Encyclopedia
In Brazil, one of the most well deemed state-level programs in the prevention of homicides is the so-called Pacto pela Vida (A Pact for Life), executed in many northern regions of the country. The Pact for Life program, one of the most successful state-level projects to reduce the occurrences of homicides and other violent crimes, had its contribution by integrating the public policy of security with the Judicial Power, Legislative Power, municipalities, state and federal government. The value added by this integration has been fundamental for the fact police cycle is not unitary, meaning that the police that arrive at the crime scene are not the same one that investigates.
- Police
- Pact for Life
- Pernambuco
- Crime
- Brazil
- Military Police
- Civil Police
- Criminal Behavior
- Public Security
- Public Safety
- Police Efficiency
1. The Initiative
The Pact for Life program (Programa Pacto pela Vida)[1] was Pernambuco's state policy for police repression and social prevention of crime and violence. The initiative based the preventive and repressive actions on reducing impunity of violent crime through the integration of the public security system, readjustment and modernization of processes, protocols and routines directly related to the police operational capacity the Criminal Justice system, consolidation and integration of information, dissemination and democratization of data, and strategic training new police officers. Focusing on reducing homicides prior to any other criminal occurrence, the Pact for Life program was one of the most successful state-level projects in their first years of execution. [2] [3]
2. Two kinds of Police
There are two kinds of Police: the Military Police working on the streets to guarantee public safety, and the Civil Police that investigates the crimes. The assessment provided in the next section refers to the Civil Police production only, without depreciation on the effort of both police to develop integrated actions to reach the objectives. The focus of the Pact for Life program and the past administrations is on the reduction of homicides prior to any other criminal occurrence. This objective has been taken into consideration to provide a ranking of Pernambuco’s municipalities based on the effectiveness of the output. Many important cities in the state were removed from this assessment because of the impossibility to work on missing data. Nevertheless, the proposed methodology can be easily extended to consider the aggregate scenario and prospects for the public safety policy. [4]
3. Goal
The program's goal is to reduce homicides by 12%. Pernambuco's municipalities are considered effective when they reach this coefficient. Because crime is a stochastic concept which depends on many objective and subjective determinants which are out of the police department field of action, the interesting perspective in this program is trying to integrate the many sectors and public institutions (police courts, justice courts, the prison system, the community) which are part of the solution.
The entry is from 10.3390/su13084251
References
- Thyago Nepomuceno; Cinzia Daraio; Ana Costa; Multicriteria Ranking for the Efficient and Effective Assessment of Police Departments. Sustainability 2021, 13, 4251, 10.3390/su13084251.
- José Luiz Ratton; Jean Daudelin; Construction and Deconstruction of a Homicide Reduction Policy: The Case of Pact for Life in Pernambuco, Brazil. International Journal of Criminology and Sociology 2018, 7, 173-183, 10.6000/1929-4409.2018.07.12.
- José Luiz Ratton; Clarissa Galvão; Michelle Fernandez; Pact for Life and the Reduction of Homicides in the State of Pernambuco. Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 2014, 3, 18, 10.5334/sta.dq.
- Thyago Celso Cavalcante Nepomuceno; Katarina Tatiana Marques Santiago; Cinzia Daraio; Ana Paula Cabral Seixas Costa; Exogenous crimes and the assessment of public safety efficiency and effectiveness. Annals of Operations Research 2020, xxx, 1-34, 10.1007/s10479-020-03767-6.
