BRAZIL: Policemen Kill, but also Commit Suicide

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 2 1998 (IPS) - Military Police in Brazil have a reputation for killing civilians, but they also pay a toll themselves: suicide among its ranks has reached alarming levels, above all in Sao Paulo, where special psychological assistance was necessary to reduce the problem a bit last year.

The Sao Paulo Military Police had 74 suicides among it members from 1995 to last April, nearly one for each 1,000 officers, of which there are 82,000 total. That is seven times the national average, which is 3.9 suicides per 100,000 population.

The greatest numbers were in 1996, when 27 officers killed themselves, causing police leaders to adopt preventive measures. In the following year the number had dropped to 17 but is threatening to go up again this year, given that in the first months of 1998 there were eight cases.

In Rio Grande do Sul, a state in the country’s far south, the Military Brigade is worried about the trend, although its rate is one-half that of Sao Paulo, at 13 per 100,000 people.

In the last 12 years there were 48 suicides among 26,000 officers, according to an investigation by the local university conducted by sociologist Gilmar Correa, a former sergeant of the same brigade. Unconfirmed cases could bring the total number to 57.

Rio Grande do Sul has the highest general rate of suicides in Brazil, reaching an average of eight per 100,000 population.

The suicide rate among the police is more than 60 percent the state’s average, sparking debate over its causes, including low salaries, work pressure, alcoholism and depression.

But Correa also said the military structure, with its hierarchical authority, is another factor that aggravates the problem. In his interviews, nearly all of the officers had complained about the “scarce attention” they get from the leadership and about the rigidity of disciplinary measures.

In Sao Paulo, the Military Police is seeking solutions to both killings and suicide of troops.

Until 1994, the Military Police in Sao Paulo was infamous for killing large numbers of civilians in conflicts — more than 1,500 per year – feeding suspicions about executions in the majority of the cases.

After 1995, under the new state government headed by Social Democrat Mario Covas, the number dropped by a few hundred.

Covas ordered that police fire at suspects as little as possible, which was different than the policy in Rio de Janeiro, where the leadership handed out cash prizes to certain officers for their “bravery,” in large part because they took part in shoot-outs with suspected, but dead bandits.

To control the suicides, Sao Paulo began an outreach program between superior and lower ranking officers, including getting to know their problems, and psychological assistance was increased.

These were the factors that reduced suicides, according to Isaac Chazim, director of the state Department of Health. And psychiatric services have also begun in the battalions to look after officers at work.

Among military police, a large amount of alcohol and illegal drugs, like cocaine, are consumed. Depression is also very frequent, a natural consequence of this kind of work.

Aside from fighting crime, military police have direct contact with social problems in the population, said Chazim. In the past year, for example, they brought 22,000 people to the hospital and gave non-police attention to 25,000 more.

Family conflicts are another important factor. Many officers commit suicide after separations or matrimonial crises, something that deserves attention from top brass and psychologists.

At the bottom of all these problems, including alcoholism and drug addiction, is the extreme violence of their work. Many officers are killed in the line of duty.

Such deaths are growing: there were 113 in 1995, 170 in 1996 and 182 in 1997. In the first four months of this year the figure reached 88, for a total of 264 for the year if the monthly average keeps up. (FIN/IPS/TRA-EN/mo/ag/ip/dk/ak/98)