The Demand for Firearms in Rio de Janeiro
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The Demand for Firearms
in Rio de Janeiro
Benjamin Lessing
Summary
As elsewhere in the world, firearm demand in Rio de Janeiro varies among different
segments of the population, reflecting different living conditions and perceptions about
relative safety and the types of threats confronted. This study first examines the case of
middle class citizens, who made up the vast majority of respondents in a recent survey of
1187 gun buyback participants. Among this group, preferences for firearms seem to be
largely the result of a perceived threat of property crime coupled with poor law enforcement
and shortcomings in other public services. In contrast, residents of Rios favelas, where
the majority of armed violence occurs in connection with the presence of armed drug
factions, confront an entirely different set of threats, incentives, and constraints. In light of
this context, what demand exists for firearms among this segment is likely to be related to
deep preferences for status, authority, and earning power associated with membership in
drug factions, often publicly signaled by the ostensive use of firearms. Finally, this study
considers the dynamics of firearms demand among the drug factions themselves. In this
case, ownership, and hence demand, is found to be collective, driven by a mixed strategy
that includes consolidation of power over communities, deterrence of and defense in the
case of invasion, and conquest of additional territory. Conclusions are drawn for possible
demand reduction strategies.
Introduction and Sources
Brazil is a country of enormous size, regional and geographic diversity, and sharp class
division, marked by strong differences in access to the legal / judicial system, treatment
by law enforcement officials, and protection of basic rights. In terms of demand for firearms,
we felt it made more sense to look at specific geographical and socioeconomic sectors
than to generalize about the country as a whole. In this study, we have focused on two
sectors with which Viva Rio has had a great deal of contact over the years: Rio de Janeiros
middle class, and its favela population.
Primary Sources:
• Viva Rio survey of 1187 firearm buyback program participants
• Structured interviews with favela residents and ex- and current traficantes 1
• ILANUD Victimization Study 2002, (UNICRI-ICVS survey)
Secondary Sources:
• IETS Inequality Indicators (PNAD/IBGE)
• World Bank data
• Rio State Police Statistics
• Other Empirical Sources
• Academic studies of drug trafficking in the favela and police action in Rio de
Janeiro.
1
Drug dealers or traffickers, but also anyone employed by the drug trade, including lookouts. In this study, we have maintained many terms in Portuguese related to
the drug trade, providing translations in footnotes, to retain nuances such as this. In addition to structured interviews carried out specifically for this study, we had access
to the original interviews carried out by Dowdney et al for Children of the Drug Trade, ISER/Viva Rio (Rio de Janerio: Sete Letras), 2003.
202
202Demand Among Rios Middle Class
Introduction
This sector is important for at least two reasons: The middle class in general holds an important
place in the Brazilian imagination, as well as the propaganda of the pro-firearms lobby: the
law-abiding citizen who cannot depend on the police to protect his2 family against a rising
tide of crime.
Secondly, the middle class is disproportionately represented among participants in the gun
buy-back program instituted by the recently passed Disarmament Statute3 and currently in
progress throughout Brazil. In a sense, participation in a gun buy-back program indicates a
kind of negative demand for firearms. Indeed, the unexpectedly large number of participants
indicates that there was a latent demand for the opportunity to get rid of firearms.
An on-going survey of those who have turned in firearms at Viva Rio provides a unique insight
into several aspects of demand for firearms and possible demand shift triggers. As of October
2004, 1187 people, each
of whom handed over at
least one firearm at Viva
Rio to be destroyed, had
completed the survey.
(Approximate average
guns per participant: 1.7)
While the campaign was
not limited to or even
exclusively aimed at this
sector, it is clear from the
results of this survey that
the majority of
participants are middle
class, educated adults,
more than 40% of whom
are elderly.
Source: Viva Rio, 2004
Before considering the results of the survey, let us take a brief overview of the cultural, political, and
material factors that come into play in influencing firearms demand among Rios middle class.
2
In Brazil, as in much of the world, gun ownership as well as the cultural imagery that surrounds it is strongly associated with men and masculinity. While it is beyond
the scope of this paper to fully analyze this theme, it is discussed further in the section Cultural Factors below.
3
The Disarmament Statute, a sweeping revision of Brazils firearms legislation that was signed into law in December 2003, mandated a three-month amnesty and
monetary compensation for all arms handed over to authorities. Due to its overwhelming success, (over 200,000 firearms in three months) the buy-back has been
extended a further six months. The Statute instituted many other changes and additional controls on firearms, and also mandated a nationwide referendum on
prohibition of firearms sales to civilians, to be voted on in October 2005.
203Cultural Factors
Brazilians have a strongly assimilative national identity, with few ethnic/autonomy issues beyond
generally pacific indigenous groups. Armed political uprising is rare. There is no tradition of
firearm ownership as cultural/patriotic expression comparable to that in the United States.
However, there is some conflation of the ideas of honor, masculinity/virility, defending ones
home and family, status (particularly as an authority figure) and being armed. These cultural
values are repeatedly emphasized by the pro-arms lobby. Conversely, disarmament
campaigns have frequently attempted to question or even invert these values, suggesting, for
example, that real men dont need guns. The popularity of disarmament campaigns urging
women to disarm their husbands and sons is further indication of the extent to which firearms
and masculinity are linked in Brazil.4
At the institutional
level, we can get a
sense of public
services from
responses to the
2002 Victimization
study carried out by
ILANUD (using
UNICRI standard
surveys):
Source: Ilanud, 2002
For most services, approval ratings go up as income increases, indicating that the wealthy
enjoy better access to public services. A key exception is policing, which has low ratings
across the board.
Political Factors
While Brazil in general and Rio in particular suffer from a kind of political violence (e.g.
murder of politicians or leaders), it is usually based on personal rivalries and power struggles
between individuals, families, or cabals, rather than on political opinions or party affiliations.
The stakes are nearly always material and not ideological.
Among middle class citizens, in the wake of the military dictatorship, the amnesty for political
exiles, and the return to democracy, there is a spirit of tolerance for differing political views, a
commitment to pluralism, and general cynicism toward electoral politics. Party affiliations
are weak or non-existent.
41
Viva Rios campaigns Mothers, Disarm Your Sons and the sexually charged Choose Gun-Free: Your Weapon or Me are good examples of this.
204Again, at the institutional level we see widespread dissatisfaction with preventive policing:
Source: Ilanud 2002
*Australia, Belgium, Canada, Spain, Denmark, England & Wales, Finland, France, Japan, Holland, North Ireland, Poland, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, USA.
Note that Rio de Janeiro scored worse on this metric than the other Brazilian cities surveyed São
Paulo, Recife, and Victoria though all three have higher homicide rates than Rio5 .
Likewise, investigative policing and
the criminal justice system in Rio has
been shown by Soares (1994) to be
highly inefficient.
As Soares notes, among the only 8%
of homicides whose police inquiries
contained sufficient information for
the judiciary to open a trial, the vast
majority were committed by relatives
or acquaintances of the victims. This
type of crime is the easiest to
investigate, and, Soares argues, the
Source: Soares, Luiz Eduardo, Violence and Politics in Rio de Janeiro, (Rio de Janeiro: ISER) 1996, p242. *Police
least severe from a public security investigations opened in 1992, status as of end of 1994
perspective, while truly grave crimes,
that is, associated with criminal careers are practically not investigated.6
Material Factors
Results from the ILANUD
victimization study suggest
that wealth is itself a risk
factor:
Source: Ilanud 2002. *among owners of same n=2800
5
Data from DATASUS, quoted in The Impact of Firearm Injuries and Death, Phebo, Luciana, in Brazil: The SALW Factor, Fernandes, R. coord., ISER/Viva Rio, March 2005.
6
Soares, Luiz Eduardo, Violence and Politics in Rio de Janeiro, (Rio de Janeiro: ISER) 1996, p239.
205As wealth increases, the likelihood of suffering a property crime increases as well. Note that
the same effect is not seen for physical and sexual aggression.
Another key material factor
is income and wealth
inequality. Brazil has one
of the highest inequality
rates, as measured by the
Gini coefficient, in the
world:
Rios levels are slightly
lower than the national and
metropolitan averages.
However, in Rio the physical
proximity of rich and poor
Source: World Development Bank Index, 2002.
may exacerbate inequality *Source: Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD/IBGE)
effects.
Evidence from the Survey
We have seen that many of the common factors that spur demand for firearms are weak or not
present in the context of Rio de Janeiros middle class: political unrest, presence of militant groups,
attractiveness of armed crime as income generating alternative, etc. Demand factors within this
group tend to be political and material, concentrated at the institutional and structural levels: desire
for status and lack of effective policing against a backdrop of extreme income inequality.
In other words, we would expect middle class demand for firearms to be derived from a deep
preference7 for status and security, and their relative scarcity, i.e. high relative prices.
Such a conclusion is supported by the results of our buy-back survey. If we examine the answers given
to the question Why did you
have this gun? by those
respondents who indicated
that they were the owners of
the guns handed in (only
about a third of all
respondents), we find that a
total of 67.6% selected at
least one answer related to
security8:
7
The term deep preference, as opposed to derived preference, is used here to distinguish between motivating or underlying objectives and the shifting ways we go about satisfying
them. Fashions change, for example, but our deep preference for cool clothing in the summer and warm clothing in the winter remains stable. See, for example, Brauer, J. Keynote
lecture for Workshop for Small Arms Survey and Quaker UN. Office, Notes from lecture given on March 12, 2004. http://www.aug.edu/~sbajmb/paper-Geneva.pdf.
8
Respondents were allowed to check up to three answers, so percentages do not sum to 1, nor can we simply add the values seen in this graph, as some respondents may have checked
both answers.
206For this sector, defense of ones person, family, and property seems to be the underlying
deep preference involved in firearms demand.
Demand Triggers
If we consider those who hand over their firearms as part of the buy-back campaign to
be expressing a kind of negative demand, we can then ask, What triggered the
change? Many of the Disarmament Statutes measures as well as the public campaigns
now in effect are aimed at raising the relative price of being armed:
Increased costs of registration and renewal: both pecuniary and time costs, as
the Statute now requires psychological testing of potential gun owners.
Harsher penalties for possession of an unregistered weapon: this sharply
increases the price of holding on to an unregistered weapon; one must either register
it, incurring the costs mentioned above, or risk committing a crime.
Information on the dangers of having a firearm in the home. The chance of an
accident and the increased likelihood of gunfire in the case of a confrontation with
an intruder or assault are aspects usually ignored by potential gun owners when buying
a gun for the home. They thus underestimate the real relative price of gun ownership.
Public campaigns that provide data on these risks effectively raise the perceived
relative price.
How important are these
factors?
The figure is broken out
by how respondents
answered the question
Is your gun registered.
Fear of the new gun control measures does not appear to be a major factor for any group,
though unregistered gun owners were twice as likely to mark this option as registered gun
owners. One explanation is that people dont believe their chances of being caught are
very high, a possibility supported by the perception of poor policing mentioned earlier.
The R$100-300 reimbursement was also not important to the majority of respondents,
implying that demand for disarmament is strong, not weak.
The top 3 answers can all be interpreted as hidden costs of gun ownership, which public
disarmament campaigns have tried to bring to public awareness. This suggests that public
campaigns (some of which have been going on for years now) may indeed be raising the
perceived price of firearm possession, a conclusion further supported by the following figure:
207Obviously, Disarmament
Campaign dominates
answers among both
sexes. (It is interesting to
note how few women
claim to have been
convinced by their
husbands.)
Finally, we note one
finding from the survey
that is unsurprising:
owners of registered guns
tend to have a higher
income than owners of
unregistered guns:
This suggests that, at least prior to the new reforms in registration introduced by the Disarmament
Statute in December 2003, the relative price of registration was lower than the perceived cost
of owning an unregistered firearm for those with a middle or upper-middle class income.
Among the poor (R$Firearms Demand in the Favela
Introduction
The favela is the locus of violent factional conflict in Rio de Janeiro. A great proportion
of the citys armed violence is circumscribed within favela areas, while some middle
class areas enjoy levels of security comparable to first-world cities. This demonstrates
both the necessity of understanding firearms demand within the favela context and its
inherent difference from demand in other contexts.
Two disclaimers must be made at the outset:
1. Empirical data on the reality of favelas particularly those elements relating to the
drug trade, firearms, and violence are extremely difficult to obtain. This study
presents a model for demand based on a limited number of structured interviews,
available quantitative statistics, and the results of previous studies. Rather than
definitively capture the empirical reality of the favela, the purpose of this study is to
build a conceptual base for thinking about demand issues that is in accord with the
reality revealed by current research. This base should provide direction for further
research, and be adaptable to new realities revealed by that research.
2. Every favela is a unique community with its own particularities, making generalizations
difficult and model building somewhat risky. In particular, the extent to which the
drug trade dominates a community can vary. The model presented here refers to
communities which are heavily dominated by the local drug faction 9 , and where that
faction exerts effective control over the trabalhadores or workers(i.e. law-abiding
residents) while circulating in the community, enforcing security rules, settling disputes,
holding trials, and meting out punishments.
Applying our Model to the Favela
Obviously, some of the items mentioned in the previous section apply directly to an
analysis of favelas, such as public services, poverty, and income inequality. Other factors
are mitigated, particularly those related to security in terms of property crimes. Due to
the enforcement of social order by drug factions, the level of property security is often
quite high. Moreover, favelas tend to be strong communities, with many of the traditional
interpersonal bonds of mutual aid that are no longer found in middle class urban areas.
9
Rios drug trade is characterized by large collectives, known as factions or comandos, of semi-independent drug lords (donos). The number of active factions may change
due to schisms and mergers, but is usually between 2 and 5. (Independent or neutral donos do exist, but are the exception to the rule.) In general, a dono will control
a single favelas drug trade (though some large favelas may have more than one dono); if incarcerated or killed, he will be replaced by another dono from the same faction.
Faction control of a favela usually persists until it is invaded by a rival faction.
209Still other factors are exacerbated within the favela. In particular, it appears that problems
with police are more acute within favelas. According to Cano (1997), between 1993 and
1996, police killed 16% more civilians in favelas than in the rest of the city, though the favela
population represented less than a 6th of the total population.10 Cano also showed the lethality
index (ratio of civilian deaths by police action to civilians wounded by police action) of
operations inside favelas to be more than twice as high as in non-favela action, indicating a
clear intent to kill when carrying out actions in favelas.
Geo-referenced analysis for recent years has not been undertaken, but the overall trend in
police violence is troubling: by 2003, civilian deaths from police action11 in Rio de Janeiro
had quadrupled since
Canos study, from rates
that were already very
high.12
While 2004 showed
marked improvement over
the previous years
numbers, the rate of death
by police action in Rio de
Janeiro city was still about
11.2 per 100,000
residents13 ; by comparison,
the total homicide rate in
New York City in 2004 was
around 7 per 100,000
residents.14 While in theory this means that the average citizen of Rio is more likely to be killed by
a policeman than a New Yorker is to be killed by anyone at all, in practice if Canos findings are
an indication of current police practice favela residents bear the brunt of police use of deadly
force.
10
Cano, I. The Use of Lethal Force by Police in Rio de Janeiro, (Rio de Janeiro: ISER), 1997.
11
The figures presented here include only autos de resistência, or justifiable police homicides i.e., cases where officers have reported killing civilians in self defense.
Undeclared or misclassified civilian deaths (as, for example, killed by enemy gunfire) are not included.
12
In 1997 Rio state police killed 300 civilians; that same year, all U.S. police combined killed 361 civilians.
13
Population data from IBGE. The rate for 2003 was around 20 per 100,000 residents.
14
As Murders Fall, New Tactics Are Tried Against Remainder, New York Times (New York), December 31, 2004. In terms of absolute numbers, the average yearly total
of civilians killed by police in the entire United States is 373, about a third of the average for Rio state over the last three years. The U.S. rate per 100,000 residents is
0.2, less than one thirtieth that of Rio state. Source: Policing and Homicide, 1976-98: Justifiable Homicide by Police, Police Officers Murdered by Felons, US Department
of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2001, p1. Per 100,000 figures are derived from published figures, expressed in per 1,000,000 terms. Per 100,000 figures are derived
from published figures, expressed in per 1,000,000 terms. US stats use only the over-13 population to calculate rate; if this methodology were applied to Rio figures,
they would be even higher.
210Mapping Firearm Ownership in the Favela
In part to maintain their monopoly on force, in part to avoid confusion and conflict among
residents, factions generally enforce gun control measures:
The traficantes know who has guns and who doesnt.
Resident of favela dominated by drug trade
The result is not the complete absence of firearms, but a situation in which there are few open
paths to firearms ownership.
Its not just anyone who can own a gun in the favela.
Ibid
Informants consistently described a very limited number of situations in which a resident not
involved in traffic would feasibly purchase or possess a firearm:
1. Old, well-respected member of the community
2. Works as security guard or fireman
3. Autonomous thief
4. Has personal relationship with dono and obtains permission
5. Obtains and possesses gun in secret
Each of these possibilities is, in its own way, problematic. Paths 1 and 2 are not open to most
residents, but rather represent specific life situations. Paths 3 and 4 are more plausible, but
carry with them the social stigma of association with crime and/or the drug trade. Path 5 is
open to anyone, but is particularly risky: the punishment for obtaining a gun and not informing
the local boss could be severe.
Two points further diminish the potential value of a firearm in these situations. First, it is
possible that the gun could be requisitioned by force.
Ive gone many times to grab [a firearm] myself, from a guy who was a security
guard in the community. [...] Somebodys invading the community, The dono
sent me to round up the guns.
Ex-traficante, 25 years old
Secondly, with the possible exception of case 3, the owner of the firearm would not be able to
carry it openly in public.
If [someone who is not a traficante] buys a gun, he wont go showing it off, no
way. Nobody will know. It will stay hidden.
Ex-traficante, 25 years old
At the same time that they enforce control over firearms ownership, factions provide a certain
security within the limited scope in which a firearm might offer protection. That is,
burglary, mugging, and street violence the very types of crime that the middle class fears
(and which they buy arms to protect themselves against) are rare.
211Order within the community, the people feel there is order. A small
business... Outside [the favela], you would have to put security guards,
cameras, but inside, no. Nobody will touch anything.
Ex-resident (1987-2001) of favela dominated by drug trade.
This does not mean that the favela is safe:
This type of security, as in public order, sure, O.K.. Now, security as in a
feeling of physical integrity, the people dont feel safe with the drug trade.
On the contrary, there is always a risk of invasion, a risk of a confrontation
with the police.
Ibid
In the case of invasion by a rival faction or the police, though, having a firearm is unlikely
to make one safer, and could conceivable make things worse: a firearm identifies a
person as linked in some way to criminality, and perhaps the ruling faction. Possessing
a gun in the favela is clearly a risky proposition, so it seems reasonable to conclude
that demand for firearms in the favela is probably not about security.
Rather, we must consider what firearms represent to favela residents. In the context of a
poor community, drug dealers have spectacularly high incomes:
Q- Do you think traficantes look different than the average guy?
T- Yes.
Q- How? Explain this to me.
T- Walking around, in nice clothes, new sneakers, fancy watch, and
everybody looking at the traficante with jealous eyes.
Soldado 15 , 16 years old
And command respect from residents:
Now its not like it was, everybody talks about respect, many of those who
used to beat up on me are afraid of me now, they think Ill do something to
them.
Fiel do dono 16 , 16 years old
To many youth, firearms, which faction agents wield openly, are, more than a symbol,
the physical manifestation of power and status.
15
Soldier. Ranked position within a drug faction at the favela level responsible for armed security of faction territory and invading rival territory. Children of the Drug
Trade, op. cit. p259.
16
Personal bodyguard of the dono.
212You know how it is. A baile17 in the community, the kid wants to get in, he thinks
hes got the right: Shit, I cant go in because Im not a traficante, and that guy
there can because hes got a gun. The kid grows up seeing all that, its fucked.
Gerente de Soldados18 , 17 years old
Indeed, a firearm may be a manifestation of power and status not only in a material sense, but in a
sexual sense as well:
You take the ugliest guy in the world; if hes got a gun, there will be 10 women
trying to get with him. He doesnt need to be handsome.
Female resident of favela dominated by drug traffic1 9
While the vast majority traficantes are men, the material and non-material advantages of being
involved in the drug trade are not lost on women:
[A girl] goes out with a [ traficante] because she wants the good life, easy money,
brand name clothes, to feel more powerful, to show off in front of others. [...] If
she goes out with a worker, her life wont be the same. So she likes that her man
is a traficante.
Ibid
Conclusions
For many young men in the favela,
gun ownership is part and parcel
of an all-encompassing and
potentially irreversible lifestyle
choice; obtaining a firearm and
becoming a traficante are, in the
end, a single decision. Demand
for firearms in this context
converges with demand for faction
membership.
This leaves joining the drug trade
as the primary path to gun
ownership in the favela; while
other possibilities exist, they are
mitigated by the factors discussed
above, as illustrated in the
following figure:
17
Literally balls, large parties held within favelas, sometimes sponsored by donos.
18
Manager responsible for all drug faction armed security within a favela community, including the management of faction soldiers (soldados). Children of the Drug
Trade, op. cit. p258.
19
Focus group interview conducted by Galeria, J. et. al. in January 2004.
213In terms of demand reduction, it seems logical that if the deep preference operating in favelas
is for status, material wealth, and/or a sense of belonging, the best strategy for reducing
demand is providing alternative paths to these goods.
Demand for Firearms within the Drug Trade20
Reviewing some structural aspects of the drug trade in Rios favelas will help ground our
analysis.
Firearms are bought and owned by the boca21
Firearms are bought and owned collectively by the boca and loaned to members while on
duty (Dowdney, 2001).
Q- And this gun here, is it yours, or does it also belong to the boca?
T- This here belongs to the boca.
Q- So nobody needs to buy guns, [they] belong to the boca?
T- Belongs to the boca. Its ours to carry. The boca owns it, but the right to carry
is ours.
Soldado and ex-gerente, 18 anos
An individual traficante purchasing his own gun is described as rare, in part because it could
be requisitioned by the boca:
If [a traficante] has the money to buy [a gun]... It will be his, I guess, because he
bought it with his money, but at the same time, it belongs to the faction, to the
boca. Because if it is needed, if hes not on duty and another traficante needs
the gun, hell take it and use it.
Ex-traficante, 25 years old
Ammo is supplied and controlled by the boca
It is clear that ammunition is also supplied to faction members while on duty. It is also known
that soldados can be reprimanded for firearms misuse, particularly if it leads to community
strife or draws the attention of police.
What is not clear is the degree of control gerentes and donos exert over ammunition use by
lower faction members. When a soldado hands his gun in at the end of his shift, does he
also hand over ammunition? Is the ammunition counted? Must he account for ammunition
spent? Further field research is required to answer these questions.
20
In addition to other sources, this section draws on Misse, M., As ligações perigosas: mercado informal ilegal, narcotráfico e violência criminal no Rio, in Machado da
Silva, L.A. (org.) Qualificação e Informalidade, special issue of Contemporaneidade e Educação, Rio de Janeiro, Vol. II, no. 1, 1997.
21
Boca: A point of sale for cocaine and marijuana, also a collective term for the faction operations within a single favela.
214Related to these questions is the widely-made claim that many factions now have
ammunition re-charging operations within the favelas. Some small-scale recharging
machines have been seized by police and even handed over to Viva Rios arms collection
post, and anecdotal evidence suggests some factions may possess larger equipment.
Factions are at constant risk of invasion from neighboring factions and incursion
by police
The drug trade in each favela is run by a dono, who is usually a member of a faction.
In general, donos from the same faction cooperate, and do not invade each others
territory. Exceptions are usually the result of personal rivalries, grudges, disagreements
over succession, or other specific circumstances.
Powerful donos, sometimes with help from faction partners, will invade favelas of a rival
faction, taking control of strategic strongholds and lucrative points of sale.
This risk is complicated by the presence of the police, who at times protect favelas from
invasion, at other times may actually condone and even facilitate an invasion.
Instability of the faction system itself
While often portrayed in the media as highly organized, the drug trade is in fact hierarchical
only within a single favela operation, from the dono downward. At the macro level, the
factions of Rio are in fact loose associations of individual donos, with no univocal chain
of command. Instead, there is a web of influence that is based on the personal history
and character traits of each dono and his loyalty ties.
In the end, these particular narratives may have more weight than faction hierarchy. When
push comes to shove, donos may attack fellow faction members, create schisms that lead
to new factions, or even switch to opposing factions. The result is even greater uncertainty
and instability.
Rationality and the Drug Trade
The demand model relies on an assumption of rationality among actors; i.e. people will
respond to changes in base conditions in a way that is comprehensible in terms of
objectives. It seems reasonable to ask whether this assumption is valid for a thing as
chaotic and violent as drug trafficking the favela. We argue here that it is, always bearing
in mind certain caveats.
First, faction behavior in any favela is largely determined by the personal style, objectives,
and values of the acting dono. As in any tyranny, behavior depends on the temperament
of the tyrant. When one dono dies or is captured and another takes over, faction behavior
may change dramatically.
215Second, competitive arms races, as game theory has shown, are rational endeavors that can
lead to irrational outcomes22 .
Finally, we should not confuse
rational self-interest with
profit motive. Because
factions have a discernable, if
mutable, hierarchical structure,
it is tempting to treat them as
profit-maximizing business
entities. On this reading,
firearms are an input or capital
good. The existence of a
gerente de soldados (manager
of soldiers) suggests a careful,
planned use of this input.
Source: Dowdney (2001)
The gerente dos soldados contracts and pays soldados, i.e. the people who maintain internal
order, protect the work of the other managers and the vapores [sellers], defend territory
when necessary, and who are mobilized to invade new areas. Misse (1997)
But the faction carries on its business activities in a context of extreme uncertainty. It faces two
constant, grave threats: invasion by a rival faction, and incursions by the police. A successful
invasion by a rival faction probably means death or expulsion for faction members. Police
incursion can lead to prison, extortion, kidnapping, torture, and/or death for faction members.
At the same time, a faction must maintain control over the community in which it is situated.
This requires shows of force as well as beneficence. Good community relations are crucial to
minimizing the damage from police incursions, and can be helpful in deterring enemy factions
from invading.
In this context, maximizing profits, while important, is only one goal among many in a broader
strategy for self-preservation and growth. While actual pursued strategies adhere to the local
realities of each community, some broad goals, generally applicable, can be identified:
Accumulation of Force: Man- and firepower are the measure of a factions power. Within
the community, they confer status and authority. In the case of invasion, they offer defense.
When held in sufficient amounts, they permit the invasion of other territories.
22
The Dollar Auction game is often cited as accurately modeling the behavior of actors engaged in an escalating arms race. This game is peculiar in that players almost
always find themselves considerably worse off after playing, though all stages of the game are voluntary. See: Shubik, M. (197 1). The dollar auction game: A paradox
in noncooperative behavior and escalation, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 15, pp109-111.
216Deterrence: It is not enough to have weapons; the enemy must know you have them. Ostentatious
display of firepower, including seemingly wasteful burning of ammunition at bailes23 and long,
often fruitless automatic fire exchanges between neighboring favelas (often using tracer ammunition),
gives a faction moral, or respect, both inside and outside.
Dominion: A factions strength also
depends on the extent to which it
controls its own community, and its
potential for expansion into new
territory.
These goals, along with the profit
motive, are all interrelated and to an
extent, overlapping. We can visualize
the situation thus, a linked set of
strategy elements and resultant
commodities.
Accumulation of these commodities
allows the faction to undertake actions
that reinforce other strategic elements:
Actions can be directed
inward, toward the
community, or outward,
toward external threats
(enemy factions and
police).
23
Literally balls, large parties held within
favelas, sometimes sponsored by donos.
217The schematic presented here is not a complete, predictive model but rather a kind of
template. Again, personal traits of individual donos and their relations with other
donos play a key role in determining faction behavior. Still, it seems likely that elements
from the theory of conflict and equilibrium in stateless societies could be brought to
bear on the question of faction behavior.
Demand Triggers: Preferences
On a grand scale, we can see a clear shift in faction demand toward automatic weapons
in the mid-90s. While this can be expressed as merely a change in tastes, the motivating
deep preference is likely a desire for arms parity or superiority with police and potential
invaders though it is important to remember that this parity may be equally or more
desirable for reasons of ostentation of power and deterrence than actual battlefield
effectiveness 24 .
T: It used to be a lot less serious, now its much more complicated... Now
there are bigger fish... There used to be 22s, .38s, then the 22s were
replaced with AK47s, with AR15, with Uzis.
Q: Why do you think that happened? The change in armament?
T: Why? Everyone thinks its because... the police were having too easy a
time of it, back then they were the only ones with assault rifles, the pigs
had assault rifles and we with our .38s. Things have changed, man. Now
the same wind that blows there blows here. ...maybe theres people here
in the favela with guns they cant even imagine.
Gerente de soldados, 17 years old
As with any arms race, relative, not absolute strength counts, leading to a theoretically
endless escalation spiral. Shifting demand away from automatic weapons requires
removing the threat of invasion by a force armed with these weapons, as well as erecting
barriers to the possibility of invading enemy territory not armed with these weapons.
Demand Triggers: Relative Prices
Factions must
purchase weapons
on the illicit market,
where supply is
erratic and price
variation is high:
Source: Rivero, Patricia, The Value of Criminal Firearms market in the City of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil: The Arms and The Victims,
Fernandes, R. coord., ISER / Viva Rio, March 2005.
Many favelas are built on steep hillsides and consist of narrow, labyrinthine passages and stairways. For a traficante fleeing a police or rival-faction invasion, a lighter,
24
more easily aimed firearm may actually offer a tactical advantage over an unwieldy assault rifle.
218In light of the discussion of preferences noted above, it is interesting to note that each
automatic weapon purchased has an opportunity cost from 4 to as many as 30 handguns.
As with all illicit purchases, there are additional high non-monetary costs associated
with illegality, including (1) a necessary association with criminal elements, (2) the risk
of getting caught, and (3) the possibility of getting ripped off or blackmailed, with no
legal dispute settlement mechanism available.
However, the traficante is already a criminal, both in the eyes of the community and the
police, so the marginal price of 1 and 2 are minimal. The effect of 3 is real, but depends
on each instance. In some cases, when suppliers are corrupt police officers, there may
be a positive side effect to arms purchases, creating leverage in negotiations over
political commodities (Misse, 1997) such as permission to traffic, pressure on rival
factions, or the release of jailed colleagues.
Faction demand appears to be very elastic. Perhaps the only way to reduce demand
through prices is by raising the non-monetary costs, i.e. increasing the risk of getting
caught. Police involvement in supplying illicit arms complicates this problem.
Demand Triggers: Resources
One common strategy (in Brazil) for reducing firearms demand is to starve the factions
by repressing drug use, thus reducing drug profits. This presumes two important linkages:
1. Repression of drug use by police reduces demand for drugs
2. Reductions in faction income translate to reductions in arms procurement
Both of these linkages may be weaker than officials would like to admit. In the case of
2, donos may be willing to forgo many other goods and services before they reduce
spending on firearms, as well as force their employees to accept pay cuts or delays:
R- Sometimes [ traficantes] salaries are late, to save up money to buy more
guns.
Q - Really? And the people working for the faction accept this?
R - Its not a question of accepting or not... Thats just the way it is.
T - [ ] The boss shows up and says look, Im going to be late with your
salaries, because I am going to buy some pieces to beef us up.
T: Ex-traficante, 25 years old, R: Resident of favela dominated by drug trade
This suggests that changes in faction resources, at least in the short run, are unlikely to
have a large effect on demand.
219Conclusions
Faction demand for arms is ultimately a function of that factions relationship with its community
and with its immediate external threats. But factions have more than enough firepower to
dominate a community of law-abiding citizens; today, demand is fed by a deep preference
for arms parity/superiority with other factions and an increasingly well-armed police. High
price inelasticity and insensitivity to income effects means that the likeliest method of reducing
demand is mitigating the perceived threat of invasion and incursion.
Further research should focus on the root causes behind the periods of stability and instability
in faction relations, in particular the conditions that lead to invasion and the role of police
action in (de-)stabilizing the balance of power between factions. Concepts from conflict and
equilibrium theory in stateless societies may help further explain and even predict faction
behavior.
220Benjamin Lessing
Researcher, International Center for Human Security
Viva Rio / Iser
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