Policing & Firearms: New Perspectives and Insights 303113012X, 9783031130120

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Clare Farmer Richard Evans   Editors

Policing & Firearms New Perspectives and Insights

Policing & Firearms

Clare Farmer  •  Richard Evans Editors

Policing & Firearms New Perspectives and Insights

Editors Clare Farmer Deakin University Geelong, VIC, Australia

Richard Evans Deakin University Geelong, VIC, Australia

ISBN 978-3-031-13012-0    ISBN 978-3-031-13013-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13013-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

We extend our thanks to all of the authors who have contributed chapters to this book, despite the many and ongoing challenges of a global pandemic. We also thank the publisher, Springer, for their unwavering support of this project. We offer particular thanks to Diego Ernesto Mendez Osorio for his work in translating Chap. 11 (submitted by Keymer Avila) from Spanish into English, and acknowledge the Publication Support Scheme grant that was provided by Deakin University to cover Diego’s time. Finally, thank you to all of the reviewers who provided feedback on the original book proposal and on specific chapters. One of the contributors to this volume, Dr Vicky Conway, died unexpectedly just before the book went to press. Dr Conway was a highly respected scholar and passionate campaigner for social justice and police accountability. Her untimely passing has shocked her family, friends and colleagues around the world. This book is respectfully dedicated to her memory. Clare Farmer & Richard Evans

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Contents

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Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 Richard Evans and Clare Farmer

Part I Policing, Firearms and Human Rights 2

 Unarmed Police: Myths, Rights and Realities��������������������������������������    7 Vicky Conway and Doireann Ansbro

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 Are the Brazilian Police Forces Lethal Weapons?��������������������������������   33 Ludmila Ribeiro, Valéria C. Oliveira, and Alexandre M. A. Diniz

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The Routine Arming of the Police in Britain, the Right to Life and the Security Theory of John Locke and Benedict de Spinoza��������������������������������������������������������������������������   57 Ian Turner

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Armed Responses and Critical Shots: Learning Lessons from Police-Involved Shootings in England and Wales����������   81 Peter Squires

Part II Policing, Firearms and Militarization 6

“Gung-ho”? An Examination of the Move to Militarise Policing in Australia��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  105 Terry Goldsworthy

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Direct and Indirect Militarization of Public Security in Mexico and Gun Use During Arrests ������������������������������������������������  145 Sergio Padilla Oñate and Carlos Silva Forné

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 The Myth of ‘Routinely Unarmed’ Policing������������������������������������������  169 Ross Hendy

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Contents

 Racism Down the Barrel of the Colonial Gun��������������������������������������  193 John W. Buttle

Part III Policing, Firearms and Risk 10 Access  to Firearms: A Risk Factor for Police Suicide?������������������������  213 Daniela Gutschmidt and Antonio Vera 11 How  Do Police Die in Venezuela? A Comprehensive Analysis of the Death by Homicide of State Security Force/Policing Officials����������������������������������������������������������������������������  231 Keymer Ávila 12 Pathways  to Preventing Fatal Police-­Involved Shootings of People in Mental Health Crisis����������������������������������������������������������  265 Katrina Clifford 13 ‘Facing  Death Gave Him New Life’: On-Screen Police Gun Violence and Weapon Product Placement��������������������������  293 Richard Evans and Clare Farmer Part IV Policing, Firearms and Legitimacy 14 Predictors  of Public Reactions to Armed Police: Findings from the UK������������������������������������������������������������������������������  317 Julia A. Yesberg and Ben Bradford 15 Armed  Police in an Unarmed Country: Legitimacy and Self-Legitimacy of English Firearms Officers��������������������������������  337 Oliver Clark-Darby 16 Public  Acceptance of Police Use of Deadly Force: An Exploratory Study�����������������������������������������������������������������������������  367 Scott W. Phillips 17 Connecting  Officer Appearance with Officer Safety: A Survey of Police Officers’ Perceptions of Uniforms and Accoutrements����������������������������������������������������������������������������������  385 Rylan Simpson and Elise Sargeant Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  405

About the Authors

Doireann Ansbro  is head of legal and policy at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, where she leads the justice and policing programme. Formerly legal advisor to the International Commission of Jurists and Consultant to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Doireann is called to the Bar of Ireland and to the Bar of England and Wales. Keymer  Avila  graduated from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and obtained a master’s degree in criminology and criminal legal sociology from the University of Barcelona (UB). Keymer is a researcher at the ICP of the UCV, teaches criminology at undergraduate and graduate level at the same university, and collaborates with UB’s Penal System and Human Rights Observatory. Ben  Bradford  is Professor of Global City Policing at the University College London Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, where he is also Director of the Institute for Global City Policing. His research interests include: trust, legitimacy, cooperation and compliance in justice settings; social identity as a factor in all these processes; organisational justice within the police; ethnic and other disparities in policing; and elements of public-facing police work such as neighbourhood patrol, community engagement and stop and search. John W. Buttle  is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice in the School of Social Science and Public Policy at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. His work focuses on issues to do with police wrongdoing and more recently with prison abolition. Oliver Clark-Darby  completed his PhD at the University of Southampton, using ethnographic methods to explore the daily duties of Armed Response Vehicle crews. With unprecedented access, his thesis provided a unique account from firearms officers of perspectives on police culture, firearms deployments, construction of self-­ legitimacy and the routine arming debate. Oliver is a senior research officer at the

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College of Policing (England and Wales) and remains keenly interested in the police use of firearms and less lethal weapons. Katrina  Clifford  is a Senior Lecturer in Communication at Deakin University, Australia, and a specialist in media criminology and media framing analysis. She is the co-author of Media and Crime: Content, Context and Consequence (with Rob White) and author of Policing, Mental Illness and Media: The Framing of Mental Health Crisis Encounters and Police Use of Force. Vicky Conway  is Associate Professor of Law at Dublin City University and has published extensively on policing and criminal justice. A former member of the Policing Authority and the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland, she is also host of the ‘Policed in Ireland’ Podcast. Alexandre  M.  A.  Diniz  is a professor in the Geography Department at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC Minas). He holds a bachelor’s degree in advertising from PUC Minas; a master’s degree in geography from Kansas State University; and a PhD in geography from Arizona State University. He was a visiting scholar at McGill University; Université de Lille; Curtin University; and Texas State University. Alexandre has experience in the field of Human Geography, acting on the following subjects: Geography of Crime and Violence, Urban Geography and Regional Geography. Richard Evans  is a criminologist, researcher, teacher and writer. He is the author of six books and many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, on topics as diverse as crime history, policing, disaster studies, hazing in the military and surveillance. His books include The Pyjama Girl Mystery (Scribe, 2004) and Disasters That Changed Australia (Victory, 2009). He is co-author, with Dr Clare Farmer, of Do Police Need Guns? Policing and Firearms: Past, Present and Future (Springer, 2020). His areas of expertise include crime, policing, mental health, drugs policy, Australian history, politics, public policy and religion. He has commented on crime, policing and history for both print and broadcast media. A former journalist, Richard is also a visual artist and song writer, and has a strong interest in music and culture. Clare Farmer  is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Deakin University, Australia. She is a member of the Adult Parole Board in Victoria, Australia and previously served as a Magistrate in England. Clare’s research expertise focuses on procedural justice across criminal and civil processes, and she publishes widely in this field. Her teaching extends across undergraduate and postgraduate domains, specialising in criminal justice, policy development, research methodologies and research ethics, and she is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Carlos Silva Forné  is a full-time researcher in the Legal Research Institute at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (IIJ-UNAM) and a professor in the sociology program in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at UNAM. He

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holds a PhD in social sciences with a specialty in Sociology from El Colegio de México, A.C. His main subjects of study are public security, use of police force and human rights. Terry Goldsworthy  has degrees in commerce and law, and a master’s degree and PhD in criminology from Bond University. He is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Bond University in the Faculty of Society and Design. Prior to this he served 28 years in the Queensland Police Service and attained the rank of Detective Inspector. Terry is an acknowledged expert in a number of areas of criminal justice and has provided evidence and input into numerous government inquiries over a range of topics including gun crime, organised crime, outlaw motorcycle gangs, drugs and cybercrime. Terry has a strong media profile and has conducted over 1000 interviews on criminal justice and criminology topics. Daniela Gutschmidt  studied psychology with a minor in criminology and criminal law. She undertook research on organisational culture, stress and health in the police at the German Police University. Currently, Daniela is working as a forensic psychologist for various courts and police organisations in Germany. Ross  Hendy  is a Lecturer in Criminology at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. His research interests include police use of force, police-citizen interaction, and the effectiveness of police crime and harm reduction interventions. Before academia he had a 13-year career with New Zealand Police, holding a variety of front-line policing roles, custody supervision (as a custody sergeant) and later a senior practitioner researcher with the research and evaluation unit and the Evidence Based Policing Centre. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a member of the Royal Society of New Zealand and the American, Australian, New Zealand, British and European Societies of Criminology. Valéria C. Oliveira  is an adjunct professor in the Department of Sciences Applied to Education (DECAE) and a researcher in the Center for Crime and Public Safety Studies (CRISP) and in the Research Center on School Inequalities (NUPEDE), all of them at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). She has been researching on school violence, neighbourhood effects and violence, and school inequalities and public safety policies in peripheral areas. Valéria was a visiting doctoral student at Florida State University (2015) and a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM) (2017). She has a bachelor’s degree in social sciences (2006) and obtained her master’s (2012) and PhD (2016) in sociology from the UFMG. She has prior experience in state public administration of public safety policies (2007–2010) and on social development in the Brazilian federal government (2010–2012). Sergio Padilla Oñate  is a professor in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, of Autonomous University of Mexico (FCPyS -UNAM), and researcher at the Institute for the Security and Democracy A.C. (INSYDE). He holds a PhD in social

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sciences with a specialty in sociology from El Colegio de México A.C. His main subjects of study are public security, police reform, policing, militarisation, use of force and organised crime. Scott  W.  Phillips  is a professor in the Criminal Justice Department at SUNY Buffalo State. He earned a PhD from SUNY Albany, and his research focuses on empirical examinations of police officer decision making and organisational influences on officer’s behaviour. His research has appeared in many different scholarly journals. He has worked as a police officer in Houston, Texas, a Grant Advisor for the United States Justice Department COPS Office and served as Futurist Scholar in Residence with the Behavioral Science Unit at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Ludmila Ribeiro  is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and a researcher in the Center for Crime and Public Safety Studies (CRISP), both at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). She holds a bachelor’s degree in law from the Federal University of Minas Gerais; a master’s and a bachelor’s degree in public administration from João Pinheiro Foundation; and a PhD in sociology from Rio de Janeiro Research Institute (IUPERJ). She was a visiting scholar at the University of Florida, University of Groningen and Texas State University. During her career, she has coordinated several research projects on how the criminal justice system operates in Brazil. Nowadays, her research interests are focused on police violence, gender violence and management of the criminal justice system. Elise Sargeant  is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University. Elise’s research explores public attitudes to police with a particular focus on procedural justice, police legitimacy, cooperation and compliance. Elise considers the way that attitudes to police vary according to neighbourhood context, ethnic minority group and immigrant status. Elise has published widely in this field using various methodologies, from large-scale neighbourhood surveys to experimental designs. Rylan Simpson  is an assistant professor in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University. His research interests include policing, perceptions of police, police organisations, theories of crime and social psychology. He approaches his research using a variety of different methodologies, including experimental and quantitative analyses. He has recently published his work in Criminology & Public Policy, PLoS ONE, Journal of Experimental Criminology, Police Practice and Research, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice and Women & Criminal Justice. Peter  Squires  is Professor [Emeritus] of Criminology and Public Policy at the University of Brighton, his work covers a wide range of issues including: community safety, policing, youth crime, gangs, violence and anti-social behaviour, as well as firearm-related crime. He was President of the British Society for Criminology

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(2015–2019). He is the author of several books, which directly examine gun-enabled crime and police armed response (Gun Culture or Gun Control? (Routledge, 2000), (Shooting to Kill? Wiley/Blackwell, 2010) and Gun Crime in Global Contexts, (Routledge, 2014). His most recent book, Rethinking Knife Crime (Palgrave), was published in November 2021. Ian Turner  is Reader in Human Rights and Security at the School of Justice, the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK, where he is responsible for PhD students. Ian has taught undergraduate and graduate modules in constitutional law, human rights, security and counter-terrorism for a number of years; and has been published widely in these areas, particularly on matters relating to the killing and torture of terror suspects. He is an editor of the International Journal of Human Rights and a member of the editorial boards of Democracy and Security and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. Antonio Vera  studied economics and cultural studies and received doctorates in business administration and history as well as a post-doctoral degree. He is Professor of Organisation and HR Management at the German Police University. His work focuses on organisational culture, innovation and leadership in the police as well as police history. Julia A. Yesberg  is a Research Fellow at the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, University College London. She is currently completing an ESRC-­ funded post-doctoral fellowship exploring relationships between neighbourhood policing, collective efficacy and violent crime. Her research interests include policing and public trust, police use of force, serious violent crime, offender rehabilitation and reintegration, and risk assessment.

Chapter 1

Introduction Richard Evans and Clare Farmer

It was a simple enough idea: to test whether the routine deployment of police officers with firearms necessarily makes the community and police themselves safer. We would do this by comparing four similar-sized jurisdictions, two where operational police routinely carry firearms (Toronto in Canada and Brisbane in Australia) and two where they do not (Auckland in New Zealand and Manchester in England). As is often the case, there were many hurdles and complexities which separated the idea from its realisation, but eventually we were able to provide a solid, evidence-­ based analysis in our book Do Police Need Guns? Policing and Firearms: Past, Present and Future (2021). There is, we found, no clear, unambiguous evidence to demonstrate that deploying routinely armed police officers increases safety, either for the wider community or for police themselves. This conclusion came with a frank acknowledgement: We do not pretend that this book has done anything more than begin an important conversation. Our hope is that other researchers will look at the experience of policing in many different places, and in a range of ways, to build a body of empirically derived, testable knowledge which can be used to inform police, policy makers and the wider community. (Evans & Farmer, 2021, p. 140)

The present volume makes an impressive start to this task. Genuinely international in its scope, contributors from Ireland, Germany, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, the United States, Venezuela, New Zealand, Australia and Canada explore issues around policing and firearms from a range of perspectives. One theme which quickly emerges is that the relationship between policing and firearms is complicated and varied. Even the notion of ‘non-routinely armed’ police

R. Evans ∙ C. Farmer (*) Deakin University, Geelong, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Farmer, R. Evans (eds.), Policing & Firearms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13013-7_1

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is problematic, with any presumed binary distinction between routinely armed and unarmed breaking down under close scrutiny. As Ross Hendy discusses, most police officers in ‘non-routinely armed’ New Zealand actually have rapid access to more powerful weapons than their routinely armed Australian colleagues. In Great Britain, police officers do not typically carry firearms, but the unarmed police are supported by specialist armed officers. Oliver Clark-Darby spent many hours travelling with armed police on patrol in two English cities, and, in an examination of police self-legitimacy, he explores how these officers view the role of firearms and their interactions with the public. Peter Squires sets out several notable incidents in which British armed police have shot and killed suspected offenders and finds that, while these incidents are small in number, they raise some troubling questions about the policy and practice of specialist armed police units in Great Britain. Vicky Conway and Doireann Ansbro peel beneath the myth of the Irish police, An Garda Síochána, and find that its reputation as an ‘unarmed’ service is misunderstood, often misrepresented, and can be used as a device to deflect necessary scrutiny. They argue that the many flaws in the governance of An Garda Síochána, not least its resistance to the most basic independent oversight, undermines its capacity to meet its human rights obligations. Taking a very different perspective on human rights, Ian Turner explores the underpinning philosophies of social contract, as developed by John Locke and Benedict de Spinoza, and raises the question of whether the human right to life and security implies that police should be armed. The answer to that proposition depends very much on what manner of police service a society has. Ludmila Ribeiro, Valéria C. Oliveira and Alexandre M.  A. Diniz examine the situation in Brazil, where killings by police are so prevalent that they account for 17% of all intentional deaths, and assess three competing explanations for the high levels of police killings in Brazil. Part of the picture of police lethality in Brazil reflects the role played by the Military Police, which is the main policing organisation and, as its name suggests, is formally linked to the armed forces. A similar trend has emerged in Mexico, where policing has been increasingly militarised, both through the direct intervention of the armed forces in policing duties and through the placement of former army officers in positions of police command. Carlos Silva Forné and Sergio Padilla Oñate use some ingenious methods of statistical analysis to overcome weaknesses in official data and analyse the police use of firearms and the nexus between militarisation and police violence. In the Anglophone world, police militarisation is primarily associated with the United States, and the increasing use there of military equipment and tactics. Terry Goldsworthy, a former police officer himself, is concerned that Australian policing is following the American lead, a trend he argues cannot be justified. John Buttle applies a different lens to militarisation, positioning calls to (re)arm police in Aotearoa New Zealand as part of that nation’s legacy of colonialism and racism. Part of the impulse towards the militarisation of uniforms, equipment and policing styles can be traced to media influences, a topic examined in our own chapter, which looks at Weapon Product Placement with a particular focus on depictions of police gun violence in mainstream American police dramas. Among the

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consequences of such dramas are the expectations the wider public has of how police should respond to crises, such as active shooter incidents, as well as the potential to influence wider policing behaviours. Scott W. Phillips explores these expectations, using a variety of vignettes to probe how a sample of the American public expect police officers to end the crisis, and under what circumstances the use of deadly force by police is acceptable. A key concern that is highlighted within our chapter is that depictions of police gun violence within movies and television drama are almost always positive: the gun is a tool which allows good to triumph over evil, with adverse consequences typically ignored. That a police officer’s gun might be a threat to their own well-­ being rarely enters the picture – yet the reality is that police are more at risk of suicide than the general population, and access to a firearm is logically part of this vulnerability. Daniela Gutschmidt and Antonio Vera, both based in Germany, analyse the issue of police suicide from a global perspective. Firearms are usually seen as a source of protection, but that too can be misleading. Keymer Avila examines police fatalities in Venezuela and finds that, contrary to widespread belief, most police victims of homicide are not on duty and not in uniform, and while they were often still carrying their firearms, this did not save their lives. Police dramas also rarely countenance the possibility that the police will shoot dead someone who is not a serious offender, but among the categories of people overrepresented in police shootings are those suffering a mental illness. In her chapter, Katrina Clifford probes the issues surrounding police shootings and mental illness. She considers how such shootings are covered in the news media, and examines how these tragic incidents can lead to the search for a technological ‘fix’, resulting in additional, less-lethal weapons, being added to the equipment carried by police officers. The appearance of police officers, including the colour and specification of their uniforms, the type of equipment carried and the extent to which firearms are visible, is important both to the policed community and to the police themselves. Oliver Clark-Darby’s study of armed police in England, mentioned earlier, contains valuable insights into how armed police feel about their uniforms and weapons. A more systematic study by Rylan Simpson and Elise Sargeant, surveying serving officers in Australia’s Queensland Police Service, discusses how different combinations of uniform styles and equipment, including visible firearms, can impact officers’ feelings of safety. Julia A. Yesberg and Ben Bradford explore the issue of police uniforms and arming from the point of view of the British public, using images of armed and unarmed police to gauge community perceptions. The picture, then, is complicated. Public perceptions and expectations of policing and police officers vary from place to place. Similarly, when examined in granular detail, policing and the use of and attitudes to firearms vary enormously between and within communities. Much more research is needed to continue to explore the complex and nuanced relationship between policing and firearms, but this collection represents a fascinating and enlightening first step. We thank all of the authors for their contributions.

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Reference Evans, R., & Farmer, C. (2021). Do police need guns? policing and firearms: past, present and future. Singapore: Springer.

Part I

Policing, Firearms and Human Rights

Chapter 2

Unarmed Police: Myths, Rights and Realities Vicky Conway and Doireann Ansbro

Introduction Perhaps too few of us recognise that one of the big success stories in this country was the establishment and development of the unarmed Garda force. (Higgins, Dáil Éireann: 26 March 1969)

An Garda Síochána (AGS) (translating as ‘Guardians of the Peace’),1 Ireland’s national police service, is routinely described as one of two unarmed services in Europe, alongside Norway.2 As the above quote shows, the creation of an unarmed force in the aftermath of a war of independence 100 years ago, as the country entered a civil war, is considered one of the greatest achievements of the nascent State. In this chapter we seek to interrogate that description and question its accuracy. The monopoly on the legitimate use of force is a defining feature of policing, but human rights law is clear that while police may be justified in taking a life in certain circumstances, their duty to protect life, and all human rights, creates a requirement that everything possible is done to avoid the taking of a life (Rogers, 2003). We question how unarmed AGS is and the extent to which those human rights requirements are met. Between 1990 and 2021, gardaí have fatally shot 11 individuals  The word for referring to a singular member of the organisation is garda, and gardaí is the plural. We use AGS to refer to the organisation as a whole. 2  Others, such as in England and Wales, are considered routinely unarmed. 1

V. Conway Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland D. Ansbro (*) Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Farmer, R. Evans (eds.), Policing & Firearms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13013-7_2

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(Sheehy & Lavery, 2005; Bray, 2021). Six gardaí have been killed by firearms in the same period (Meneely, 2020), one of whom was on a peacekeeping mission in Sarajevo, in Bosnia-Herzegovina.3 For comparison, 40 individuals were killed by police firearms in England and Wales between 2004 and 2019, a jurisdiction which has about 10 times the number of police, and a population 14 times the size of Ireland. Gardaí shot and killed four individuals in that same period of time. This indicates that per member of the force, the numbers of fatal shootings by police are similar, but per capita of population, there is a slightly higher number of the public killed in Ireland. We first look at the context of the decision to disarm the Irish police, and explore how this was borne of fear rather than idealism. We then move to question the reality of police firearm use in Ireland and argue that a description of an unarmed police force is a myth. Having established this context, we explore the implications of the myth for policing, human rights standards and the use of firearms in Ireland. Our prevailing argument is that a discourse centred on the myth of the unarmed force has led to an absence of professionalism, of accountability and of upholding human rights obligations. It has created a situation of heightened risk for the public and police alike, a situation that continues to go largely unchallenged, despite some recent reforms.

Why Unarmed? In the context of considering the unusual occurrence of an unarmed police service, it is, we suggest, important to think about how this occurred. From the late eighteenth century, Ireland was home to one of the earliest experiments in colonial policing. Indeed, a police force existed in Dublin prior to England, after Westminster rejected similar proposals for London (Philips, 1980). Not only did the force predate English police but their function was entirely different. The police in Ireland existed to enforce law and order and suppress uprising. They were the arm of the colonial rule, rather than the citizen in uniform, and a far cry from Peel’s principles of policing by consent (Emsley, 2014). That purpose required them to be armed, to be large and to be located in every town and village. Malcolm wrote, ‘probably no other arm of the state was quite so ubiquitous, so intrusive or so rigidly controlled’ (2005: 128), concluding that Ireland was a police state during this period. The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)4 and the Dublin Metropolitan Police5 were armed forces though they only carried weapons during more difficult periods, such as political uprisings. Complaints about the use of force were common from the  Others have died and been killed in other circumstances, primarily in road traffic collisions, but just those involving weapons (all of which were firearms) are mentioned here. 4  Created in 1822 5  A police force was initially instituted in Dublin in 1786, and in 1836 Metropolitan Police were created in Dublin, Belfast and Derry. 3

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outset (Conway, 2013). Policing was undoubtedly dangerous work: during the Great Famine (1845–1852), police aided evictions, investigated related crimes and monitored soup kitchens, and over 130 officers were killed in a 3 year period (Lowe, 1994). The War of Independence commenced in 1919, and it did much damage to the concept of policing in Ireland and significantly influenced what would follow in independent Ireland. In order to challenge British rule in Ireland, dismantling the police services, the symbol of British rule, was seen as key (Lowe, 2002). In addition to direct violent attacks against police, systematic social ostracisation was also initiated: RIC men were not to be served in shops, sat near in church or socialised with. Between 1919 and 1922, over 550 police were killed, 700 injured (Conway, 2013), and 1200 left the country. In response, Britain supplemented the police with auxiliary forces, largely comprised of British soldiers who had returned from World War I. Known as the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries, these forces became infamous for indiscriminate violence: burning down villages and shooting without provocation (Leeson, 2011) and, as discussed more recently, raping women (Ryan, 2000). In early 1922, after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, which granted independence and partitioned the island of Ireland, distrust and fear of policing was high. In the work of building State infrastructure, a new police force would be key, though it was just one element of the State to be created. As is common in postcolonial states, the fragility of the new State led to a desire by government to closely control the police, for fear of coups or threats to the State (Cole, 1999). That Ireland was quickly thrown into a civil war over the decision to partition the island made these concerns all the more real.6 Although these fears abounded, the Police Organising Committee was given just 3 weeks to design the new force (Allen, 1999). With so little time, and with the pressing threats to the stability of the State, many of the colonial structures were retained: a singular national force, directly accountability to government, all of whom would carry revolvers and truncheons, and who would occupy the same buildings. Conway (2013) has described what happened as a rebranding: names, uniforms and symbols changed, but powers, structures and accountability remained the same. The rhetoric, however, was different. The first Commissioner, Staines, stated ‘[t]he Civic Guard will succeed not by force of arms, or numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people’ (cited in Walsh, 1998:10).7 This is very much at odds with how the police were being structured. Members of the RIC were the only people with policing experience but were unacceptable to many. The government hand-picked members of the RIC who, it stated, had remained loyal to the cause during the War of Independence. However, 97% of the new force had fought with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) for

 The Irish Civil War took place between June 1922 and May 1923.  The Civic Guard was renamed AGS in 1925.

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independence.8 By the summer of 1922, as the civil war raged through the country, the new Civic Guard was training in an old army barracks in Kildare, 30 miles west of the capital, Dublin. Tensions were high, as IRA men (who opposed the AngloIrish Treaty) viewed the ex-RIC men as traitors. In May, when five of the ex-RIC members were named as Deputy Commissioners, a mutiny erupted (McCarthy, 2012). Mutineers seized control of the arms stock left by the army: it took 6 weeks to quell the mutiny. A subsequent inquiry reflected on the structures and organisation of the new police (Conway, 2013). In particular, it was recognised that the vast majority of recruits had spent the War of Independence resolving disputes by recourse to force. One of the key recommendations was to reconstitute the police as an unarmed force. Other recommendations were ignored, but government, fearful of the potential consequences of an armed police in an unstable State, disarmed the police. Thus, Ireland’s status as having an unarmed police force was not a triumph of democracy or policing standards. It was borne of well-grounded fears of a mutinous, armed police force. This is an important point: there was no principled position adopted by government that an unarmed force is to be preferred. The next section explores to what extent we can in fact say An Garda Síochána (AGS) is unarmed.

Unarmed? Despite that history, and the decision to disarm the force, at no point have the Irish police been fully unarmed. We suggest that it has been a myth to suggest that AGS is unarmed and we explore the reality. In the early years, as the civil war raged, a strategic decision was taken to keep AGS out of that war and leave it to the army. This was respected by the IRA, and just one garda was killed during the civil war (Conway, 2013). Had violence against AGS been more intense it is foreseeable that they would have been armed at this point. Instead AGS earned a reputation for being a more ‘civil’ force, not just through its focus on local crime issues but through the values of postcolonial Ireland they were required to embody: they were overtly Catholic, spoke Irish and were pioneers and avid sportsmen (Allen, 1999). Soon after the civil war ended, in May 1923, reports complaining of police use of force began to emerge. Brady (2000) notes that some gardaí armed themselves and that the Commissioner acknowledged reports of beatings of prisoners. In 1925 the Special Branch was created as an armed detective unit within AGS. Two factors are important to note here: firstly, the government desire for control meant there was no independent oversight, so little is publicly known about the activities of the

 The original IRA fought the War of Independence against the British from 1919 to 1921. The organisation morphed and changed over the following decades. 8

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Special Branch, and secondly AGS was assigned the State security function, which at times justified a mystification of the work of the police. Over the decades which followed, the growth of the IRA meant increased violence against and by the Special Branch, with no accountability for their actions. By 1931 a state of emergency was declared, and shootings of civilians, as well as killings of police, began to occur. Within just 10 years, the use of firearms appears to have become an accepted part of policing in Ireland. When a new government came to power in 1932, the Commissioner of 10 years was dismissed, bringing fears of a police coup. It was an unstable time, with riots, baton charges and attacks on AGS (Conway, 2013). A Special Armed Unit was created and supplied with military equipment, including armoured cars. In January 1934, these men were photographed training in uniform with Lee-Enfield service rifles (Irish Times, 1934). This was a departure, as previously armed men had been plain-clothes detectives. Accounts of the use of firearms, baton charges and even tear gas are regular during this period (Conway, 2013). In August 1934, a 22 year-­ old was shot dead by gardaí. The detective at the scene had sought backup but when that did not arrive, gardaí were issued with revolvers. And in the subsequent civil action, the judge stated ‘I am satisfied on the evidence that these men… were uncontrolled and left to their own undisciplined judgement in the use of firearms’ (Lynch v Fitzgerald, 1938). The lack of oversight, training and control of the use of firearms is evident. World War II brought an IRA campaign in Britain with resultant policing activity in Ireland. Between 1940 and 1942, six gardaí (four of whom were in the Special Branch) were killed, and a number of IRA activists were shot by gardaí. There are no figures for how many gardaí were armed in this period. After this campaign, policing in Ireland remained remarkably peaceful until the outbreak of the Northern Irish Conflict in the late 1960s. Indeed, there was no killing of a garda again until 1970. Nevertheless, allegations of police brutality were common place during the 1960s and were central in the creation of the National Council for Civil Liberties, later renamed the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (Conway, 2013). The Northern Irish Conflict, known as the Troubles, began in 1969 as civil rights groups were seeking an end to discrimination against Catholics, and lasted until 1998. It centred on the status of Northern Ireland, and was fought by republicans and unionists. The Troubles disrupted everything in terms of policing in Ireland. The danger was real, even south of the Northern Ireland border. Armed robberies by paramilitary groups rose from 12  in 1969 to 228  in 1979, to nearly 700  in the mid-­1980s. The seizure of vehicles, thefts of explosives and attacks on garda stations were common. Twelve gardaí were killed by firearms between 1970 and 1996, and at least 20 more were shot. In total, 107 people in Ireland were killed in incidents related to the Troubles (Mulcahy, 2012). There are no official statistics as to how many gardaí were armed at this time. The first available figures came in 2004, when 3664 of 12,201 members (Fahey, 2004)  – 30%  – were recorded as being armed, a figure which has remained consistent until recently. While the paramilitary threat receded in the 1990s, it was replaced by the growth of drug-related organised crime gangs which the IRA had suppressed (Gallagher, 2020b).

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There are two ways in which a garda can be armed. Firstly, detectives, operating in either district or national units, and detective assistants, can be authorised to carry firearms. In 2018 there were 1618 detectives and 404 detective assistants. Detectives have personal firearms and assistants can draw from station armoury. Secondly, members of Armed Support Units, which have a history going back to the 1970s, are armed.9 There are about 300 members of ASUs (Garda Inspectorate, 2018), and their weaponry includes 9 mm self-loading pistols, personal defence weapons and semi-automatic shotguns. They also have access to less-lethal weapons, such as Tasers, pepper spray and bean bag shots. In 2018, the Garda Inspectorate10 found that firearms training accounted for a staggering 63% of all training in the Garda College (the national centre for police training). While this may be due to a lack of wider Continuous Professional Development, it still undermines any claim that AGS is unarmed. The Inspectorate called for a review of the threat and need for firearms in the State. This resulted, in 2020, in the revocation of over 1000 licences, bringing the percentage of armed gardaí down to 20% (Gallagher, 2020a, b, c, d). This parallels a process in 2000 in England and Wales, which halved the number of armed officers to 5% (Rogers, 2003). AGS has only recently begun to publish statistics on the use of force by officers, within monthly reports to the Policing Authority, which was established in 2016 as the oversight body for AGS. (An Garda Síochána (2020, 2021). In the first 6 months of 2021, firearms were discharged 14 times. There is no data on how frequently they were drawn. As mentioned previously, since 1990, 11 individuals have been killed by police firearms. Thus, at any given time in the last 20 years, we can see that between 20% and 30% of AGS was armed. While we do not have figures for the twentieth century, there is evidence of a continually armed cohort, and it is reasonable to conclude that the Troubles increased those numbers. In spite of this reality, the myth of the unarmed garda has abounded in the public narrative: Since the foundation of the State the Garda Síochána have been an unarmed force and on a great many occasions down the years they have had to face armed men in the discharge of their duties. They have courageously and successfully faced such challenges in the past and they are doing so again to-day… It is the policy of the Government that the Garda Síochána should continue to be an unarmed police force…. (Minister for Justice, Cooney, 1974)

In 1975, the Garda Review, the force magazine which was established in 1923, explained that ‘the unarmed Guard is as much an expression of our aspirations, a microcosm of our national ideal, as a practical policing device’ (1975: 1). In 1978, the Minister for Justice stated that:

 In 1977, on the back of an European Economic Community (EEC) requirement, a Special Task Force was created for responding to terrorism incidents, and received enhanced firearms training. 10  The body which conducts inspections on garda practices and procedures, with the aim of ensuring that the resources in AGS are used effectively and efficiently 9

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…since its inception the Garda Síochána has been an unarmed force and down the years the policy has been that it remains an unarmed force. There have been occasions in the past when, because of upsurges of armed violence in the State, calls have been made for the arming of the police. The Garda Síochána themselves have always staunchly maintained that they stay unarmed. (Collins, 1978)

More recently: …the traditional unarmed character of the Garda Síochána has always been one of its key strengths in maintaining its public reputation as an approachable force that polices by consent and not by fear. (Fahey, 2004)

A narrative of AGS being unarmed not only emerged but, as these quotes indicate, was used a symbol of achievement and success of the nation. Yet, when we interrogate that narrative, we see that there were just a few short years in the 1920s when AGS could accurately be described as unarmed. We explore below the consequences of this myth, but first we consider the threat of violence faced by police in Ireland.

Violence Against Police It is not easy to capture the scale of the threat against AGS, due largely to a paucity of data. It is estimated that there are close to 400,000 firearms in Ireland, 150,000 of which are illegally held (Small Arms Survey, 2007). Since the end of the Troubles, in 1998, four gardaí have been shot and killed.11 The number of firearm homicides in the country is usually fewer than 20 a year. Between 2005 and 2018, 446 individuals were recorded by the Health Service as having been assaulted by firearms (Lally, 2019). The risk of being shot and killed in Ireland is, therefore, low, though there are other incidents where gardaí have been shot, or where shots have been fired at garda cars or stations. It should also be noted that it appears that a small number of gardaí may have taken their own lives using their issued weapon, though data on this is not published. This low-level risk of injury or death by firearms may be directly linked to the fact that 70% of gardaí do not carry weapons, that police do not frequently use firearms and that AGS is publicly perceived to be an unarmed force. But as Osse and Cano (2017) explore, the use of firearms by police can be contextualised within a range of factors, from levels of violent crime in a country to the political nature of the State and to organisational policy or a lack thereof, as well as technical deficiencies. Assaults on gardaí not involving weapons are much more common. The Garda Commissioner’s monthly report to the Policing Authority indicates that, on average,

11

 Sixteen others have died on duty, 14 in road traffic collisions.

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between 150 and 170 members are off work at any given time due to injury incurred while on duty, and 4500–5100 days a month are lost to such absences. One Freedom of Information (FOI) report indicated that, between January 2017 and July 2019, there were 430 assaults on AGS officers which required a leave of absence, 24 of which resulted in at least 6 months of leave (O’Neill, 2019). There were 48 fractures, while bruising, grazing and bites accounted for 168 of the assaults. Separately, a parliamentary question disclosed that, in 2016, 704 assaults against gardaí were recorded, and that by October 2020 there had already been 837 for that year (Moloney, 2020). This is presumed to be a more fulsome picture, which include assaults which did not necessitate a leave of absence. Between 1972 and 1999, crime records provided the numbers of assaults and woundings of officers which were recorded as criminal offences  – depicted in Fig. 2.1.12 This, presumably, is a more selective group again. It should be noted that garda numbers did not reach 10,000 for the first time until 1980. So where we see over 1000 assaults in 1979, there were just 9500 members. Criminal assaults against gardaí are no longer disaggregated in this way. However, if we take it that the numbers recorded as crimes will be a proportion of those which occur, and allow for the changes to the size of the organisation, then it would appear that policing is now safer than it was in the 1970s. This is in spite of the fact that a seemingly larger number of gardaí were, until 2018, armed and that additional less than lethal weapons had been introduced in 2004. This would align with the recent drive to reduce the numbers of armed gardaí as the threat is not as significant as it was.

Criminal assaults on gardaí of f icers, 1972-1997

Criminal Assaults on Gardaí

1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0

Years Wounded

Assaulted

Fig. 2.1  Criminal assaults on Gardaí officers, 1972–1997 (Source: Conway, 2013) 12

 There were 2 years for which this data is missing.

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The Impact of the Myth A substantial focus of this chapter is the consequence of the myth of the unarmed garda. We consider below how this myth has resulted in a lack of professionalism and accountability, but first we examine what the consequences of the myth have been for the embedding of human rights.

I nternational Standards on Use of Force and Ireland’s Compliance The Garda Síochána Act 2005 names the vindication of human rights as a core function of AGS. However, there has been a general failure by AGS to properly integrate human rights into guidance, training and operations (Walsh, 2009; Conway, 2016). This failure was noted by the Commission on the Future of Policing (CFP) which recommended that AGS transform into a police service that regarded human rights as ‘the foundation and purpose’ (2018: ix) of policing. This section explores the application of a human rights-based approach to the use of firearms. While deficiencies in applying a human rights-based approach to policing are a long-standing and broader issue in Ireland, we argue that the myth of the unarmed police force has enabled and perpetuated a failure to put in place an operational and accountability framework on the use of force that complies with human rights law. This is not just regrettable from the perspective of restricting the use of force to when absolutely necessary, but it means Ireland may be violating its human rights obligations. We first examine the standards which should be applied and then evaluate Ireland’s application of them. Human rights law provides a strict framework for regulating the use of force by police services. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has specific relevance:13 Article 2 on the right to life, Article 3 on the prohibition of torture and ill treatment and Article 8 on the right to private and family life (encompassing the right to physical, moral and psychological integrity of a person) all apply to this issue. Article 14 on the prohibition of discrimination is also relevant. Article 2 places a positive obligation on police to protect life. Deprivation of life is only permitted where there is an imminent threat to life or risk of serious injury and use of lethal force is absolutely necessary. The European Court of Human Rights (ECrtHR) has made clear that the duty to protect life requires an appropriate legal and administrative framework which defines the limited circumstances in which law enforcement may use force and firearms (Giuliani, 2011). Law enforcement agents must be trained to assess whether or not there is an absolute necessity to use firearms, not only on the basis of applicable law but also with due regard to  The ECHR has been incorporated into Irish law through the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003. 13

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the need to respect life as a fundamental value (Nachova, 2005). The selection of officers equipped with firearms must be undertaken carefully, and warning shots must be fired before an officer aims at a person (Sašo Gorgiev, 2012; Giulani and Gaggio, 2011). Further, the Court has made clear that Article 2 requires an independent, effective, prompt, victim-centred and transparent investigation into any loss of life resulting from police action (Armani Da Silva, 2016). In Ireland, these investigations are carried out by the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC), buttressed by the coroners’ system. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified by Ireland in 1989, requires gardaí to respect and protect the right to life, prohibits torture and ill treatment and upholds the right to private and family life. Domestically, the Irish Constitution, which came into force in 1937, protects personal rights, including the right to life, the right to be treated with respect and dignity and the right to privacy. Article 40(3)(2) of the Irish Constitution provides that ‘the State shall, in particular, by its laws protect as best it may from unjust attack and, in the case of injustice done, vindicate the life, person, good name and property rights of every citizen’. Policing strategies, policies, operational guidance and training programmes on the use of force must take human rights standards into account as a matter of law. The problem in Ireland is that many of these documents are not made public, and, therefore, an assessment of their compliance with human rights law is difficult. Recent reforms emphasising human rights compliance have resulted in some key documents being made public, permitting an analysis through the lens of the international standards permitting use of lethal force, as summarised by Flores et  al. (2021) as follows. Lethal force can only be used when: (1) absolutely necessary as a last resort and in response to an immediate, particularized threat; (2) proportional to the threat or resistance faced, which in the case of lethal force must be a threat to life or serious bodily injury; (3) sanctioned by law; and (4) held meaningfully accountable through independent oversight and publicly accessible, transparent record-keeping. A State must satisfy all four principles, in addition to the general principle of non-discrimination, to meet the minimal human rights standard for the regulation of lethal force by its police bodies. (Flores et al., 2021:247)

We now assess the legal and regulatory framework for the use of force by gardaí in accordance with these criteria. Legality A primary requirement under the legality principle, as confirmed by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, is that police policy on the use of lethal weapons must be based on a law that authorises but clearly limits lethal force (Heyns, 2014). The law must limit discretion to use lethal force to circumstances where it is absolutely necessary in order to protect life. Ambiguous or broad standards risk allowing arbitrary or disproportionate force (Heyns, 2014).

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Arguably, Ireland falls at this first hurdle. The lawful basis for firearms use by Gardaí is not based on an explicit legal provision but rather on an exemption from licencing requirements (Martin, 2016a). Excessive use of force that does not result in death may amount to assault or assault causing harm or serious harm, which is a violation of sections 2–4 of the 1997 Non-fatal Offences Against the Person Act, but this legislation applies to everyone in Ireland, not just Gardaí. Thus, there are no explicit legal statements on garda use of force, save for specific provisions such as the use of reasonable force to stop a vehicle (Criminal Law Act 1976, s.8), but even this does not mention lethal force. Similar problems emerge in policies. While not all are published, which inhibits a thorough analysis, we can review those that are. The Public Order Incident Command Policy states that: In carrying out their duties, members of An Garda Síochána shall, as far as practicable and in so far as the circumstances dictate, consider non-physical means before resorting to the use of force in the resolution of public order incidents. (An Garda Síochána, 2017: 2)

In a section entitled human rights and equality requirements, it states that action taken under the policy ‘must comply with the fundamental principles of legality, necessity (absolute necessity in terms of lethal force), proportionality and accountability’ (An Garda Síochána, 2017: 7) and be non-discriminatory in line with the ECHR.  This is positive, but the policy does not go further and does not provide detail or operational guidance. The same policy document refers to a number of other policy documents, namely, the Overarching Use of Force Policy, the Use of Batons Policy, Restraints and Handcuffs Policy, Incapacitant Spray Policy, the last of which is the only one which is published, at time of writing. It states: Members of An Garda Síochána will only resort to the use of force if there is no realistic prospect of achieving the lawful objective without exposing members of An Garda Síochána, or anyone whom it is their duty to protect, to a real risk of harm or injury. (An Garda Síochána, 2012:1)

The policy also refers to the need for action to comply with the ECHR requirements and states ‘In carrying out their functions in accordance with this policy, members of An Garda Síochána shall act with due respect for the personal rights of persons and their dignity as a human being and shall not subject any person to ill-treatment of any kind’ (An Garda Síochána, 2012: 1). However, again we see a statement of commitment to principles without specific operational guidance. This lack of specificity in both law and policy potentially falls foul of the requirement of legality. Necessity Lethal force should always be confined to defensive situations where it is necessary to prevent an imminent threat of death or serious injury. This is explicitly stated in the UN Code of Conduct (1979) and the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force (1990), the latter of which states that firearms can only be used in defence of an ‘imminent threat of death or serious injury’ and ‘intentional lethal use of firearms

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may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life’ (principle 9, emphasis added). Thus, under the principle of necessity, the threat must be immediate, specific (not a general threat), and all lesser options must have been exhausted to contain the threat. The Special Rapporteur has made clear that an immediate threat means a ‘matter of seconds’ and the threat must be to persons not objects (Heyns, 2014). The Garda Overarching Policy on the Use of Force has not been published, so its compliance with necessity cannot be analysed. This, in itself, is problematic. The policies on Incapacitant Spray and on Public Order Policing indicate that AGS recognise that there must be ‘absolute necessity’ when lethal force is used. However, there is no indication from these policies whether, or how, this flows into garda practice. Even the recent Garda Decision-Making Model, which places human rights at the ‘centre’ of decision-making, proposes broad and unspecific questions for garda members to ask themselves related to the human rights test of necessity: ‘Is my decision necessary, legal, reasonable, proportionate, transparent, non-­ discriminatory and accountable? Is my action necessary? Do I need to intervene? Are there other options available to me?’ (An Garda Síochána, 2019: 3). The lack of specificity impugns the ability to meet the requirements of necessity. Proportionality At the heart of proportionality is the requirement that a right can only be violated where such an intervention is the most minimal possible. The UN Code of Conduct provides that lethal force can only be used when a person ‘offers armed resistance or otherwise jeopardises the lives of others’. The UN Special Rapporteur suggests a narrower test which is that ‘a life may be taken intentionally only to save another life’ (Heyns, 2014, 12). He expands on this to say that the principle of proportionality permits use of lethal force by police not: merely to protect law and order or to serve other similar interests (for example, it may not be used only to disperse protests, to arrest a suspected criminal, or to safeguard other interests such as property). The primary aim must be to save life. In practice, this means that only the protection of life can meet the proportionality requirement where lethal force is used intentionally, and the protection of life can be the only legitimate objective for the use of such force. A fleeing thief who poses no immediate danger may not be killed, even if it means that the thief will escape. (Heyns, 2014, 12)

While the Garda Decision-Making Model refers to proportionality, it lacks the detail that would enable practical application of the principle when faced with a decision to use lethal or non-lethal force.

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Accountability International standards make clear that police officers must be held responsible for transgressions of use of force policies (Heyns, 2014). Reporting all uses of force is a key element. The UN Code of Conduct requires a report to competent authorities of every discharge of a firearm, to which the UN Basic Principles add an ‘effective review process, by independent administrative or prosecutorial authorities’. The UN Special Rapporteur stipulates the need for an external oversight body with ‘necessary powers, resources, independence, transparency community and political support, and civil society involvement’ (Heyns, 2014, 14). AGS has only reported their use of force statistics since 2020, (at time of writing), which inhibits analysis. In terms of review, AGS is required to report all discharges of weapons to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC), an independent body that investigates complaints against AGS. GSOC, however, is not required to investigate these reports unless they result in death or serious harm, or a complaint is made about them. Furthermore, GSOC has been ‘leasing back’ investigations to AGS itself, which clearly undermines the independence of the Commission and which has been criticised by UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies. Both the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC, 2014) and the UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT, 2017) have called on the Irish Government to better resource and strengthen GSOC. Draft legislation moves GSOC in this direction but has met with significant resistance both from the Garda Commissioner and AGS representative bodies, and it is unclear if it will go far enough (Conway, 2021). Non-discrimination A final principle required by international standards in using force is the prohibition of discrimination. This is contained in all human rights treaties, and article 40(1) of the Irish Constitution establishes that everyone shall be held “equal before the law”. The UN Special Rapporteur summarised the need for special attention to potential discrimination in policing as follows: Police exercise higher levels of violence against certain groups of people, based on institutionalized racism or ethnic discrimination. Discrimination on these, and other, grounds also impacts on patterns of accountability. States must instead adopt both a reactive and a proactive stance, encompassing all available means, to combat racially motivated and other similar violence within law enforcement operations. (Heyns, 2014, 12)

Discriminatory decision-making and actions by police have been subject to enhanced scrutiny of late, particularly in the wake of the renewed Black Lives Matter Movement in 2020. The EU Anti-Racism Action Plan (2020–2025) calls for action to prevent discriminatory attitudes within law enforcement agencies. The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) (2020): 5) has called on States to ensure that domestic legal regimes on the use of force by law enforcement officials are brought into line with appropriate international standards and that law enforcement officials are

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provided with appropriate human rights training to ensure compliance. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in its June 2021 report to the HRC, called on States to address unconscious biases in the police through ‘vigorous operational policies, effective and continuous training and education’ (OHCHR, 2021, 59). The ECtHR has stressed that the right to life imposes requirements for specific training and guidance when it comes to the planning and control of police actions that may involve the use of force. Principle 13 of the Appendix to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Declaration on the Police states that police should receive ‘clear and precise instructions as to the manner and circumstances in which they should make use of firearms’ (Council of Europe, 1979, 2). It is unclear, however, to what extent AGS members undergo training that emphasises the need to combat discrimination in everyday policing. Reports from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) suggest that ethnic profiling does occur in AGS (IHREC, 2019), and a range of studies document discrimination by AGS (Mulcahy, 2012; Carr & Haynes, 2015). Various stakeholders, including the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, have called for AGS to receive more training on combating conscious and unconscious bias, in particular in the wake of the shooting of George Nkencho, a young black man, in December 2020 (Ansbro, 2021). Data collection and data publishing are vital to analyse trends in the police use of firearms, to know who is being policed with firearms and how. As Osse and Cano stress, ‘Police should make a constant effort to prevent loss of life, at all times. This can best be done through an open debate about when and why police use force’ (2017: 646). This becomes particularly true in ensuring compliance with non-­ discrimination. In Ireland, there are numerous examples of certain communities being subject to much greater levels of armed policing than other communities, such as members of the Traveller Community and inner city communities of lower socio-­ economic status (Kilpatrick, 2018). In 2018 the Commission on the Future of Policing called for better data collection. We have seen tentative moves towards the publication of data on the use of force but what is published is ‘indicative data’ that is ‘subject to clarification and change as investigations proceed’ (AGS, 2021:1). AGS has explicitly stated it is not suitable for analysis or comparison until 2022. The data does not include ethnicity, as AGS refuses to collect this. And as already noted, AGS is also reluctant to publish details about the extent of its armed members. Recent Reforms In 2019 a Human Rights Strategy Statement was published for the first time by AGS. It mandated the review of policies, procedures, guidance and ongoing operational orders to ensure compliance with human rights standards, with the policy on the Use of Force (including firearms) identified as a key priority area. However, the Policing Authority’s Assessment of Policing Performance of 2020 indicated that this review had not yet been completed.

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Recommendations from the Garda Síochána Inspectorate (GSI), the Policing Authority and, perhaps most significantly, the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland have led to some improvements in adherence to international standards on the use of force. In 2017, a Special Tactics and Operations Command (STOC) was created and is tasked with making ‘policing safer by providing specialist firearms and Less Lethal services’ (Kilpatrick, 2018, 64). Specialist teams were created within STOC that include the Emergency Response Unit (ERU), the National Negotiator and the Dublin-based Armed Support Unit (ASU). Outside Dublin, ASUs are managed locally, but STOC has a governance role. Kilpatrick (2018: 64) notes, however, that the GSI recommendation was to ‘create a single firearms command unit with responsibility for the tasking and deployment of armed resources to spontaneous and pre-planned operations’. This means that armed units outside of Dublin are subject to different command structures, and, therefore, potentially to different operational guidance. The GSI (2015) recommended the development of standard operating procedures for the deployment of armed units, but it remains unclear whether such operating procedures have been developed and whether they incorporate human rights obligations. Another concern with STOC, noted by Kilpatrick (2018), is that the Detective Chief Superintendent who leads STOC reports to the Assistant Commissioner for Security and Intelligence. This is problematic because AGS oversight bodies do not currently have remit over State security, meaning use of firearms in such contexts are not subject to independent oversight. This is contrary to human rights requirements. New draft legislation, the Garda Síochána (Powers) Bill 2020, seeks to put AGS powers of arrest, search and detention on a clear statutory footing for the first time, and provides for the use of ‘reasonable force’, including lethal force. Head 65(5) provides that force may only be used ‘to achieve the legitimate objective being pursued’ and ‘is no more than is reasonably necessary for that purpose’. Head 65(6) of the Bill provides that where a garda believes a person is engaging in activity likely to cause serious harm to, or the death of, another person and the garda cannot prevent the serious harm or death in another way, then ‘force used may include force likely to cause serious harm to a person or the person’s death’. But Head 65(7) stipulates that before doing so, the garda must ‘if practicable, first call on the person to stop doing the act’. These are positive developments and, generally, are more in line with international standards on the use of force than the current law. However, ‘legitimate objective’ should be narrowed to ‘saving life’ in order to comply with best practice outlined above. In addition, in order to be fully effective, operational guidance will be needed to ensure the practical application of these principles. It is clear from the above that Ireland, to date, has not been in compliance with human rights requirements concerning the use of lethal force. We contend that this is a situation which has been enabled by the narrative that AGS is an unarmed force. If AGS is unarmed, and lethal use of police force is not an issue in Ireland, then it is not an issue that demands focus and attention. More focus on data collection, training and clear practical guidance may contribute to ensuring the professionalism that has been sorely lacking in AGS use of force, but it may also depend on the

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debunking of the myth of an unarmed force, which, as we shall now explore, has embedded some very problematic practices in the use of firearms.

Impact of the ‘Unarmed Myth’ on the Ground Having established how the myth has perpetuated poor human rights compliance, in terms of legislation and policy, we now explore the impact of that myth on policing practice. We highlight a lack of regulation and professionalism, a lack of accountability and a broader assumption that ‘there is no issue’ which leads to a lack of questioning. Lack of Professionalism Viewing policing as a profession, we can expect police to be skilled and trained to use their powers to a high, effective and ethical standard (CFP, 2018). Focusing on the last two decades, there have been a number of incidents which have raised serious questions as regards professionalism in the use of firearms. We question whether the failure to acknowledge the scale of the use of firearms has contributed to this lack of professionalism. While the shootings themselves have often been deemed to be lawful and proportionate, criticism of planning, briefing and command of the scene has been consistent. We explore this now through several key incidents, which are considered chronologically. In 2014 the MacLochlainn Commission was established to address long-­standing concerns relating to the fatal shooting of Ronan MacLochlainn in 1998. Mr. MacLochlainn was killed during a joint operation by the National Surveillance Unit and the Emergency Response Unit, based on intelligence about a planned armed robbery of a Securicor vehicle. The Commission was established after Mr. MacLochlainn’s partner made a complaint to the ECtHR that the killing had not been subject to an Article 2-compliant investigation. Reporting in 2016, the Commission, chaired by Senior Counsel Mary Rose Gearty, found substantial failures in command and control. Indeed, her report presents a scathing account of how specialised firearms teams were operating at the end of the twentieth century. The MacLochlainn Commission found that the supposed commanding officer displayed a ‘laissez-faire approach’ (2014, para 63) and did not command the operation and that a sergeant had countermanded a senior officer. The Commission documented a lack of contingency planning and a lack of briefings and discussion of what might happen. There was a failure by AGS management to clearly identify commanders (either overall or as heads of tactical units) creating a sense of ‘individual autonomy’ among each garda present: Instead of engaging in planning, however, senior officers expected that the ERU and, in particular, the NSU would simply go about their business without coordination, instruction

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or orders. They relied largely on the experience of the relevant units to deploy effectively. (MacLochlainn Commission, 2016, para 83)

At the time there was no protocol between NSU and ERU or joint training, and one was not developed until 2002. There was no clarity at the scene regarding when control would be handed over from one unit to the other. The NSU leader did not even have knowledge of where the ERU teams were. The Commission found an ‘abdication of responsibility’ on the part of the NSU leaders (2014, para 86). In terms of the aftermath of the incident, the Commission found two significant failings. First ‘there was no protocol specifically dealing with the identification of a separate scene when a person had been shot by a member of AGS’ (para 78). Second, there was no debriefing of the teams. Because of problems of accountability, however, this analysis of events was not published until 16 years after the death, meaning lessons were not quickly learned. In 2000, John Carthy, a 27 year-old with a known psychiatric illness, was killed by the ERU after he barricaded himself in his home with a firearm. The subsequent Barr Report (2006) identified critical failures by senior gardaí even though the decision to fire lethal shots was ultimately upheld. Command incompetence meant that key information was not passed to the appropriate teams. There was a failure of planning for potential outcomes and some instructions were vague. The report resulted in apologies from the Taoiseach (the Irish Prime Minister) and AGS. In May 2005, two men were killed in a post office in Lusk, County Dublin, in a joint operation by the National Surveillance Unit and the Armed Response Unit, following intelligence concerning a planned armed robbery. The deaths were investigated by the Garda Ombudsman Commission who found that, while the use of force was proportionate, there were a ‘number of weaknesses in relation to the planning of the operation’ which ‘had an adverse effect on the command and control of the operation’ (GSOC, 2011: 6). The report indicated that nine recommendations had been forwarded to the Garda Commissioner, but they were not published. In 2007, the Garda Inspectorate published a report on barricade incidents, of which John Carthy’s killing was an example. It commented that initial responses, and a tendency to jump in, put officers’ own safety at risk as well as leading to ‘officer induced jeopardy’ (Garda Inspectorate, 2007: 13). The report highlighted a need for protocols and training, noted improved manuals and training for on scene command but highlighted further deficiencies. Overall the Inspectorate made recommendations in relation to initial response, on scene command and equipment. A further inspection by the Inspectorate, in 2018, found continued deficiencies in this space: The inspection identified several areas of organisational risk, including the deployment of district detectives to incidents requiring an armed response, without the same level of training and equipment as Armed Support Units. This requires an organisational review to determine the national firearms response requirement. (Garda Inspectorate, 2018: iv)

The Garda Inspectorate report (2018) found it could take up to an hour for an ASU to respond to a request for assistance in more remote areas. Because of these delays, local detectives are required to respond to firearm incidents, because they have

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weapons, but they do not have the level of training in tactical interventions, the same range of less lethal weapons and the same protective equipment as members of the ASUs. Added to this there is ‘an absence of command and control protocols at district levels’ (2018: 174). So when these less trained and less equipped detectives intervene, they are not following command and control structures. A further issue in all of this is how the failures to develop professionalism and proper structures can put officers’ lives at risk. The Garda Inspectorate report of 2007 on barricade incidents noted poor weapons and protective equipment, and commented specifically on the quality and availability of protective vests. In 2015, Garda Tony Golden was killed when he accompanied a woman who had reported domestic violence back into her home to retrieve her belongings. Her partner, Macken, was a known dissident republican, awaiting bail for terrorism charges. His home had been raided earlier that year and illegal firearms were found. Macken shot and injured his partner, and killed Garda Golden before turning the gun on himself. Garda Golden was unarmed and without protective equipment. Questions around training and access to information abound. His family were later awarded €1.4 million (US1.58 million) in compensation from the State (Managh, 2020). It is striking that more than 20 years after the killing of Ronan MacLochlainn, issues of training, equipment and command and control are still present. As if to caricature these issues, in July 2018 a sub-machine gun fell from the boot of a garda vehicle in Dublin city centre and was returned to a garda station by a member of the public. Current scrutiny centres on the shooting dead of George Nkencho, in December 2020. His death is subject to a GSOC investigation, and serious questions have arisen given the knowledge that Mr. Nkencho was in mental crisis at the time of his death, as well as being a young black man. A lack of professionalism has undoubtedly plagued the use of firearms in Ireland. We suggest the myth of an unarmed force has meant that sufficient attention has not been paid to this issue and that the situations set out above could have been handled differently had that been otherwise. A lack of accountability has meant that the learnings from these incidents came far too late. Lack of Accountability It is important to explicitly explore the lack of accountability. Until 2007, there were no automatic external, independent investigations of police use of lethal force. On a number of occasions, as we have seen, the State resorted to commissions and tribunals to address this lacuna. There has never been a prosecution of a garda for the killing of another person by firearm. The only real possibility at this time were coronial inquests but, as Scraton and McNaul (2021) have found, that system is antiquated and incapable of effective investigations. Until recently, bereaved loved ones and the State were reliant on internal investigations, which have not been thorough, effective or independent. The MacLochlainn Commission found ‘While the investigation of the attempted robbery was extremely professional and thorough, the investigation of the shooting was minimal and

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sub-­standard’ (2014, para 66). This was true to the point that the investigation did not even determine how many NSU operatives were at the scene, let alone question all witnesses. Issues of units being above the law were evidenced: ‘The NSU viewed themselves as being “ringfenced”, to use the word of one witness, from AGS to an unjustified extent. The normal rules were not seen to apply to them’ (2014, para 77). There were also deficiencies in the crime scene work which inhibited any investigation. In the subsequent inquest, there was insufficient disclosure and no member of the NSU gave evidence. Issues of poor accountability and a culture of secrecy are well documented in Irish policing (Walsh, 1998; Conway, 2010). Unless there is sufficient political concern or outrage, often nothing will be done. In a context where the political view is one of pride in the unarmed nature of the force, such outrage is uncommon. Even with the creation of GSOC in 2007, which is required to independently investigate all incidents which result in death, investigations are limited to assessing the actions of individual officers rather than the adequacy of existing policies or structures. It cannot be said, therefore, that Ireland has a sufficiently thorough  – or potentially  even  ECHR  Article 2 compliant  – system for the investigation of police killings. It is also notable that there is typically a lack of political or public pressure to conduct public investigations into AGS killings. Indeed, the names of many of those who have been killed have not been mentioned in the Irish Parliament unless a decision has been made to commence a tribunal – often due to some external pressure, such as the threat of the ECtHR as in the MacLochlainn case. It is suggested that this is because, invariably, those killed by gardaí have had some connection to paramilitary groups. A ‘no smoke without fire’ attitude may prevail, with victims not being seen as innocent. Rogers (2003) notes how it was the killing of ‘innocent’ people by British police in the 1980s which drove the public to question the police use of lethal force. This included the killing of Gail Kinshen, a pregnant woman, in 1980, when she was abducted by a man on the run from the police, and killed while being used as a human shield by the man. Thus, in Ireland, a rather simplistic ‘they were involved in something criminal, were armed and the police had to do something’ narrative may apply, rather than insisting on a thorough exploration of whether lethal force could have been avoided in a particular incident. George Nkencho marks something of a departure, with over 20 mentions in parliament within 8 months of his death.14 What we see through this analysis is that by adhering to the myth of the unarmed garda, Ireland has failed to engage in the professionalisation of police use of lethal force. Ireland has failed in terms of policies, structures, training and reviews. There is very limited accountability, we know very little about the full use of firearms, and we are still struggling to ensure that all is done in accordance with human rights. In short, given that life is at stake, Ireland has taken a shockingly inadequate approach to police firearms.

14

 Through a search conducted for this piece at www.oireachtas.ie

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I mplications of the ‘Unarmed Myth’ for a Move to ‘Community Service’ The unarmed myth also undermines ongoing efforts to enhance community policing. Community policing was at the heart of Peel’s nineteenth-century vision for a ‘new police’. Police would work with the cooperation and consent of communities rather than seeking to control them (Grieve et al., 2007). In 2018, the Commission on the Future of Policing placed significant emphasis on the need to transform AGS into a community-based police service stating: [E]effective policing is only possible with the consent and active support and participation of the community it serves. The term ‘community policing’ has been used to mean many things, but it is really all about front line police knowing their communities well, being visible and engaged in those communities and developing mutually respectful partnerships to solve problems and achieve community safety… (CFP, 2018: 6)

In order for true consent and legitimacy to be achieved, a range of factors need to align (Tyler, 2004). Police behaviours must be seen as procedurally just, fair, transparent and accountable, among other things. The publication of data feeds that transparency. Robust governance measures and accountability mechanisms are necessary both to combat misconduct and to gain community consent (McLaughlin, 2007). The principle that only proportionate and justifiable force should ever be used helps build public confidence that force is used only to secure community safety (Martin, 2016a, b). Empirical research has demonstrated that ‘non-­ enforcement police contact’ improves public attitudes toward police (Peyton et al., 2019: 19895). The use of force by police officers, particularly lethal force, can impact the legitimacy of police actions (Hamourtziadou et al., 2021) and poses a clear risk to community relationships. The myth of the unarmed police force has the potential to negatively impact the transition foreseen by the Commission on the Future of Policing of AGS from a police force to a community-based police service. In the absence of proper disaggregated data collection, it is not possible to analyse the geographic spread of the deployment of armed gardaí and the actual use of firearms in Ireland. Uncertainty around how, why and where armed police are being deployed may compound mistrust in, and undermine cooperation with, police. Media reports and anecdotal evidence suggest that armed gardaí are more likely to be deployed in marginalised communities, including inner city communities, ethnic minority communities and members of the indigenous Traveller communities (Kilpatrick, 2018; Gallagher, 2020a, b, c, d; Dunphy, 2016). The negative impact of deploying armed police can be seen in two particular operations in Ireland, both in 2020. First, the deployment of armed gardaí at checkpoints set up to enforce Covid-19 restrictions provoked discomfort and criticism among the public (Ansbro et al., 2021). This was the first time many members of the public had encountered armed gardaí in the course of a policing operation. Second, with regard to the shooting of George Nkencho, media reports indicate that the arrival of an armed unit rather than a mental health support team may have

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aggravated an already tense situation. The killing of Mr. Nkencho resulted in protests and significant tensions between police and the Black Irish community, in particular in the area where Mr. Nkencho lived (Gallagher, 2021). This demonstrates both the significant negative impact of the use of lethal force on community relationships and, perhaps, the additional shock caused by the deployment of armed police in a country where the myth of the unarmed police force continues. The importance of publicly explaining why and where armed gardaí will be deployed cannot be underestimated. The trust, cooperation and consent that are the hallmarks of community policing can only be built by addressing head-on the existence of armed gardaí within AGS, the rules around their involvement in operations and clear accountability mechanisms when rules are broken. In order to fulfil the vision to transform AGS from a police force to a police service, the deployment of armed gardaí must be limited to specific, defined circumstances, and only in response to threat to life. As with compliance with human rights standards, ensuring community policing is successful requires the myth of the unarmed police force to be debunked.

Conclusion Ireland is often cited as an example of a State which has successfully functioned with an unarmed police force. As we have explored in this chapter, that An Garda Síochána is largely unarmed was not a point of design but an act of fear, in the context of a civil war in a newly independent State. Even then, it can really only be said to be true for a small number of years. Within a decade of its establishment, it was clear that members of AGS were armed and that this was being tolerated. The Troubles and later the rise of organised crime gangs saw up to 30% of the force routinely armed. Nevertheless, the myth of the unarmed garda had taken hold and has had serious consequences for policing in Ireland. It has enabled a failure to attend to human rights requirements. We have outlined the range of ways in which Ireland’s laws and policing standards fall far short of what is required to be human rights compliant. The myth has also impacted policing operations. Through an examination of specific incidents, we demonstrate the lack of professionalism and accountability, but note how this is fuelled by a public belief that AGS is unarmed which removes any sense of a need for progress and questioning in this space. Finally, we have considered how the existence of the myth imposes barriers in the achievement of a truly community-based service. We have sought to address why the myth of an unarmed police force has consequences for transparency, human rights compliance, professionalism, accountability and community policing. However, we do not wish to overemphasise the role of armed gardaí in policing in Ireland. In general, since 1922, between 70% and 80% of gardaí have not been armed with firearms in the course of carrying out policing operations. While we have lamented the lack of data on the use of force in Ireland,

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looking at statistics released since November 2020, it is clear that use of firearms is low. In the context of the Black Lives Matter global discussion on reimagining police services (see, e.g. discussions at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC, 2020)), it is important to emphasise that the Irish experience over the past 100 years is that a police force can operate successfully, in general, without recourse to firearms. We note that the Commission on the Future of Policing states that they ‘applaud the pride that An Garda Síochána takes in being a routinely unarmed police service’ (2018: 83, emphasis added). The recent significant reduction in the numbers of armed gardaí reflects a recognition that, to be effective, police forces do not need a large proportion of their members to be armed. States may argue that in order to respond to modern threats from well-armed organised crime gangs and potential terrorist actors, police forces throughout the world will always need to retain some armed police. If this is the case, it is absolutely vital that the arming of police with lethal weapons is restricted to the minimal amount necessary to respond to an evidence-based threat. Further, those members who are armed must be subject to very clear operational standards, systems and structures of accountability to ensure no life is ever taken by a State actor outside the strict circumstances permitted by human rights law on use of force and firearms. And key to that, as the Irish experience shows, is transparency about the scale of arming to facilitate accurate perceptions of the nature of policing and effective oversight and accountability that engenders professional firearms use.

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Chapter 3

Are the Brazilian Police Forces Lethal Weapons? Ludmila Ribeiro, Valéria C. Oliveira, and Alexandre M. A. Diniz

Introduction1 Brazil is internationally known for its natural beauty, vibrant culture, and iconic monuments, such as Christ the Redeemer, one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. A less positive feature, which has consistently dominated the international news media, is Brazil’s endemic crime and violence (Vilalta, 2020). The challenge of dealing with this issue becomes even greater when the police are part of the problem (Suarez et al., 2021). In 2020, 17% of all intentional deaths recorded in Brazil were perpetrated at the hands of law enforcement agents (Brazilian Forum of Public Safety, FBSP, 2021). Using Osse and Cano’s (2017) indicator of police violence, Brazil ranks in third

 The authors would like to thank Giovana Bragança, who helped with the organization of the dataset used in this chapter. 1

L. Ribeiro (*) Federal University of Minas Gerais, UFMG – Unidade Administrativa III – CRISP, Pampulha, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] V. C. Oliveira Federal University of Minas Gerais, Pampulha, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] A. M. A. Diniz Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Farmer, R. Evans (eds.), Policing & Firearms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13013-7_3

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position within the Americas.2 Moreover, police killings are highly selective in nature, victimizing, above all, young Black men and residents of socially excluded communities within major Brazilian cities (Ceccato et al., 2018). Public safety is not equally distributed or assured across major urban areas (Ryngelblum & Peres, 2021). This chapter has two goals. First, we explain how the Brazilian police forces are organized, stressing the lethality rates associated with the Military and Civil police forces across the 26 states, plus the Federal District. Then, we assess the three major competing explanations for the police killings in Brazil, which are related to (i) the endorsement of authoritarian practices; (ii) the slavery legacy; and (iii) the war on crime. To test our hypotheses, we use two data sources: the administrative records systematized by the Brazilian Forum of Public Safety (FBSP, acronym in Portuguese) and the Mortality Information System (SIM, acronym in Portuguese). Both were organized in a panel dataset to allow the estimation of a Poisson regression model, our choice in terms of statistical model to test the three hypotheses.

Police Forces in Brazil Brazil is a Federal Republic comprising a Federal District and 26 states. Administratively, the states are subdivided into 5570 municipalities (IBGE, 2020), with a population of over 221 million people. The homicide rate of 27 per 100,000 inhabitants (FBSP, 2021) is almost 5 times higher than the global average of 5.6 per 100,000 inhabitants (Vilalta, 2020: 695). Such a high rate of violence is explained by the combination of a “strong presence of organized crime groups in urban territories, and the recognized violent action by police forces” (Ryngelblum & Peres, 2021: 4276). The metaphor commonly used to portray the ongoing carnage in Brazil is the “war on crime” (Leite, 2018), and this drives our attention to one of the major players in this enduring conflict: the police. The police forces were last institutionalized when Brazil transitioned from a military dictatorship (during the period 1964–1985) to a democratic regime (Pinheiro, 2000). These forces are regulated by the 1988 Federal Constitution, known as the “citizen constitution,” which instituted essential democratic rights and principles (Suarez et al., 2021). The main duty of almost all Brazilian police forces, according to the Federal Constitution, is the ostensive patrolling, “aiming at preventing, dissuading, restraining, or repressing events that violate the public order” (Zaverucha, 2008:213). To accomplish this mission, the police officers implement policing activities by motorized and foot patrols (Gledhill, 2013), to prevent crime and to guarantee public order maintenance (Zaverucha, 2008), though ostensive  Osse and Cano (2017) created an indicator that ranges from low (below 0.1 police killings per 100,000 inhabitants) and intermediate (between 0.1 and 1 police killings per 100,000 inhabitants) to high rates (above 1 police killing per 100,000 inhabitants). Using this measurement, Brazil has a rate of 1.3 police killings per 100,000 inhabitants (p. 643). 2

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Table 3.1 Police agencies and forces in Brazil  – competencies, size, and level of institutionalization (2021)

Agency Federal Police

Federal Highway Police Federal Railway Police Military fire brigades Civil police

Level of institutionalization Competence Federal To prevent and investigate federal offenses, which includes crime against the political and social order, and violations having interstate or international repercussions Federal To perform ostensive patrolling of highways

Number of police forces in service in Brazil 1

Police officers in service (2021) 10,996

1

To carry out ostensive patrolling of railways

State

To execute civil defense activities

27

55,981

26

State

To accomplish judiciary 27 police duties and to investigate criminal offenses, Except federal crimes To complete ostensive 27 policing and to maintain public order To provide safety inside 27 the penitentiary units To protect locally 220 existing assets, services, and facilities and To carry out preventive policies

93,143

44

State

Penal police Municipal guardsa

State Municipality

0

5

Federal

Military police

1

10,964

Police officers in service per 100,000 inhabitants (2021) 5

0

406,426 192

96,059

45

130,797

62

Sources: For police competencies, article 144 of the Brazilian Federal Constitution (1988) For professionals in duty in each police force, Brazilian Forum of Public Safety (FBSP) (2021) a For cities with Municipal Guards and the size of this organization, Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) (2020)

patrolling is also seen as a duty that police officers shall accomplish as part of “major operations” in pursuit of “dangerous criminals” or in the “hunt for suspects” (Gledhill, 2013:18).

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The 1988 Brazilian Federal Constitution established eight policing agencies, each with different responsibilities and associated number of police forces: 3 federal, 27 civil, 27 military, 27 penal, and 220 municipal guards (FBSP, 2021). Most of these forces are institutionalized and managed at the state level, while some are regulated at the federal and municipal levels. Table 3.1 provides a summary of the police forces and personnel numbers. Three police forces operate at the federal level, having as spatial jurisdiction the entire Brazilian territory. Charged with the responsibility of preventing and investigating federal offenses, the Federal Police is small in scale, accounting for less than 3% of all police officers in Brazil (Table 3.1). The federal railway police force was created by the Brazilian Federal Constitution (1988), but it has never come into force, with civil servants being hired to carry out its activities. Also at the federal level, a police force is designated to perform the ostensive patrolling of the Brazilian highway systems, accounting for a small number of officers when compared to other police organizations Operating at the other end of the spatial spectrum are Brazil’s Municipal Guards. They are not mandatory, being up to each city to determine their creation. Due to the rise in crime and violence, Municipal Guards have expanded in number during recent decades (Kopittke, 2016). They perform not only preventive tasks but also repressive duties at the municipal level (Cano, 2006). These responsibilities were established by the Municipal Guards’ Statute of 2014, which has also allowed guards to carry firearms (Law #13,0222) (Kopittke, 2016). Currently, 220 cities in Brazil have Municipal Guards, comprising a rate of 62 guards per 100,000 inhabitants (IBGE, 2020), making them the second largest police force in the country (Table 3.1). While there are not many cases of killings perpetrated by Municipal Guards, the incidents that do occur represent a new threat to the Rule of Law. At the intermediate spatial scale, there are several state-level police forces. In 2019, through the approval of the Constitutional Amendment 104, the Penal Police Force was created. This rule recognized all correctional officers as police officers, charged with the duty of guaranteeing the safety inside the penitentiary institutions. Presently, the country has 27 Penal Police units, 1 in the Federal District and 1 in each of the 26 states. Together, they account for 12% of all police officers in service, comprising a rate of 45 officers per 100,000 inhabitants – the third largest agency. The Penal Police oversee the Brazilian carceral population, which is the third largest in the world, with more than 720,000 inmates (Ribeiro & Diniz, 2020). The country has a rate of seven inmates per penal police officer, higher than the ratio recommended by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which is three inmates per officer (CIDH, 1997). Even though the level of mortality due to violence inside the penitentiary system is high, with a rate of 18 homicides per 100,000 inmates (FBSP, 2021), there is scarce data regarding the role played by Penal Police officers in this regard. Also operating at the state level are the Military Fire Brigades. These corporations have among their duties to carry out civil defense, fire prevention, and firefighting, in addition to search, rescue, and public aid missions. Brazil has 27 different Military Fire Brigades, 1 in the Federal District and 1 in each of the 26

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states. From 1915, they were considered an auxiliary and reserve force of the Brazilian Army, and since the 1988 Federal Constitution, they became part of the Brazilian Public Safety and Social Defense System (Barreira, 2004). Their numbers are impressive, as they comprise, overall, 26 military firefighters per 100,000 inhabitants. Its members, as well as those of the Military Police, are subordinate to the state governors. The Military Police is the main police force in Brazil, in terms of duties (guarantee of public order through patrolling) and size (147 police officers per 100,000 inhabitants). The Military Police remain an auxiliary force to the Army, with powers and responsibilities that were assigned for the most part during the 1964–1985 military dictatorial regime (Zaverucha, 2008; Ceccato et al., 2018). Their structure of authority, organization, uniform, and operational standards remain similar to those of the Army – the institution from which they originate (Costa, 2018). The 1988 Brazilian Federal Constitution failed to change the structure and duties of the Military Police, a fact that poses many threats to the Rule of Law (Pinheiro, 2000). The main adjustment that was introduced by the Constitution was their submission to the state governors’ control (Zaverucha, 2008). This institutional arrangement implies that the use of violence is kept according to standards that would not benefit the new democratic order (Suarez et al., 2021), with military police officers (law enforcement personnel) being trained in defense matters rather than in policing practices (Vilalta, 2020: 697). One of the meanings of ostensive patrolling for the military police implies community policing activities, designed in theory to “improving the security of the residents of the targeted communities” (Vilalta, 2020: 8). In reality, it generates tension and violence due to the use of “weapons of war” and the number of “criminal deaths” caused by the police officers when accomplishing these activities (Leite, 2018). Thus, human rights violations by the various Military Police started attracting the attention of international organizations soon after the democratization process was underway in 1985 (Pinheiro, 2000; Cano, 2006; Costa, 2011). As noted by Ahnen (2007:141), “in 1992, according to official statistics, São Paulo police were responsible for 1470 civilian killings, or roughly 16% of all homicides in that state,” creating awareness in Amnesty International about the situation in the country. In the 1990s, Human Rights Watch Research presented a report of a 2 year mission in Brazil, held in the main capital cities – São Paulo (SP), Natal (RN), Recife (PE), Salvador (BA), Belo Horizonte (MG), and Porto Alegre (RS) – indicating that in all states the police were responsible for a high number of killings, and these deaths were rarely investigated with diligence (Cavallaro & Manuel, 1997). Multiple international agencies have been pressuring in favor of changing the Military Police’s operational standards to better suit the democratic order (Pinheiro, 2002; Bueno et al., 2019). The Civil Police is also a legacy of the authoritarian regime, although it has never been directly subordinated to the Armed Forces (Ahnen, 2007). Like the Military Police, the Civil Police comprise 27 different units, and represent one of the largest police forces in Brazil, with 44 police officers per 100,000 inhabitants (FBSP, 2021). This institution performs the functions of a “judiciary police,” being

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responsible for investigating crimes throughout Brazilian history. During the authoritarian years, a number of Civil Police officers created death squads, composed of the “bravest” police officers, “who had declared their willingness to die in the pursuit of bandits” (Huggins, 1997: 212). One of the most famous death squads was Le Cocq’s, the last name of a Civil Police Inspector who had claimed “an explicit mandate to kill ‘dangerous criminals’ on his own initiative” (Huggins, 1997: 212). Even under the democratic regime, the Civil Police have retained an enormous discretionary power when carrying out their investigative duties, to indict someone for a crime, and to secure a viable conviction (Huggins, 2000). This discretionary power has enabled “the widespread practice of police brutality as a tool of the trade” (Costa, 2011: 24). In recent decades, the Civil Police have made the news due to the high level of militarization, in addition to the rising number of killings recorded by its officials (Huggins, 2000; Costa, 2011). In 2019 alone, the Civil Police was responsible for 5.8% of all police killings registered in the country, contrasting with previous years when only a few cases were registered (FBSP, 2021). In summary, public safety is essentially a responsibility of the Brazilian states (Cano, 2006). This mission is primarily undertaken by two major police forces – the Military and Civil police. Figure 3.1 depicts the number of police officers by type of police in each of the Brazilian states, per 100,000 inhabitants. Notice that the relationship between the number of police officers per inhabitant varies significantly

Fig. 3.1  Military and Civil police officers per 100,000 inhabitants (2021) per state. (Map created by the authors; Source: Brazilian Forum of Public Safety (FBSP))

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among Brazilian regions and states. In southern Brazil, the proportion is much lower, while in the southeastern, midwestern, and northeastern states, the number of police officers per inhabitant is higher. This skewed distribution is only partially associated with violent mortality rates, being also influenced by the administrative capacity of states, and the particular importance of the public safety agenda locally. After presenting the overall organization of police forces in Brazil, we turn our attention to the determinants of police lethality, testing the main explanations for the high prevalence of police violence among Civil and Military police officers. There are reasons for focusing exclusively on the killings perpetrated by the Military and Civil police: 1. They are the ones in direct contact with citizens, performing duties in streets and neighborhoods (Cano, 2006). 2. They are subjected to the “federal guidelines (Portaria Interministerial No. 4.226, of December 31, 2010) on the use of force and firearms” (Osse & Cano, 2017: 630), which should be applied by all law enforcement agents engaged in patrol and investigative duties. 3. The information regarding police killings is released only for these agencies, through an enormous effort of the Brazilian Forum of Public Safety (Ceccato et al., 2018).

Explanations for Police Killings in Brazil Brazil accounts for more than 10% of homicides in the world, and is 13th in terms of absolute number of deaths worldwide (Ceccato et al., 2018: 528). Alongside the prominence of violence, “homicide statistics often vary radically in Brazil, with various agencies citing different statistics for the same city or region” (Huggins, 2000: 130). The absence of reliable data on police killings is explained by a number of factors, ranging from strategies to hide the body (Pinheiro, 2002; Monteiro et al., 2020) to difficulties imposed by police officers which hinder the proper investigation of causes of death (Cano, 2010; Ryngelblum & Peres, 2021). Reliable data on police killings have been mobilizing researchers, public authorities, and human rights organizations in Brazil since the return to democracy (Monteiro et al., 2020). High levels of police violence create a vicious circle that threatens the democratic order, as police killings decrease confidence in police forces (Caldeira, 2002; Ahnen, 2007). Endorsement of arbitrary violence weakens the legitimacy of the political and criminal justice systems (Pinheiro, 2000, 2002). This is a growing field of study among the Brazilian Social Sciences community, which has given rise to different explanations for the high levels of police violence in the country (Bueno et al., 2019). One of the most popular explanations lies in the incomplete Brazilian democratization process (Pinheiro, 2000, 2002; Mitchell & Wood, 1999) and the absence of external control over the police forces (Costa, 2011). Throughout the last dictatorial

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regime (1964–1985), the police were not held responsible for the torture and deaths they perpetrated (Caldeira, 2002; Cano, 2006). These unfortunate practices live on, as police forces continue to use killings as a means to impose “power” in socially excluded urban areas (Cano, 2010), and they are not subjected to civilian oversight (Lemgruber et  al., 2003). According to Pinheiro (2000: 121), “in urban Brazil, social restraints have in fact been loosened, and violence is increasingly perceived as a legitimate means of solving conflicts,” consequently contributing to the institutionalization of the (Un)Rule of Law (Pinheiro, 2000). Police officers feel free to sentence a large number of citizens to death without trial, with the compliance of the democratic institutions that fail to punish them (Caldeira, 2002; Peters, 2006). One of the explanations for this authoritarian legacy is the absence of a legal death penalty in the Brazilian Criminal Code. Although this punishment had existed in Brazil until 1890, its removal has implied in different political discussions regarding what should be done when Blacks and Mestizos committed a crime, since they were seen as nonhuman creatures even after the slavery abolishment.3 In the 1920s a defense of the death penalty became more intense, with different politicians claiming that this sanction should be adopted to some criminals, as “the worthless, the undesirable and the irrecoverable” (Salla et al., 2019: 44). In 1937, the death penalty came into force through the Brazilian Federal Constitution. Since it was an authoritarian regime, the death penalty ought to be applied to all criminals that have committed the crime with perversity. However, the legal death penalty was hardly ever applied. At the end of the 1950s, a “nonjudicial” death penalty started to be carried out by groups of police officers, the so-called death squads in Rio de Janeiro and in São Paulo (Salla et al., 2019). The military dictatorship, established in 1964, favored the emergence of these squads in other Brazilian states, spreading the police killings as the “nonjudicial” death penalty (Salla et al., 2019). In 1969, through the Institutional Act n. 14, the military regime implemented the death penalty to all political opponents. The legal provisions of death penalty were finally revoked by the 1988 Brazilian Federal Constitution, which prohibited the use of this sanction for all purposes. Nevertheless, the Civil and Military police forces are still implementing this “nonjudicial” death penalty, especially in the state capitals (Salla et al., 2019). This is an ongoing phenomenon because police killings are largely supported by Brazilian citizens: “half of the population agrees with the common saying that ‘good criminals are dead criminals’.” (Ceccato et al., 2018: 543). To fulfill the electors’ expectations, politicians have been advocating in favor of police killings as an answer for the high levels of crime (Monteiro et al., 2020), ratifying the more votes – more police violence paradox (Vilalta, 2020). During the last electoral campaign in Rio de Janeiro, the elected governor openly defended the shooting of “criminals” in the  Nina Rodrigues, an important forensic physician and a Brazilian politician, claimed that Blacks and Mestizos were born to be criminals. In 1894, he proposed that Brazil should have two Criminal Codes: one for Blacks, with specific crimes and higher penalties (including the death one), another for Whites, without the use of imprisonment as a sanction. 3

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head as part of his political program (Rennó, 2020). The apex of police lethality took place in 2019, in the wake of President Bolsonaro’s consistent efforts to exclude death provoked by police officers from the Penal Code (Suarez et al., 2021).4 All these examples show to a certain degree the ongoing new forms of militarism, in which there is a “public acquiescence of police brutality and extrajudicial killings” (Peters, 2006: 10). Having political support for the lethal incidents perpetrated by the police, politicians are more likely to reject proposals for the control of violence inside police forces or mechanisms to enforce civilian oversight. While right-wing politicians advocate in favor of police killings as the most effective public safety policy, politicians advocating in favor of police violence control are perceived as enemies of the people, “making police reform electorally disadvantageous” (Vilalta, 2020: 701). According to Frantz (2019), countries previously governed by the military are particularly vulnerable to police brutality because “military rule frequently entails the militarization of the police, meaning reliance on the military and its tactics in policing” (p. 405). As a result, police killings become a form of police action, which can be used to contain anyone who contests the new regime or is seen as a threat to it. Since police officers embody this ideology, they use violence to assure sovereignty, even though it decreases police legitimacy. In this situation, political candidates that try to revive “the glorious past” and defend the “elimination of criminals and marginals (outlaws)” are perceived as the ones with the best public safety policy (Rennó, 2020: 4). After a victorious campaign, they would further endorse police violence, increasing the rates of killings, as we have been observing in the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in Brazil (Bueno et al., 2019). Chevigny (1990) does not agree with this justification, arguing that the history of police use of deadly force in Brazil originates “beyond the immediate political past” associated with the last authoritarian regime (p. 391). Brazilian police forces were created to guarantee an order imposed by the elite since colonial times. Slaves were important assets who were supposed to obey their owners’ orders without questioning or escaping from their properties (Bretas, 1997). To guarantee ownership of such “property,” police officers were in charge of searching for slaves who misbehaved or absconded, and could implement violent punishments that ranged from beatings to killings (Holloway, 1989). Salvatore (2013: 267) highlights that “military policing was the answer that Brazilian elites gave to the problem of urban disorder” once the abolition of slavery came into force, in 1888. By that time, it was necessary to implement new forms of control of the previously enslaved population (Holloway, 1989), with the police officers developing the competence to distinguish

 Jair Messias Bolsonaro is the president of Brazil (2019–2023), who won the elections with a right-wing political platform. According to Rennó (2020, p.  7), “a cornerstone of Bolsonaro’s rhetoric advocates the use of harsh methods to combat crime and corruption.” Bolsonaro was able to implement new rules regarding gun control, based on the idea that citizens need to be armed to fight crime. Bolsonaro has been advocating toward the approval of a law that makes all police killings justified deaths, exempting police officers from investigations and trials. 4

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those who should be treated as “workers” and those regarded as “bandits” (Clark, 2008). Police brutality against the indigenous Brazilian and African slave populations, and their descendants, has been a constant throughout Brazilian history (Bretas, 1997); it is not a new phenomenon or something that started after the last authoritarian regime (Holloway, 1989; Chevigny, 1990; Cano, 2010; Mitchell & Wood, 1999). What might have changed during the last period of autocratic rule was the increase in political violence that victimized whites, females, and middle-class individuals, who had not been police targets before (Salvatore, 2013). When democracy was reestablished, after 1985, killings perpetrated by the police resumed their original pattern, being more likely to happen in poor areas, with high concentrations of young and Black people (Cano, 2010; Clark, 2008). As a legacy of slavery, the police constantly watch over the “dangerous class” (Holloway, 1989), which can be defined as a “group that are dark-skinned, poor, ill-educated, prone to illegality and cheatings in all their interactions, and criminal in nature” (Clark, 2008: 96). Consequently, police bullets typically find the bodies of those who fit the “suspicious element” profile (male, young, and Black people) (Ramos et al., 2005). It is because the police focus their actions on this social profile that those killed by them tend to present the appearance of slaves (Cano, 2010), reinforcing the inequality and selectivity within the criminal justice system (Mitchell & Wood, 1999). A different approach is presented by researchers who argue that the “war against crime” is the narrative that legitimizes police violence, making it more prevalent in particular Brazilian states, such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Bahia (Suarez et al., 2021). Since “victims of crime value democracy less and are more likely to support iron-fist (mano dura) measures to reduce crime” (Vilalta, 2020: 700), the rise of violence in the country has made police killings more justified by the need to reduce violence (Monteiro et al., 2020: 1774). To meet this expectation, police officers claim that they are in a war with criminals who are heavily armed, and where they must kill or be killed (Huggins, 2000). To avoid being victimized by firearms, which are becoming increasingly accessible in Brazil (Cano, 2006), police officers are more likely to enter poverty-stricken areas, and end up shooting and killing civilians (Clark, 2008). Rio de Janeiro has many examples of how police officers use the excuse of the war on crime to explain why the Military Police is responsible for almost a third of all violent deaths that take place in the state capital (Monteiro et al., 2020). In this city, “on several occasions, police officers have killed innocent children, women, and men to avenge the deaths of other police officers” (Magaloni et al., 2020: 9). This is a sample of how the war on crime works – once a soldier from the police side is killed, it is necessary to kill innocents from the other side to demonstrate who has the power over the territory (Cano, 2010). As a result, once a police officer is murdered, it is likely that the number of people killed by the police in the same area will rise in a matter of days (Coelho, 2017). These three accounts for police killings in Brazil point toward different explanatory factors, but they all agree that police shootings are prevalent in poor areas, and victimize mainly young Black males. These “dangerous citizens” are portrayed by

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the media as “criminals” (Caldeira, 2002), which makes these killings socially acceptable and the officers involved not subjected to punishment (Suarez et  al., 2021). The increasing availability of data regarding police brutality in Brazil has produced a number of prominent studies (Ceccato et al., 2018). In general, they are searching for correlates (Ryngelblum & Peres, 2021) and possible explanations for the upsurge in police violence over the last decades (Monteiro et al., 2020), as we are doing in this chapter, testing hypotheses based on those three approaches related to police lethality in Brazil.

Hypotheses In this section, we present three hypotheses associated with Civil and Military Police lethality. The first hypothesis, referred to as “endorsement of authoritarian practices,” is related to the institutional argument that emphasizes the incomplete transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Along these lines, we hypothesize that states led by governors who are on the far right of the political spectrum, especially the ones that were part of President Bolsonaro’s coalition, will have higher rates of police killings. This is likely to reflect their endorsement of the belief that the previous authoritarian regime was better than democracy is today because, at that time, a good criminal was a dead one (Rennó, 2020). The second hypothesis – “slavery legacy” – is connected to the idea of police brutality as a legacy of Brazilian slavery (Chevigny, 1990; Mitchell & Wood, 1999), which led to the killings of the “dangerous classes” (Clark, 2008) who are now translated as the “suspicious element” (Ramos et al., 2005). Accordingly, the main police duty has not changed across Brazilian history, with state violence orientated toward Black citizens, as part of the legacy of slavery (Mitchell & Wood, 1999; Chevigny, 1990). So, we hypothesize that deaths perpetrated by police will be higher in states with a higher percentage of Black people and youths (people 24 years of age or younger). The third hypothesis is linked to the “war on crime,” which positions police killings as a response to the presence of high levels of homicide and heavily armed criminals (Monteiro et al., 2020). Since the criminal justice system is not able to convict or detain all individuals labeled as “criminals,” the police perceive it as their duty, sentencing them to death without trial (Clark, 2008). Since criminals expect police officers “to shoot first and think later,” they are also likely to receive police officers with strong shootings (Bueno et al., 2019). The perception that they should kill before being killed generates a vicious cycle, increasing the number of police officers who are murdered (Coelho, 2017). To revenge these deaths, the police increase the use of force, killing more civilians in the area. Thus, we hypothesize that police killings will be positively associated with the rates of intentional murders, firearms registered in the country, and police officers murdered. We also hypothesize that the level of police violence will be negatively correlated with

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incarceration rates, since higher levels of imprisonment could suggest more efficient criminal justice processes.

Data Brazil has two main sources of information regarding the number of violent deaths. The Mortality Information System (SIM) of the Ministry of Health is based on the death certificates issued by physicians, following the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) (Ryngelblum & Peres, 2021). In this database, all police killings are classified under the code Y35 (Legal Intervention), which is related to “injuries inflicted by the police or other law enforcement officials, including military service during the arrest to maintain order, and other legal action” (Ceccato et al., 2018: 532). These data have been collected since 1996, with microdata available for the following characteristics of the victim: age; home address; education; sex; race/skin color; and date and time of death (Ryngelblum & Peres, 2021). The Brazilian Forum of Public Safety (FBSP) gathers information regarding crime incidents based on Police Reports, using the Freedom of Information Act to request and to compile information from all 27 Brazilian states (Osse & Cano, 2017: 638). The FBSP includes all deaths caused by Military and Civil police interventions, in addition to those resulting from a confrontation with officers both on-duty and off-duty (Ceccato et al., 2018: 532). These data started to be collected annually in 2008, and deal with a number of challenges, including the absence of transparency within police forces and strategies to hide the deaths perpetrated by police personnel (Bueno et  al., 2019). The main disadvantage of this dataset is that the microdata is not made available, since FBSP releases only the total number of incidents recorded by each police force.5 Figure 3.2 shows how these sources of information (SIM and FBSP) are not comparable: they cover different time periods, presenting divergent rates of police killings per 100,000 inhabitants. The numbers are higher for the police records than for the health records (Ryngelblum & Peres, 2021; Ceccato et al., 2018). From 2008 to 2019, health statistics reveal that the rate of police killings was around 5.8 persons per 100,000 inhabitants, whereas public safety data indicated that this rate was more than twice as high, at 13.1 per 100,000. It is worth noting that between 2017 and 2018, while the health system shows a declining trend in police killings, the public safety system displays a modest increase. The divergences are even greater when comparing the rate of police killings across Brazilian states, depicted in Fig. 3.3. In 2019, states such as Amazonas (AM) and Rondônia (RO), with rates of police killings lower than 0.005 per 100,000  Few states, such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, release the individual information, making possible comparisons among the microdata from these two sources – health records and public safety records (Cano, 2010; Ceccato et al., 2018; Bueno et al., 2019; Monteiro et al., 2020; Ryngelblum & Peres, 2021). 5

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4.00

45

Rate of legal intervenons per 100,000 inhabitants (Health system)

R² = 0.5747

Rate of police killings per 100,000 inhabitants (FBSP system)

3.0 Linear (Rate of legal intervenons per 100,000 inhabitants (Health system))

3.00

2.6 Expon. (Rate of police killings per 100,000 inhabitants (FBSP system))

2.00 1.6

1.7

1.4 1.0

R² = 0.8075

1.2 1.0 0.9 0.7 0.6

0.89

0.5

0.98 0.70

2007

2008

2009

2018

2006

0.29

2017

2005

0.32

2016

0.32

0.46

2015

0.29

0.39

2014

0.28

2013

0.30

0.36

2012

0.30

2011

0.29

0.40

2010

0.28

2004

2002

2001

0.03 0.05

2000

0.02

1999

0.01

1998

0.02

1997

0.02

1996

0.00

0.07

2003

0.67

2020

0.5

2019

1.00

Fig. 3.2  Rates of deaths due to legal intervention (health system) and police killings (public safety system) in Brazil between 1996 and 2020. (Source: Brazilian Forum of Public Safety (FBSP)/ Mortality Information System (SIM))

according to the health system data, show modestly high rates of 2 police killings per 100,000 inhabitants, when using data from FBSP.  São Paulo (SP) and Bahia (BA) report a high number of police killings in both figures, although the rates are different. Figure 3.3 shows that even though the phenomenon is undoubtedly present across all Brazilian states, the intensity of police violence varies between the two examined data sources. Given the different time spans originally associated with these sources of information (SIM and FBSP), we integrated all statistical data into a single dataset using the period 2009–2019 as reference. To assess the determinants of police violence, we constructed the dependent variables based on information derived from both data sources: deaths due to legal interventions, registered by the Brazilian Health System – SIM database (mean = 0.34 police killings per 100,000 inhabitants) – and the lethal incidents caused by Military and Civil police forces, recorded by the public safety systems and compiled by FBSP (mean = 1.7 police killings per 100,000 inhabitants). The list of independent variables organized according to the three major hypotheses is summarized in Table 3.2, together with a series of summary statistics. To test the “endorsement of authoritarian practice” hypothesis, we have created a dummy variable that indicates whether each Brazilian state was governed by a right-wing politician, according to the Laboratory of Political Parties and Party Systems (LAPeS) at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR). The list of governors and their respective party affiliations were collected from the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE, acronym in Portuguese). A total of 11 political parties were

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Fig. 3.3  Rate of police killings per 100,000 inhabitants across Brazilian states in 2019, using the health and police data sources. (Maps created by the authors; Source: Brazilian Forum of Public Safety (FBSP)/Mortality Information System (SIM))

classified as right wing6 (coded as 1), while another 10 parties7 were classified as left wing (coded as 0). Between 2009 and 2019, on average, 60% of the Brazilian states were governed by right-wing parties. To appraise the “slavery legacy” hypothesis, we included the percentage of people who declare themselves as Black or Brown in each Brazilian state,8 in each year  The right-wing parties are Democratas (DEM), NOVO, Partido Humanista da Solidariedade (PHS), Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB or MDB), Partido da Mobilização Nacional (PMN), Partido Progressista (PP), Partido Social Cristão (PSC), Partido Social Democrático (PSD), Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB), Partido Social Liberal (PSL), and Solidariedade (SDD). 7  The left-wing parties are Partido Comunista do Brasil (PC do B), Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT), Partido da Frente Liberal (PFL), Partido Progressista Brasileiro (PPB), Partido Progressista Reformador (PPR), Partido Popular Socialista (PPS), Partido Republicano da Ordem Social (PROS), Partido Socialista Brasileiro (PSB), Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), and Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB). 8  According to Lovell and Wood (1998), the term “pardo,” which we have translated as Brown, is used to refer to individuals whose skin color lies between white and black. In their words, “there remains the question of how to translate the Portuguese word ‘pardo,’ which is sometimes translated as ‘gray,’ a word that (in this context at least) is awkward to the English ear” (p. 106). Hence, using the author as our main inspiration, we have decided to use the term “brown,” since “it better reflects in English the multiracial referent without, at the same time, introducing the terminological problems associated with other candidates, such as mulatto or moreno” (p. 107). However, browns do not include indigenous, even the mestizo ones, who are accounted in another specific category under the IBGE’s estimative. 6

War on crime

Slavery legacy

Hypotheses Endorsement of authoritarian practices

Dependent variables Information released by SIM, regarding the deaths due to legal intervention

Independent variables Right-wing state Right-wing state governors according governors to the Laboratory of Political Parties and Party Systems at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) Black population Percentage of population who see themselves as Black or Brown (“pardos”) Youths Percentage of population with 24 years of age or less Gross domestic product Gross domestic product per capita (GDP) Intentional violent Intentional deaths due to homicide, deaths robbery with murder, and assaults that result in killings Inmates in the Inmates registered in each state penitentiary system penitentiary system New firearm New firearms registered by the registrations Federal Police Police mortality due to Military and civil police officers who killings lost their lives in the line of duty due to violence/shootings

Deaths due to legal intervention

Police killings

Description Police records of police killings

Table 3.2  Variables included in the statistical analyses

Federal 0.03 Police FBSP 0.00

0.24

0.15

3.23

13.80

7.83

168.85

29.12

14.96

16.43

1363.24 68.21

76.32

46.74

30.38

DEPEN 75.92 1028.69 311.28 158.68

0.00

5.81

54.39

17.78

0.49

0.85

Standard deviation 2.49

Rate per 100,000 inhabitants Rate per 100,000 inhabitants Rate per 100,000 inhabitants

IBGE

Reais per individual

7.94

62.33

0.60

0.34

Mean 1.71

FBSP

IBGE

Percentage

1

6.39

Max 16.81

14.22 84.45

0

0.00

Min 0.00

Rate per 100,000 inhabitants

IBGE

TSE

SIM

Source FBSP

Percentage

Dummy 0 – Left 1 – Right

Unit Rate per 100,000 inhabitants Rate per 100,000 inhabitants

3  Are the Brazilian Police Forces Lethal Weapons? 47

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(mean  =  62.33%), as well as the proportion of people aged 24  years or younger (mean = 30.38%). Given the absence of a reliable indicator of poverty for each state and year, we included a measure of development (base 10 log of GDP per capita). These data came from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) through its annual National Household Sample Survey (PNAD, with the acronym in Portuguese). To evaluate the “war on crime” hypothesis, we gathered information regarding the following events: 1. Rate of intentional violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, as recorded by the FBSP (mean = 29.12) 2. Rate of new firearms registered by the Federal Police per 100,000 inhabitants (mean = 68.21) 3. Incarceration rates per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the National Penitentiary Department (DEPEN, acronym in Portuguese), an agency of the Ministry of Justice (mean = 311.48) 4. Ratio of Military and Civil police officers who lost their lives due to violence/ shootings per 100,000 inhabitants, as registered by FBSP (mean = 0.15) Following Clark’s (2008: 100) recommendation, as a control variable, we have included the previous year’s rate of police violence (lag of police fatality rate) corresponding to each source of information used.

Methods Brazil struggles with many issues related to data quality on public safety issues (Cano, 2006). Instead of employing just one source of information, we are comparing the regression models using a dependent variable (rate of police killings per 100,000 inhabitants) measured by the public health system (SIM) and by the public safety system (FBSP). This comparison is highly useful, as it can contribute to the identification of the explanatory variables that can best enlighten police violence, exhibiting a more consistent effect. Our dataset includes information for the 26 states and the Federal District across 11 years (2009–2019). As the dependent variables are counts of a rare event (despite the brutality of Brazilian police forces), the rate of police killings has a strong positive skew, with several states reporting zero rates of police violence.9 Adjusting linear methods, as the ordinary least squares (OLS), implies the prediction of values for all cases, even those in which the event is absent (y = 0), which would be a problem considering the high number of states/years without any record of police killings or deaths due to legal intervention. Generalized linear models are very useful  Using the Brazilian Forum of Public Safety dataset, we identified two cases (state and year) with zero police killings: Maranhão and Alagoas. In the Ministry of Health dataset, we found zeros in 108 cases (combination of state and year), representing 36% of all 297 cases. 9

3  Are the Brazilian Police Forces Lethal Weapons?

49

to handle the issues related to count data and other data limitations that do not meet the assumptions of linear models. They estimate the expected value of a dependent variable by relating it to a linear combination of explanatory variables and their estimated parameters based on a link function and a specific error distribution for each model. Our measure of police killings, in addition to being a count variable, also encompasses a time series. It is quite reasonable to assume that there is a correlation between current and past events, since the absence of police oversight in the previous year makes police killings likely to increase in the next (Clark, 2008). This fact increases the chances of overdispersion. This is typical of models in which variability of the dependent variable is greater than expected according to the adjusted statistical model. It happens, for example, when there is an inflation of zeros in a distribution. It also can occur when there is a serial autocorrelation (Rabe-Hesketh & Skrondal, 2008). In this case, the negative binomial distribution is more suitable for Poisson, which is the most used for count data, as it adds an error term to the model that reflects the unobserved heterogeneity among observations (Gujaratti & Porter, 2011).10 However, considering the limited number of cases (n = 270, being 27 states for 11 years), we could not have trustworthy negative binomial distribution models, as Stata spent many iterations to run the more complex equations. Since we are working with count data, with the expectation of overdispersion in relation to a time series, we adjusted Poisson models for panel data. Hence, in Stata v.14.0, we applied a Poisson regression model considering year and state as set variables. To do so, we used the package “xtpoisson” in Stata, with fixed effects and explanatory variables defined from the hypotheses that guide this research. We have also included the lag of the rate of police killings, to avoid overfitting problems in panel data (Rabe-­ Hesketh & Skrondal, 2008).

Results Table 3.3 sets out the incidence ratios (or the exponentiated regression coefficients) of the Poisson fixed effects models adjusted for the panel data of rates of police killings in Brazil per 100,000 inhabitants, between 2009 and 2019. Table 3.3 reports the results of four models, each divided into two (A and B) according to the data source used (being A = Health System data; B = FBSP). Model 1 tests the “endorsement of authoritarian practices” hypothesis, Model 2 assesses the “slavery legacy” theory, and Model 3 presents the results related to the “war on crime” justification for police killings. In Model 4, we combine all independent variables associated with the three

 Although Clark (2008) has used the negative binomial to estimate the number of police killings for cities in São Paulo State, we decided to apply Poisson models due to the overdispersion in our dataset. 10

*p