The Olympics, the State, and (Dis)Organized Crime in Rio de Janeiro

Now, I know what you readers are thinking: London 2012 just wrapped up, so why are we already discussing Rio 2016? On October 15, Professor Robert Gay of the Sociology department, hosted a lecture in which explained the significance of the Rio 2016 Games not only in Brazil, but also throughout the entire world.

The truth is that the significance of Rio hosting the Olympics has been discussed since the International Olympic Committee accepted Rio’s bid in 2009. Each Games ends with monumental firsts: London 1908, the first games to be boycotted; Montreal 1976, the first “perfect 10” awarded in gymnastics; London 2012, the first time a single city hosted its third Olympic games. Yet the Rio Games are already monumental even before they begin. Rio 2016 represents the first time the Olympics will be held in South America, in a Portuguese speaking country, during the host country’s winter season, and most importantly, the first time the Olympics will be held outside of the “first world.”

Before I got to college — before I went to this lecture, even — I knew very little about Brazil. In fact, aside from Carnival and the unusually large export of Victoria’s Secret models, I knew practically nothing. What I discovered, however, is that one of the world’s top vacation cities has a terrifyingly seedy underbelly consumed with violence and drugs.

Rocinha, the largest favela, or shanty town, in Rio. Is this what you pictured the next Olympic city to look like?
 
Ironically, much of the city’s violence and drug trade originates in the prison system, which, theoretically, serves to isolate Rio’s most violent criminals. Through divisions and personal disputes between gang members, Rio is now controlled by three major gangs: the original gang, Comando Vermelho; the second gang, Terceiro Comando; and the third gang, Amigos dos Amigos. As a result of corruption within the prison structure, these three gangs are able to monopolize the drug trade and send both orders and drugs from inside the prison to the slum neighborhoods, or favelas, they control within the city. Each gang controls a separate area of Rio, and when gang members in Rio are arrested, they are sent to a specific prison based on the gang to which they belong, meaning that each gang also controls a specific prison. This means that the violence and drugs distributed throughout the city results from a larger criminal network that infests every aspect of society and indoctrinates neighborhood inhabitants into gang life from an early age.

What is worse, is the obscene amount of corruption within the police force whose goal is supposed to be the enforcement of the law within Rio. In reality, the majority of police officers in Rio cooperate with gang members to share in their profits. The gun trade, another major factor in the violence in Rio, is also perpetuated by the police, who sell guns to gang members when they cannot receive them from Germany, Israel, or the United States. In fact, the majority of the altercations that occur between police and gangs is a result of drug or gun deals between the two parties that went awry.

As a result, the city of Rio de Janerio is a very dangerous place to be in, which creates concern for the enormous population of athletes and spectators that will be present for the 2016 Olympic Games, not to mention the World Cup, which Rio is also hosting in 2014. The concern is certainly warranted, especially when considering that two weeks before Rio de Janeiro held the 2007 Pan American Games, the police massacred nineteen people in the Complexo de Alemão, most of whom, had no affiliation with the drug trade. Although it sent a clear message — that the police would not tolerate drug violence in Rio’s favelas when the city was on the world stage — the incident sparked severe criticisms from human rights organizations.

All of this poses critical questions for Rio’s plan of action leading up to, during, and after the Olympics. Since 2008, the Rio police have shifted tactics, creating a more permanent police presence in the favelas and forcing the evacuations of gang outposts. Both the national Brazilian and local Rio de Janeiro government has threatened to post every police officer in the country in Rio during the Olympics if that is what it takes to keep the city safe. However, there are still critical questions that the city needs to answer: What happens after the Olympics; does the city regress to drug ridden favelas with little police presence? How will the city combat the overwhelming levels of corruption in the police force and the larger forces behind the drug and gun trade? And most pressing, in a city where most people do not have access to public education or health care, is hosting the Olympics even justified? Shouldn’t the the government be spending the money used to finance the Olympics on social programs that improve the welfare of its citizens?

In every city that hosts the Olympics, people argue over the cost effectiveness of the Games. With the British economy as it is, the city of London was no exception, just as Rio is currently facing this debate, as will any city in the future. In 2010, many people argued that South Africa was incapable of hosting the World Cup because of its economic and racial inequalities and the country’s struggle against HIV and AIDS. However, South Africa’s hosting of the World Cup symbolized something much greater: an acknowledgement of the potential of the “third world” to be successful. Similarly, despite the city’s crime and inequality, the Rio 2016 Olympic Games will be a milestone that marks the increasing importance of third world countries on the international stage.