Changing Control of Police Violence in Rio De Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil

To understand police violence and its control in Brazil requires some understanding of the contexts in which both occur. By 1992, the change in law enforcement was dramatic. Controls of judicial police functions in Sao Paulo are largely administered through the administrative judges, who require that any suspect being held for questioning be examined medically before and at the end of his police detention. The disciplinary officer of the civil police in Sao Paulo opened more than forty investigations of torture every year from 1983 through 1987. Rio de Janeiro's governor until 1994, Leonel Brizola, a populist liberal, was driven from politics by the dictatorship but has returned to popularity since its demise. Both in Rio and in Sao Paulo, the incidence of torture has clearly declined since 1987. During the period of transition to democracy, the forces of civil government and law are trying, hesitantly and intermittently, to gain control over the violence of the police.