the government of Rio of January created in the last fifth(23), the working group to update its Integrated Target System (SIM) for public safety. The SIM is used to financially reward security agents who meet the stipulated goals.
According to a note released by the government of Rio de Janeiro, among the proposals that will be discussed by the group, made up of representatives of state security institutions, is to award civil police officers who conclude inquiries with responsibility for the crime.
The researcher at the Center for Studies on Security and Citizenship (Cesec) Silvia Ramos considers that, if not well prepared, the proposal could generate problems such as rushing the conclusion of inquiries and, consequently, attributing authorship to a person who has no relation with the crime.
“If there is no detail that police investigations are completed and accepted by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, this goal becomes very questionable. It is very common for police officers, after a robbery, to show the victims the famous photo album [com rostos de pessoas fichadas] of suspects and practically induces the victims to point out one of those suspects as the probable perpetrator of the crime. And the delegates simply conclude that the investigation is elucidated and send it to the MP”, says Ramos.
According to her, many of these investigations are returned by the Public Ministry due to the fragility of the evidence or because the suspect pointed out by the police is not the true perpetrator.
“So, it is necessary to be very careful with this idea of completed investigations, because, by setting this as a goal, it may be encouraging police stations to rush the conclusion of crimes registered without the necessary rigor and without the evidence that is necessary to that any indictment becomes an accusation by the MP and a conviction by the Judiciary”, said Ramos.
Another proposal that should be discussed by the working group is to award police officers for the number of seized rifles. For the researcher, this is also a questionable goal since, in Rio, according to her, most rifles are seized in small quantities after police operations that, not infrequently, lead to deaths.
For her, it would be more important to resume the goal of reducing deaths caused by the police, which was one of the goals from 2010 to 2019, until it was removed from the SIM by the state government.
A note released by the state government informs that death by intervention of a state agent is among the proposed targets.
The working group, chaired by the Public Security Institute, to haveThere will be 60 days to finalize SIM update proposals. The deadline may be extended for another 60 days. Also on the team are representatives of the state secretariats of the Civil House, Civil Police, Military Police, Civil Defense and Penitentiary Administration, in addition to the General Department of Socio-Educational Actions (Degase).
The proposal is that firefighters, penitentiary agents and DEGASE agents also start to receive SIM bonuses.
*Contributed by Tâmara Freire, reporter for Rádio Nacional
