The Northern Massacres (original) (raw)

Third Generation Gangs Strategic Note No. 12: Brazilian Prison Gangs Attack Civil Infrastructure in Fortaleza and Other Cities in Ceará State

Small Wars Journal, 2019

Violent attacks have rocked the Brazilian state of Ceará as a coalition of gangs — including the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), Comando Vermelho (CV), and their local counterparts Guardiões do Estado (GDE), and Família do Norte (FDN) — waged a reprisal against state forces after the new prison administration announced enhanced security measures in the state prisons. The city of Fortaleza has been the focal point of the ‘violent lobbying’[1] Since 2 January, 205 criminal attacks have occurred in 46 cities in Ceará and about 360 individuals have been arrested. Ceara’s security forces have been reinforced with the assistance of the Polícia Rodoviária Federal (PRF or Federal Highway Police). The attacks have included bombings and arson directed against vehicles (including buses and school transportation), police stations, public buildings, bridges, businesses, and banks.

Gangs and Militias of Brazil: 2 Major Groups Dominate the Violent Contest for Control

Stratfor Threat Lens, 2019

Analysis Highlights • Brazil's largest and most violent gang, First Capital Command, rules the criminal landscape in São Paulo, Brazil's most populous city. • The Red Command is its main rival, and it dominates the slums of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's second largest city. • In January, several gangs joined with their rivals to attack police, banks and infrastructure in 46 municipalities in the state of Ceará. Editor's Note: This is the first part of a two-part series on gang crime in Brazil.

From dispersed to monopolized violence: expansion and consolidation of the Primeiro Comando da Capital’s Hegemony in São Paulo’s prisons

Crime, Law and Social Change, 2015

The present work aims to understand the process of expansion and consolidation of the organized criminal group the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) in São Paulo's prison system over the past 20 years, and the social configuration that has formed as a result of the PCCs monopolization of opportunities of power. To this end, the work of Norbert Elias is utilized to analyze empirical data collected from various sources. The article consists of two lines of analysis. First, the PCC phenomenon is approached from a macrosociological point of view, focusing on the social, political and administrative problems that are directly or indirectly linked to the PCCs social development. Second, a figurational analysis is used to explore the social dynamics produced from this process. In comparison to the Bpre-PCC^situation, it is shown that the new social configuration produced from the hegemony of the PCC consists of a complexity of interdependencies, including greater functional division and social integration. Given this intensification of mutual dependencies, the social controls on individual behavior have been expanded and centralized. Here, the structure and organization of the PCC, its political dynamics, and individual self-control are central issues. The article concludes by calling into question the view that the most significant effect of the PCCs consolidation has been social pacification of São Paulo's prison system. Fragilities in the power of the PCC are explored, principally the precarious nature of the relationship between the PCC and state authorities, and the extent to which the PCC's authority is imposed.

Factors associated with homicide in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, 2014

Objective: to identify characteristics, magnitude and factors associated with homicide in Manaus-AM, Brazil. Methods: cross-sectional study, with data from the Mortality Information System (SIM); homicide rates and odds ratio (OR) were estimated, comparing to other external causes, for 2014; logistic regression was used. Results: of the 1,657 violent deaths, 913 were due to homicide; homicide rate was of 55.8/100 thousand inhabitants (95%CI 52.1;59.7); odds ratio was higher among males (OR 3.4; 95%CI 2.3;5.1) when compared with females; among single (OR 1.6; 95%CI 1.1;2.5) and widowed individuals (OR 4.1; 95%CI 1.1;15.6), when compared with married individuals; at night/early hours (OR 2.1; 95%CI 1.6;2.9) and in the afternoon (OR 1.7; 95%CI 1.2;2.4), when compared with the morning period; the probability was higher among individuals under 35 years, with less schooling. Conclusion: homicide mortality in Manaus was high, especially among males and young individuals with less schooling.

Lethal Violence and Peripheral Youth Extermination in Brazil Amazon Region

International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, 2018

This work aims to discuss the homicide problem in the Brazilian Amazon region, based on the analysis of data collected by DATASUS, Sangari and Ipea Institute on homicides in Brazil, which were systematized within the framework of the “Amazonias: Knowledge and Changes” project, and by interviews analysis carried out with relatives of victims of the region. Based on these studies, which point out that the main victims of this type of violence are youth from the peripheries and using the notion of sociodiversity, we try to understand how violence against this youth maintained relation with neoliberalism set of governmental practices, as described by Michel Foucault in The Birth of Biopolitics. In this way, we think possible to provide a synthesis of the major problems of lethal violence and extermination of peripheral youth in the Amazon Region.

Lethal Violence and Peripheral Youth Extermination in Brazil Amazon Region (English version)

This work aims to discuss the homicide problem in the Brazilian Amazon region, based on the analysis of data collected by DATASUS, Sangari and Ipea Institute on homicides in Brazil, which were systematized within the framework of the " Amazonias: Knowledge and Changes " project, and by interviews analysis carried out with relatives of victims of the region. Based on these studies, which point out that the main victims of this type of violence are youth from the peripheries and using the notion of sociodiversity, we try to understand how violence against this youth maintained relation with neoliberalism set of governmental practices, as described by Michel Foucault in The Birth of Biopolitics. In this way, we think possible to provide a synthesis of the major problems of lethal violence and extermination of peripheral youth in the Amazon Region.

PCC Organized Crime in Brazilian Prisons

This paper analyses the context of the mass incarceration experienced by Brazil in the last two decades. Alongside other factors, such as the deterioration of the living conditions of the inmates and the shortcomings in the prison management, this favored the emergence and operation of the self-named group Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) (First Command of the Capital), within the prison system of the state of São Paulo. It outlines the stages that resulted in the expansion of the PCC, from its creation to the consolidation of its rule over the incarcerated population and analyzes the form acquired by the use of violence by part of this group. Besides the use of official documents, the ethnographic method and interviews with staff and inmates were used. Among the major findings of the research, there is the constitution of the PCC as a centralized instance of mediation and conflict resolution within the prison, a phenomenon that produced a significant reduction in physical violence among prisoners.