The growing number of police killings of suspected criminals in Rio de Janeiro’s war on drugs is linked to bonuses now paid to “brave” police officers, according to a just-released independent study.
The group that conducted the research, the Institute for Studies on Religion (ISER), tallied the deaths of 10,216 people from 1995 to 2007 in police raids on the favelas (shantytowns) and other places inhabited by drug gangs.
It found that the ratio of dead to wounded climbed significantly after the city started offering bonuses to police in 1995 to particularly courageous officers.
In 1995, the ratio of killed to injured was 1.7 dead for every person injured.
That ratio has more than doubled, to its current 3.5 dead for every person injured. If police were not seeking to kill suspects, a greater proportion of injured might be expected, the report noted.
The man who wrote the report, sociologist Ignacio Cano, called the decision to pay bonuses a “Wild West incentive” which encourages police to kill suspects.
“It consolidated armed conflict as a security policy,” he said.
