This article examines police violence against organized criminal groups (OCGs) in Rio de Janeiro. It offers a theory about five types of OCG regimesāInsurgent, Bandit, Symbiotic, Predatory, and Splitāand how police intervention varies across these contexts.
Criminal Regimes & Police Responses: The study reveals that different OCG regimes react distinctly to state interventions:
- Insurgent: Confronts the state directly.
- Bandit: Evades integration with state actors.
- Symbiotic: Collaborates heavily with local authorities and communities.
- Predatory: Dominates territory strictly, often through force.
- Split: Faces intense rivalry from other criminal groups.
Methodology: Evidence comes from a multimethod approach, including:
- Quasi-experimental statistical analyses.
- Automated text analysis of official documents and social media posts.
- Extensive qualitative field research in several favelas.
- A large-N survey conducted across multiple intervention zones.
Findings: The article demonstrates how the implementation of Rio's 'Pacifying Police Units' (UPPs) resulted in dramatically different security outcomes depending on whether OCGs were confrontational or collaborative with state actors.
