Most people approached by Operation Present Security in Rio de Janeiro are black men, that is, black or brown. The finding is from a work done by the major of the Military Police (PM) from Rio de Janeiro, Leonardo Hirakawa, for the completion of a master’s degree at the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), based on 1,217 approaches carried out by security agents, in the neighborhood of Recreio dos Bandeirantes, in the west zone of the city of Rio.
Seguridad Presente is a proximity policing program, maintained by the Rio de Janeiro government, that uses military police officers to patrol the streets in several neighborhoods of Rio, to supplement the work of local battalions.
According to the study Unraveling the Standard Color: Racial Bias in Suspect Selection in Operation Present Security, 45% of those stopped by police officers were black; 37.6% are brown and only 16.3% are white. The result does not add up to 100% because 1.1% did not have their color identified in the survey.
Among the approached blacks and browns, 68% were on foot, while 24% were on motorcycles. Among whites, 40% were on foot and 50% on motorcycles.
According to the research, this shows that whites are approached more often because they are on motorcycles than because of their appearance, since the police identify this means of transport as the favorite to be used by robbers in their criminal acts.
“The black or brown individual who is on foot is approached because of the color of his skin. And the white man, who tends to be approached the most when riding a motorcycle, is approached for being on a motorcycle and not for the color of his skin. It is one more piece of data that corroborates the racial bias”, says the research advisor, Verônica Toste.
The title of the study refers to “standard color,” an informal terminology that was once used, and is now banned, in communication between police officers to refer to a suspect’s skin color when he is black.
Racism
In his research, Major Hirakawa realized that the racist attitudes adopted by the Security Present police officers are not only the result of an internal culture of the police, but are also demanded by the residents and traders of the region served by the program.
According to him, the presence of poor, peripheral and black people causes discomfort to many residents of areas such as Recreio, an area mostly populated by people from the middle and upper middle classes.
“In these areas, you don’t see a luxury car being stopped, it’s not the dealer who will suffer the police search. It’s always these people [consideradas pelos moradores e comerciantes] as undesirable. And the undesirable who determines is not the police. It is up to the resident to decide. The policeman himself, sometimes, is a countryman of the undesirable. What differs there is that he is representing the State, in uniform”, highlights Hirakawa.
In his study, the major cites the example of a group of young people from the periphery who gathered on Recreio beach to fly a kite and, due to pressure from residents of the neighborhood, the situation ended up becoming a police matter.
“It became a big nuisance. It didn’t take long and they were already allying the people who were at the kite festival with people who steal and steal from homes. And there was no logical connection. The police officer was eventually forced to act against these events,” he said.
Police
Through its press office, the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro reported that, in all its courses for training and improving soldiers and officers, there are disciplines such as human rights, ethics, constitutional law and special laws.
“The racial issue pervades, in a very incisive way, all these doctrines in the formation of the corporation’s staff. Internally, the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro has been doing its part to face the challenge of structural racism for more than two centuries. It was the first public body to offer blacks a career in the State and today more than 40% of its staff is made up of people of African descent.”
The PM even highlighted having had black commanders in the last 40 years.
