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STATE GOVERNMENT OF PARAÍBA
State Secretariat of Safety and Social Defense

A. Problem Analysis

 1. What was the problem before the implementation of the initiative?
The main problem observed in Public Safety in Paraíba Sate was the lack of public policies to protect life. According to a national study named Violence Map 2012, made by researcher Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz, the was a 180% rise in the number of homicides in Paraíba from 2000 to 2010. From 2002 onwards, the lethal violence grew year after year, and its rates accentuated a lot by the end of that decade. The homicide rate for each 100 thousand habitants jumped from 15.1 in 2000 to 38.8 in 2010, almost four times more than the limit recommended by the UN. Besides, this violence hit the most impoverished and vulnerable layers even harder. According to that same study, 91% of the homicide victims in Paraíba were black people, an extremely high rate, as 63.3% of Paraíba's habitants declared themselves black, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). In 2002, the black people homicide rate was 71%, which demonstrates that the violence rise hit this demographic profile harder. The black people of Paraíba have less years in school and less income in relation to white people, which is why they prevail in the most impoverished layers of the population. The homicides in Paraíba were a lot more frequent in the outskirts of the cities, in slums and communities with a low presence of public policies. Furthermore, the violence rise did not only hit the poor, but also the vulnerable. According to Violence Map 2012, Paraíba was, in 2010, the year before the implementation of the Paraíba United For Peace Program, the state with the fourth biggest women homicide rate in Brazil, and 38% of the victims were 15 to 24 years old. The gravest of all in this whole situation was that the public authorities did not know of this reality, as there was no monitoring of these crimes, least of a study at local level to get to know this dynamics. An alarming symptom of this neglect was that in the Program's first diagnoses it was verified that in many homicide cases the inquiries to solve these crimes weren't even opened. There wasn’t a department to produce criminal statistics, and so it was not possible to have any kind of public transparency to evaluate public safety in the State on the society's part, let alone access to statistic data. Other points that harmed the qualified actions of the State Secretariat of Public Safety were the shortage of directives guided by the protections and promotion of Human Rights, highly necessary to bring police and community together and reduce the cases of police violence, the inexistence of management policies for the integration of police organs.

B. Strategic Approach

 2. What was the solution?
Implementing a public policy of safety by way of the State program named Paraíba United For Peace Program. Modifying the administrative structures of public safety institutions to implement the program's directives. Modifying management and policy practices to achieve the goals established in the program, which focuses on the result of lessening crime rates.
 3. How did the initiative solve the problem and improve people’s lives?
The Paraíba United For Peace Program innovated in the public safety of Paraíba State by introducing a new management model based on the State Governor's leadership and in a Management Committee from which the Secretary of Safety, the Commander General of the Military Police, the General Chief of the Civic Police and the Commander General of the Fire Brigade are all members, in articulation with the Judiciary Power, Public Ministry, Public Defender's Office, Penal Administration Secretariat, and other State secretariats and the civic society. Such committee started establishing single, harmonic directives for the acting of these operative organs in a new management method which sought to account the public service provided to the society of Paraíba, which consists basically of a constant dialog between the ones responsible for each organ through weekly meetings. A specific sector was created to produce the Public Safety Criminal and Statistic Analyses, which allowed the continuous statistic monitoring of violent crimes for a demand for results of achieving the established crime rate reductions goals. To facilitate the dialog and integrated acting between the corporations, the Complementary Law 111/2012 was created, making a readjustment of its geo-administrative divisions in order for them to be equivalent in all operative organs, and so there would be the due territorial liability in the management process. In this new administrative scenario, it was possible to establish the program's main objectives, which were the refraining of the violent and lethal crimes rate rising and the reducing of homicidal rates in all Paraíba State territories, aiming to preserve and prioritize the lives of the people most vulnerable to crime, i.e., black youth, residents of the poorest neighborhoods and women. This governmental decision came to modify the status quo of security institutions that historically were always more about protecting the property of the more wealthy and powerful sectors of the local society, and who began to get closer to the most impoverished layers, for the crime against life, which affected them so much more, was put as priority, in a way that the population's most vulnerable sectors, powerless to influence their situation, could them have access to safety services that they didn't have before. An example of this change was the implementation of Solidary Police Units (UPS), which are permanent police installations inside the territory of the communities and urban settlements most impoverished of the city and most affected by violence. This allowed the approximation of ostensive and preventive policing to a group of people that used to only have contact with the police when being suspected of having committed a crime, which transformed the police approach from repressive to protective of these people. Another example of the expansion of access to safety public services was the development of protection policies for women, be it through the grand expansion in the number of police stations dedicated to women in the State, or through the qualification of this service with the help of tools from the State's Woman Protected Program or SOS Woman, a smartphone app that allows women registered in the program to be in direct contact with the police operations center so that she can receive a special, faster and more effective treatment in the combating domestic violence, which brought the police protections closer to the target public. In these cases, the improvement in people's lives was noticeable when they stated having direct access to a more qualified and essential public service facing their risky conditions

C. Execution and Implementation

 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
The Paraíba United For Peace initiative was creative in that it didn’t need more human resources to obtain better results in public safety, but it did change the way how these resources were applied with a new management method, in other words, it was possible to do more and better with the same resources. The innovation brought by the program was exactly that of harmonically allying all the best policing strategies modernly adopted in Brazil and in the world. It made the Accountability or management by result with monitoring of the indicators foreseen in the Compstat Policing Method, and consolidated the approximation of the police to the levels with less access to public services with the UPSs according to the Community Policing model. Inspired by Intelligence Led Policing, the activities of intelligence and criminal investigation were strengthened, especially in the crimes of homicide and narcotics trafficking, and even acting in an innovative and specific way for each criminal problem, as the Problem Oriented Policing guides, such as the Woman Protected Program and SOS Woman or the Zero Risk Operation to reduce occasional crimes in bars and linked to alcohol and illegal drugs use.
 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
The Paraíba United For Peace Program was implemented by Paraíba State Governor, Ricardo Vieira Coutinho, through the Secretary of Safety and Social Defense, Cláudio Coelho Lima, and the participation of the operative organs directors, the Military Police, the Civic Police and the Fire Brigade, who were responsible for the execution, spreading and engaging of its administered in the management's decisions. The population benefitted by the program and the total population of Paraíba residents as well as the 4 million habitants beyond the fluctuant population that frequents Paraíba's territory.
 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
Paraíba United For Peace Program walked its first steps on the state in 2011 through three structural paths, first through the implementation of a new model of administration with the directives of a new management focusing on results, quality management of police techniques and quality management of attending the citizen. In a concrete manner, this first administrative reform created the Criminal and Statistic Analyses Center (NACE) to develop studies about criminality, established the meeting routine between the polices to monitor these studies and started to develop a diagnosis and an action plan to control safety. During this construction, the Paraíba United For Peace Forum was realized, providing the connection between the sectors of the civic society to, in receiving the demands of the policy's target public, be able to finish the Secretariat of Safety's Operational Planning. In this planning, many strategies were listed, among which we highlight: the definition of acting focuses according to areas with higher homicide rates in Paraíba; strengthening and prioritizing investigative activities regarding the homicides, expanding and qualifying the Crimes against the Person Police Stations; strengthening the combating of illegal firearms circulation, and to foster that measure, the Law 9.708/2012 established a monetary reward to the police officers who apprehended firearms, which resulted in four consecutive years of these occurrences; strengthening the combating of narcotics trafficking by expanding and qualifying the Narcotics Repression Police Stations; constant realization of qualified preventive operations, with massive resource concentration in ostensive policing on days, hours and places mapped with higher homicide risks; constant realization of qualified repression operations to fulfill warrants of arrest and flagrante arrest of the most dangerous criminals; and the strengthening of Intelligence Activities on homicide cases, to investigate existing cases and also prevent the threat of new ones. There was also a chance in intelligence structures through Law 10.338/2014 which united Intelligence agencies from the Military Police, the Civic Police and the Prison System. With this plan concluded, it could then be executed have its results evaluated through permanent periodic monitoring in the management process. In 2014, the Law 10.327/2014 instituted the Paraíba United For Peace Award to honor with a monetary amount the police officers who meet a semester goal of a 10% reduction in homicides on their areas. Besides these operational actions, there was also a great behind-the-scenes work to provide a better operational acting of the Secretariat of Safety. There was great expansion in logistics and infrastructure, with strong investment in weapons, bests, cars, and other equipment that used to be precarious or in shortage before the Program. There was also a great effort to qualify the police officers, especially in Community Policing and technical activities such as homicide investigation. Lastly, there was still great investment in the communication systems, enabling more safety and agility in police actions with the implementation of Tetra System digital technology. These additions were financed with Paraíba State's own resources, but there was also help from Federal Government resources, through Brazil More Safe agreement, and others
 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
The Program has also developed from the articulation of other Criminal Justice System organs: the Judiciary Power, Public Ministry, Public Defender's Office, and Penal Administration Secretariat, all responsible for monitoring the results of the management shared by Secretariat of Safety's operational organs. All of these organs participate in continuous monthly meetings of the Management Committee, monitoring and evaluating the results together. The Court of Justice of Paraíba nominated three magistrates, each responsible for one of the three Public Safety Integrated Regions (REISPs) - João Pessoa, Campina Grande and Patos cities. A Technical Cooperation Agreement was signed between the State Executive Power and the Public Ministry of Paraíba aiming to articulate the Prosecutors for each Public Safety Integrated Area. The State Public Defender's Office developed a partnership for Police Stations Dedicated to Attending Women. Another organ that has an intense connection with the program is the Women and Human Diversity Executive Secretariat, which articulates the protection network for women victims of aggression, and the LGBT population, attended by the Police Station Specialized in Homophobic Crimes. The State's Legislative Assembly is important for public policies, for producing and approving legislation such as the Compatibility Law, Intelligence Law, Subsidy for Firearm Apprehension, Awarding of police officers who meet the reduction goal in Lethal and Intentional Violent Crimes (CVLI), among others that formally fundaments the program. The Penal Administration Secretariat also works in a constant partnership with the Secretariat of Safety, be it by sharing intelligence information or even through the constant safety operations executed in prion units to prevent homicides.
 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
The five most expressive results of the initiative were: 1. Neutralizing the homicide violence growth and reducing homicide rates in Paraíba. From a situation of nine annual rises in the homicide rate per 100 thousand habitants in 2002 to 2010, Paraíba finished the year of 2016 as the only state in the federation to have five consecutive annual reductions in this indicator, going from a standpoint of 44.3 homicides per group of 100 thousand habitants to 33.1 homicides, representing a total reduction of 25%. It shows the program's efficiency, as the State is situated in the country's most violent area, the Northeast region, which has an average homicide rate of 41.5 per 100 thousand habitants, and that in 2016, only 2 of its 9 States had a reduction in the number of homicides, while the other 7 has an average 10% rise in this type of crime; 2. Reducing youth victimization. Paraíba had a special approach to the protection of youth lives, provoking a 28% reduction in the number of people aged 15 to 29 to be murdered, going from 836 people in 2011 to 603. In 2011, this age group represented 50% of homicide victims, and this number dropped to 46% in 2016; 3. Reducing women victimization. Another result of the protection public policies to the most vulnerable is the number of female homicide victims, which dropped 34% from 2011 and 2016, going from a number of 146 women murdered in the first year of the program to 97 in the last year, which represents a 4.71 homicide rate per 100 thousand habitants, less than the national rate of 4.8, according to the Violence Map 2015; 4. Increasing of Homicide Inquiries resolutions. In the period before the program was implemented, there was no inspection for the homicides to be investigated through police inquiries, and from 2011 on this control was created in the form of CVLI Authorship Operation, and already in 2013, 38% of the state's homicide cases were solved, and in 2016 it already reached 50%; 5. Reducing impunity. With the polices acting more qualified and more focused on controlling violent crimes, Criminal Justice System processes had an efficiency boost. In this period, there were more people being judged and sentenced for the crimes committed, a greater apprehension rate of firearms, the most used tool in violent crimes, with a total of over 18 thousand firearms apprehended in the program's 6 years of existence, and 60% rise in 2016 comparing to 2011, a greater apprehension rate of illegal drugs, the greatest channel to financing crime, with a total of over 10 tons of drugs apprehended in these 6 years.
 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
The main obstacles faced during the implementation of Paraíba United For Peace Program were the financial limitations that didn’t allow a greater expansion of the human resources in the corporations, which was circumvented by reorganizing the resources to maximize their efficiency, using geo-referencing technical studies for a more specific and precise policing acting. Another obstacle found was the resistance to some changes, such as the police integration, due to cultures already traditionalized that were overcome by engaging studies and technical analyses and a policy of monitoring the Public Safety results, awarding the most positive actions and goals fulfilled

D. Impact and Sustainability

 10. What were the key benefits resulting from this initiative?
As concrete examples of how Paraíba United For Peace changed people's lives and their social reality, especially the most impoverished, we can mention a few places that began receiving a new approach of safety public services. São José Neighborhood in João Pessoa is a community that was born on the edge of Jaguaribe River and crams a population of over 7 thousand habitants in just 0.36 km2. It's highlighted as the neighborhood with the greatest concentration of low income and low human development rates, according to the Social Topography of João Pessoa made by the City Hall. It was a very impoverished as well as violent neighborhood, which in 2011 registered 37 homicides. With the implementation of a Solidary Police Unit (UPS), a permanent effective from the Military Police trained in community policing philosophy to prevent crimes inside the community and to get closer to the impoverished population. Another important factor to that service accounting closer to the community was the installation of the first Safety Integrated District (DISP) in Manaíra neighborhood, a few meters away from São José neighborhood, which united the Military Police and Civic Police in the same building, also providing a greater contact with the Police Station services ascertainment of the crimes committed in the neighborhood. The homicide rates decreased drastically, from 37 in 2011 to 16 in 2012, 7 in 2013, 6 in 2014, 2 in 2015 and 4 in 2016, representing a total reduction of 89% in the period. The São José Neighborhood UPS propelled the implementation of other 20 Solidary Police Units in the capital and throughout the State. Another successful example that impacted the population's life was in Cabedelo city, with a great social inequality profile. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the city's Gini Index of household income per capita was 0.7047 in the 2010 Census, the biggest in the State, and quite superior to the 0.591 national index, which is already one of the biggest in the world according to UNPD. This city suffered with a lack of attention from the Safety managers for being a satellite city to the state capital, and reached a homicide rate of 140 per 100 thousand habitants in 2011. With Paraíba United For Peace, this city became the headquarter to a Public Safety Integrated Area (AISP), with designated managers to care for that city specially, received a new UPS, and developed many actions for policing and approximation to the population, resulting in a continuous reduction in the homicide rate, reaching 33.5 in 2015. A similar situation also occurred in Bayeux, another satellite city of the capital that benefitted from the same actions, and its homicide rate dropped from 78 in 2010 to 29 in 2016.
 11. Did the initiative improve integrity and/or accountability in public service? (If applicable)
Paraíba United For Peace Program was able to improve integrity in the public service while developing a strong mechanism for monitoring crimes and inspecting police activity, increasing the demand from the management summit when a state administrative area shows a worsening in safety indicators. The Program also allows the performance of police forces in control of criminality to be monitored by the society, as there are many mechanisms for transparency and access to statistic data that used to be totally obscured, harming the population. Already in the Program's first year, Law 9.641/2011 was enacted to force the State to offer and publish violent crimes statistics quarterly. Thus, today any citizen can access the link (http://www.paraiba.pb.gov.br/especiais/pbunidapelapaz/) and have access to the number of homicides in their city in the last trimester, for example. Furthermore, by force of the Law of Access to Information, any citizen can ask the statistics department for detailed data about crimes. Notwithstanding, the homicide statistics collecting and classifying was defined in Law 10.327/2014 to give more safety and reliability of the published data, as it prevents changes in the counting method to soften crime indicators. In Brazil, many states adopt different methodologies to produce criminality statistics, either more or less strict, Paraíba adopted the statistic indicatir represented by CVLI, Lethal and Intentional Violent Crimes. This method was created by the National Secretariat of Public Safety to try to unify the counting of homicides in the country, and it the strictest, trustier and more serious method, as it considers all intentional crimes that result in death, such as theft followed by death, rape followed by death and also deaths provoked by armed conflict between criminals and police officers in action. Incidents with deaths by legal intervention receive special care in the Program's policy, as one of its aims is to lessen the violence practiced by police officers, thus, besides monitoring these cases, the departments of Inspection and Ombudsman of the Police were strengthened to punish and deter illegal conducts of police officers.
 12. Were special measures put in place to ensure that the initiative benefits women and girls and improves the situation of the poorest and most vulnerable? (If applicable)
To confront domestic violence and lessen intentional women's deaths in the state, concomitantly to monitoring the investigation, identifying the authorship and motivation of crimes against the woman, the program adopted mechanisms named Woman Protected Program and SOS Woman, which integrate the police forces aimed at victims of penal infractions regarding the use of family or domestic violence of physical, psychological, patrimonial, sexual or moral nature. In seeking the Woman's Police Station, the victim is registered and receives solidary visits from Military Police Garrisons, promoting the monitoring of the aggressor's departure and inspecting of protective measures determined judicially. Institutionally, there was an expansion of Police Stations Dedicated to Attending Women (DEAMs). 4 new DEAMs and 2 Women Service Centers were created, increasing the total number to 15 units, expanding the attendance of women victims of aggression in the State. At the same time, the Woman's Police Stations Coordination (COORDEAM) was implemented with attribution and responsibility state-wise to manage all DEAMs, which fostered a partnership with the State Public Defender's Office, present inside the Woman's Police Stations, providing the victim women with monitoring in the civic sphere that reaches situations stemming from domestic violence.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   State Secretariat of Safety and Social Defense
Institution Type:   Government Department  
Contact Person:   Cláudio Lima
Title:   Secretary of State  
Telephone/ Fax:   +558332185074
Institution's / Project's Website:  
E-mail:   premiogovpb2@gmail.com  
Address:   Av. Hilton Souto Maior, s/n, Mangabeira
Postal Code:   58055-018
City:   João Pessoa
State/Province:   Paraíba
Country:  

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