Dear Attorney-General Paulo Gonet,
We write to express our long-standing serious concern about the high level of police violence in Brazil and urge your office to seek measures to ensure accountability and uphold the rule of law. A very important step forward would be approval and implementation of draft resolution n° 1.00922/2023-01 under review at the National Council of Prosecutor’s Offices (CNMP) on investigations into killings, torture, sexual violence, disappearances and other abuses by security forces. Your support for and promotion of the draft resolution would be key. We are concerned that the proposal has not yet been approved, more than a year after it was presented to the CNMP.
Human Rights Watch is an international nongovernmental organization that investigates and reports on human rights abuses around the world. In conducting our research in various countries, we apply international human rights law. We work with governments and civil society to uphold human rights and the rule of law.
Police Violence in Brazil
For decades we have conducted extensive research on violence by security forces in Brazil, where police officers have killed more than 6,000 people every year since 2018, with people of African descent being three times more likely to become a victim than white individuals.
We found that while some police killings are in self-defense, many result from illegal use of force. Police abuse takes a heavy toll not only on the victims and their families, but also on the police force itself. It endangers the lives of all officers serving in high-crime areas, poisons their relationships with local communities, and contributes to high levels of psychological stress that undermine their ability to do their jobs well.
A key problem allowing the cycle of violence to continue is widespread impunity, which is rooted in flawed investigations. We have documented scores of cases in which police officers intimidated witnesses, or manipulated and destroyed evidence, including by taking bodies to hospitals falsely claiming the victims were still alive and removing the victim’s clothes. We have also identified failures in civil police investigations into police killings, including inadequate or non-existent forensic analysis and inadequate interviews with police officers involved in the killing.
The Importance of Draft Resolution n° 1.00922/2023-01
It is clear that police investigations into abuses by civil and military police that are led by the civil police lack effectiveness and sufficient independence. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has pointed to the prosecutor’s office as the independent body that should investigate police killings and other abuses in Brazil. Similarly, Supreme Court justice Edson Fachin has ruled that the prosecutor’s office should conduct its own investigations in cases of suspected police misconduct. At the end of this letter, we have included a more detailed discussion of those decisions.
Approval of the CNMP’s draft resolution would be a key step toward implementing those decisions by seeking to ensure prompt, thorough, and independent investigations by prosecutors into police abuse. Furthermore, the resolution would strengthen police oversight, complementing and expanding on the guidelines contained in CNMP Resolution No. 279/2023.
We were very pleased to see that the draft resolution incorporated many of the recommendations we laid out in a 2023 letter to then Attorney General Augusto Aras, particularly by providing that prosecutors will conduct lead investigations in all cases of killings by security forces. The draft resolution also provides that investigations follow international standards, including the UN Manual on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, known as the Minnesota Protocol; and that victims and their families have access to updated information about the investigations.
We were also pleased to learn that, separately from the resolution, in July 2024 the CNMP established a working group to study racism in law enforcement, which had also been one of our recommendations.
We are concerned, however, that draft resolution n° 1.00922/2023-01 has yet to be approved, more than a year after it was presented at the 16th Ordinary Session of CNMP, on October 24, 2023.
We understand it is up to the rapporteur to bring the resolution up for a vote at the plenary of the CNMP. We would urge you, as president of the CNMP, to express your support for the resolution and promote its approval.
Additional Recommendations
In addition to the provisions included in the draft resolution, we also encourage your office to promote efforts to ensure the security forces fulfill their duty to protect the public within the bounds of the law. For that to happen, Human Rights Watch recommends that federal and state prosecutors’ offices:
Ensure Independent Investigations:
- Require that prosecutor’s offices create accessible complaint mechanisms so that the public can report police misconduct and abuses, including anonymously, and obtain updated information on actions taken to address the complaint.
- Urge state and federal prosecutor’s offices employ their own full-time forensic experts –who are independent of the civil police – to help prosecutors assess the quality of forensic work, participate in crime scene reconstruction, and conduct their own independent forensic analysis, among other tasks.
- Support proposals to have state forensic expert offices that are autonomous from the police, in order to ensure the independence of their work and increase their effectiveness.
Establish Specialized Prosecutorial Units:
- Urge state attorneys general to establish well-resourced units of prosecutors dedicated to developing and enforcing police protocols to prevent abuses, and investigating and prosecuting police abuses when they occur. Members of the unit could develop expertise in this type of cases by analyzing patterns of abuse and recognizing modi operandi; identifying and investigating specific police units and individual officers responsible for large numbers of potentially unlawful killings; and shielding regional prosecutors from the risk of retaliation for investigating abuses by police officers in their jurisdiction.
Exercise Effective Oversight over Civil and Military Police:
- Require that state prosecutors review all state police protocols and training, including on the use of force, and ensure they comply with Brazilian and international human rights standards.
- Require that prosecutors work with police command and secretaries of public security to enact guidelines to prevent that police officers conduct retaliation operations after the killing of a police officer.
- Review working conditions for police officers and work with police forces to address the high levels of stress, including by ensuring police commands provide adequate psychological support to personnel through access to police and non-police psychologists.
- Ensure implementation of Resolution n° 279/2023 about police oversight.
Promote Transparency and Accountability:
- Regularly publish reports about police killings and other abuses containing data disaggregated by race and other parameters and detailed information on investigative and prosecutorial actions taken, as ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the Nova Brasilia case.
- Urge states and police forces to reform disciplinary systems to ensure independence and transparency.
- Urge states to strengthen independent civilian offices that oversee police, including receiving complaints of abuses, reviewing police conduct, contributing to policy changes, and improving police-community relations. States should provide them with sufficient resources to fulfill their mandate and access to all necessary information on police activities.
- Urge all states to implement the use of body worn cameras by police – beginning in precincts with the highest level of police killings – and to design protocols and operating procedures that promote transparency while also protecting privacy during the use of body cameras. Body worn camera footage can provide investigators with information on police conduct, including regarding the use of force, help shield other officers from pressure by abusive officers to participate in cover ups, and protect officers from false accusations. Footage gathered through body worn cameras should be accessed directly by prosecutors, without intermediation by security forces. We applaud your recommendation to the Minister of Justice to establish rules that would impose disciplinary measures on police officers who fail to properly use body-worn cameras or tamper with them.
Help Address Systemic Racism in Law Enforcement:
- Recommend that state police forces establish working groups also involving civil society and experts to examine and address systemic racism in the context of law enforcement, including through assessment of policies, practices, institutional culture, and training.
- Support the new CNMP working group and the existing federal prosecutors’ working group on racism in law enforcement. In consultation with civil society, experts and authorities, those working groups should assess the role of race in the work of police, prosecutors, and other law enforcement actors, through an analysis of policies, practices, institutional culture, and training.
Ensure Compliance with CNMP’s Protocols:
- Train prosecutors, forensic experts and other staff on effective oversight of police and on investigations into police killings and human rights violations, in line with CNMP’s resolutions and the Minnesota Protocol and other international standards.
- Establish mechanisms to monitor prosecutors’ compliance with CNMP’s resolutions and protocols on investigations into police killings and other human rights violations, and on police oversight, and instruct internal affairs offices at the state prosecutor’s offices to enforce those requirements.
Relevant Inter-American Court and Supreme Court Decisions
In 2017, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that Brazil had failed to ensure independent and impartial investigations into police operations carried out in the Nova Brasília neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro—a case in which Human Rights Watch was one of the initial petitioners. The Court found the police actions were “beset by omissions and negligence”; investigators failed to take “minimum measures required to establish the truth,” their actions were “biased,” and they “lacked independence.”
The Court ruled that in cases of killings, torture or sexual violence by police “an independent body, distinct from the police force involved in the incident, is put in charge of the investigation, such as a judicial authority or the Public Prosecution Service, assisted by police, criminalistic and administrative personnel unrelated to the law enforcement agency to which the possible perpetrator or perpetrators belong.”
In a 2021 decision on the compliance of the provisions set forth in the judgment, the Inter-American Court said both the Brazilian state and representatives of victims agreed that the prosecutor’s office was the independent body that should investigate police killings and other abuses in Brazil. Furthermore, the Court made clear that this independent body “should not only just have power, but also the obligation, to conduct the referred investigations, autonomously and without the participation of the police forces involved in the incident.”
In 2023, the Court issued two new rulings that found Brazil responsible for serious human rights violations by the police and reiterated the call for independent investigations. In the Honorato case, for example, which involved the 2002 extrajudicial execution of 12 people in São Paulo state, the Court found that the police forces and other authorities had acted “with such a degree of negligence” that it led to the conclusion that they sought to “prevent the investigation” and secure “absolute impunity”.
The Supreme Court has similarly asserted that Brazil’s Constitution tasks the prosecutor’s office with ensuring accountability for police abuses. In a 2020 preliminary decision, Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin found that investigations of police abuses carried out by civil police do not meet the “requirement of impartiality, required by international human rights treaties,” stressing that the prosecutor’s office should conduct its own investigations in cases of suspected police misconduct.
Justice Fachin ruled: “Whenever there is suspicion of involvement of public security agents in criminal offenses, the relevant office within the prosecutor's office will be responsible for the investigation. The prosecutor’s office needs to carry out that responsibility ex officio and initiate it promptly, a fact that in no way diminishes the duty of police to send reports about the operation to prosecutors and to conduct investigations, of an internal nature, into any wrongdoing.”
A Call to Action
The attorney general’s office has a key role to play in breaking a cycle of violence and impunity that undermines public security and endangers the lives of civilians and police alike. We hope these recommendations can contribute to your office’s efforts to implement decisions by both the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and Brazil’s Supreme Court, prevent human rights abuses, and, when they happen, ensure accountability.
We are at your disposal for any further information you may require.
Sincerely,
César Muñoz
Brazil director at Human Rights Watch
