of this hostile environment, the PCC was
created.
16 Prison director Pedrosa kept his job in the Casa de Custódia de Taubaté for years after the PCC creation. The PCC, however,murdered the director in 2005.
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Besides the number 1533, representing the alphabetic position of its initials17, the PCC has the
yin and yang symbol printed in its flag. The Chinese symbol, representing opposite and
complementary energies attaining balance, is a telltale sign of how the group deals with the good
and the evil. The “Machiavellian” maxim— “the ends justifies the means” applies to the PCC,
since the group guiltlessly resorts to violence in order to justify the fight of inmates against the
government. The gang, also self-entitled as The Party18 , was created to unite all the prisoners
against their common enemy, the state. The allegoric image refers to the fight of the oppressed
against oppressors, marked by social exclusion and brutality. Opposing the state, thus, is part of
the gang’s raison d’être.
Kenney and Fincknauer (1995), in their all-inclusive handbook on criminal organizations,
detected other groups that have also arisen from within prison facilities, such as The Mexican
Mafia, the Black Guerrila Family, and the Aryan Brotherhood. Interestingly, while all these three
groups are ethnically homogenous, having their ethnical identity as their primary bonding
feature, the PCC is defined by “alterity”19, and the “other” in this relationship is the state,
specifically its repression arm — the prison system. Salla (2008) concurs with this view: “In
Brazil, the organized crime that was established within the prisons had as aggregating factors the
practice of criminal actions, t