Themes

Militias

Brazilian militias are extortion organizations rooted in current and former members of the police, military, fire service, and prison system. They are functionally distinct from drug-trafficking groups and have expanded substantially across Rio de Janeiro's West Zone over the past two decades.

The Portuguese term milícia in contemporary Brazilian usage refers to a specific kind of non-state armed organization, distinct from drug-trafficking groups in personnel, economy, and territorial logic. Militias are composed predominantly of current and former members of the state security apparatus — military police, civil police, military firefighters, prison guards, members of the armed forces — and operate through extortion of residents and businesses, control of irregular economies, and territorial enforcement.

Origins

The contemporary militia phenomenon has antecedents in the death squads of the 1960s and 1970s, the polícia mineira of the 1970s and 1980s, and self-styled "neighborhood protection" groups in Rio's West Zone from the 1990s. The consolidation of recognizably modern militias dates from the early 2000s, particularly in the West Zone neighborhoods of Rio Das Pedras, parts of Jacarepaguá, and the broader West Zone.

A 2008 inquiry by the Rio de Janeiro state Legislative Assembly (CPI das Milícias), chaired by Marcelo Freixo, documented the organizations in detail and recommended criminal prosecution of specific groups. The inquiry's report remains a foundational document on the topic.

How they differ from drug-trafficking groups

The militias' economy is built on different activities from drug-trafficking. Their principal sources of income are extortion of residents (a "security fee," often presented as protection), control of irregular transport (notably the unlicensed van and motorcycle-taxi services that move much of West Zone Rio), control of clandestine gas distribution, control of illegal real-estate development, and control of cable-television and internet connections within their territories. Direct drug retail is generally not a primary activity, though the line has blurred in some areas.

The personnel composition differs. The Comando Vermelho and other trafficking organizations recruit from outside state security; the militias are composed of state-security personnel and their networks. The two have repeatedly come into conflict in territorial disputes, and in some areas one has displaced the other.

Geographic reach

Multiple recent mappings — by Folha de S.Paulo's Núcleo de Investigação, by O Globo, by the Grupo de Estudos dos Novos Ilegalismos (GENI) at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, and by the Núcleo de Estudos da Violência at the Universidade de São Paulo — have documented the growth of militia-controlled territory across Rio de Janeiro's West Zone through the 2010s and into the 2020s. Several of these estimates place the militia-controlled population in the city of Rio de Janeiro at over two million people. The methodologies vary and the estimates are contested, but the directional trend is consistent across sources.

Militias have been documented in São Paulo and in other Brazilian states, in some cases with operating logics similar to the Rio organizations and in other cases as smaller-scale local groups. Rio remains the principal case.

Political reach

Militias have been linked to electoral politics in Rio at municipal and state levels. The 2008 CPI das Milícias documented specific connections; subsequent reporting by Folha de S.Paulo, O Globo, and Agência Pública has continued to document them. The investigation of the assassination of Marielle Franco (March 2018) included indictments of individuals with militia connections.

State response

State response to the militia phenomenon has been less coordinated than the response to drug-trafficking organizations. There are no equivalents of the UPP program directed at militias; large-scale operations against militias have been less frequent and less visible than operations against drug-trafficking groups. The federal Ministério Público (Public Prosecutor's Office) and federal police have prosecuted specific militia organizations, with mixed results.

What is contested

Two questions persist. The first is whether the appropriate analytical and policy frame for militias is criminal-organization, state-corruption, or some hybrid; the line between militia leadership and state security personnel is, by definition, blurred. The second is whether and how the existing institutional response — focused on criminal-procedure prosecutions — can address an organization whose personnel are partly inside the state apparatus that would prosecute it.