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REPORTS: SOUTH AMERICA |
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Fortresses,
Motorcycle Restrictions to Fight Crime
Mario
Osava*
RIO DE JANEIRO, (IPS) - Motorcycles in
Colombia cannot carry a male passenger,
because the modus operandi used by many
''sicarios'' or hired killers involves
drive-by shootings carried out by the
person on the back.
The novel ban is just one indication of
the extent to which violent crime has
soared in urban areas of several South
American countries, like Brazil and
civil war-torn Colombia.
The increase in violent crime has also
given rise to a ''medievalisation'' of
urban architecture, with residences
surrounded by ramparts, trenches, double
steel gates, palisades, walls with
lances sticking out on top, armed
guards, checkpoints and watch towers,
Sonia Ferraz, a professor of
architecture at Brazil's Fluminense de
Niterói Federal University, near Rio de
Janeiro, told IPS.
Some of these modern-day fortresses have
a prison-like look, with bars and
grilles with pointed ends facing
outwards in ''an aggressive attitude,
one of attack, rather than just defence,''
she said, based on research carried out
over the past few years in Rio de
Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil's leading
cities.
Ferraz said the phenomenon ''is
impoverishing social relations and
eliminating coexistence in public
spaces,'' while communication
increasingly lacks personal contact and
is carried out in the same manner ''with
the next-door neighbour as with someone
on the other side of the world,'' thanks
to the latest technology.
The security measures affect passersby
as the fortresses take over the
sidewalks, streets are cut off to
traffic by groups of families in
neighbourhoods that organise their own
protection systems, and public spaces
are thus privatised, she added.
The desperate attempts by city residents
to feel safe has fuelled the growth of a
''market'' that profits from fear, and a
booming business in electronic security
and surveillance equipment, private
security guards, electric fences, and
bullet- proof, polarised windows for
homes.
Two of the biggest box office hits today
in Brazil, national productions that
have been showing to packed theatres
since last year, both deal with the
question of violence.
''Cidade de Deus'' (City of God) uses a
largely non- professional cast recruited
from the streets to follow the story of
two boys who grow up in a low-income
housing project in Rio de Janeiro, while
''Carandiru'' tackles the real-life mass
killing of 111 inmates in a Sao Paulo
prison in 1992.
Violence has also had an impact on the
Latin American economy, as demonstrated
by a large body of research on the
losses caused by the rise in crime,
which is seen as a curb on regional
growth.
The most comprehensive study, conducted
by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)
in 1998, estimated the cost of violence
in Latin America at 14.2 percent of the
region's combined Gross Domestic Product
(GDP), equivalent to 168 billion dollars
at that time.
The World Health Organisation (WHO)
already considered violence a public
health problem in this region, but has
now made it a top priority issue, since
it is one of the leading causes of
death, especially among teenage boys and
young men.
The homicide rates in large cities in
Brazil and Colombia, which are among the
highest in the world, have led local
authorities to adopt alcohol curfews.
A ban on serving alcohol after a certain
hour has helped bring down the murder
rate in several cities. In Diadema, near
Sao Paulo, the city government decided a
year ago to prohibit the sale of
alcoholic beverages after 23:00, and the
homicide rate has declined by 30
percent.
After Diadema lost the dubious
distinction of being the most violent
city in the southern state of Sao Paulo,
several other Brazilian cities followed
suit and adopted their own curfews.
Manaos, the capital of the northern
state of Amazonas, adopted an alcohol
curfew in the poorer neighbourhoods on
the outskirts of the city only on
weekends, when violent crime tends to
surge.
In Colombia, a night-time limit on
alcohol sales was implemented in Bogota,
in conjunction with a disarmament
campaign and other anti-violence
measures.
The success of the measures and the
resultant drop in crime has allowed city
officials in the Colombian capital to
ease the restriction. Instead of closing
at midnight, nightclubs are now allowed
to remain open until 01:00, 02:00 or
03:00.
Dr. Drauzio Varella, the author of the
book that inspired the film ''Carandiru'',
argued that family planning is an
indispensable factor in fighting crime.
If millions of people continue to be
born into a life in which they are
condemned to extreme poverty, ''there
will be no lack of 'soldiers' to swell
the ranks of organised crime,'' he
stated in an article published in the
local press.
But Gilberta Acselrad, a researcher on
drugs and human rights at the University
of the State of Rio de Janeiro, said
''the problem is not that there are so
many, but that the wealth is
concentrated in the hands of so few.''
If the wealth were better distributed,
decent living standards would no longer
be limited to only a portion of the
population, she said in an interview
with IPS.
Inequality, more than poverty, is the
big factor fuelling the rise in crime,
said Acselrad.
But researchers and analysts also point
to factors like the small proportion of
perpetrators who are brought to justice,
police corruption, the enormous numbers
of young people with no prospects, the
ease with which firearms can be
obtained, and drug trafficking.
Cracking down harder on crime seems to
be a popular approach in countries like
Brazil.
The Brazilian Congress is now debating
whether to increase the maximum prison
sentence from 30 to 40 years. Other
ongoing debates are the possibility of
adopting life sentences and capital
punishment, and of lowering the age of
criminal responsibility from 18 to 16
years.
Meanwhile, residents in large South
American cities continue to come up with
their own individual and private
''solutions'' to protect their lives and
those of their families, as well as
their property, altering the face of
their cities with new gated communities,
and creating a flourishing private
security industry, said Ferraz.
* Yadira Ferrer in Colombia contributed
to this report.
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