Crime and security take center stage in Brazil’s election

Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology

斯特罗布塔尔博特安全、战略和技术中心

This commentary is a companion piece to a Brookings collection on Brazil’s 2026 elections, “ What kind of Brazil will emerge from this election?

这篇评论是布鲁金斯学会关于巴西 2026 年选举的文集的姊妹篇，“这次选举将会出现什么样的巴西？

”

”

Security was the one issue Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, did not want to campaign on in his bid for a fourth term.

安全问题是巴西总统路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦（又名卢拉）在竞选第四个任期时不想讨论的一个问题。

He largely avoided it in his previous three campaigns as well, focusing more on economic and social issues.

他在前三场竞选活动中也基本上避免了这种情况，更多地关注经济和社会问题。

Yet security is a top concern for Brazilian voters: For years, Brazil has ranked among the 15 to 20 countries with the most homicides per 100,000 people.

然而，安全是巴西选民最关心的问题：多年来，巴西一直名列每 10 万人凶杀案最多的 15 至 20 个国家之一。

In contrast, Lula’s chief opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, has made crime his top campaign issue.

相比之下，卢拉的主要对手弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗将犯罪作为他的首要竞选问题。

His father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison following a 2022 coup attempt, had centered tough-on-crime policies in his candidacy and presidency as well.

他的父亲、前总统雅伊尔·博尔索纳罗 (Jair Bolsonaro) 在 2022 年政变企图后被判处 27 年监禁，他在竞选和总统任期中也采取了严厉打击犯罪的政策。

During Lula’s third term (2022-2026), public safety in Brazil hasn’t worsened in comparison to the Bolsonaro years—at least not in terms of homicides.

在卢拉的第三个任期（2022-2026）期间，巴西的公共安全与博尔索纳罗时期相比并没有恶化——至少在凶杀案方面没有恶化。

Under Lula, homicides declined to just over 20 per 100,000 in 2024 (the last year for which official data are available).

在卢拉的领导下，凶杀案到 2024 年（可获得官方数据的最后一年）降至每 10 万人中略高于 20 起。

During most of Bolsonaro’s term, homicides hovered between 21.7 per 100,000 and 23.6 per 100,000, having fallen in his first year from almost 28 per 100,000.

在博尔索纳罗任期的大部分时间里，凶杀案徘徊在每10万人21.7起至每10万人23.6起之间，而在他上任第一年，凶杀案就从每10万人中近28起下降。

Although Bolsonaro (2019-2022) promoted a no-holds-barred anti-crime policy that promised police impunity and embraced highly violent militias, the initial decline in crime mostly reflected local dynamics—sometimes the settling of criminal turf wars, and other times local police efforts in Brazil’s highly decentralized, subnational policing system.

尽管博尔索纳罗（2019-2022）推行了无条件的反犯罪政策，承诺警察不受惩罚，并拥护高度暴力的民兵，但犯罪率的最初下降主要反映了当地的动态——有时是刑事地盘争夺战的解决，有时是当地警察在巴西高度分散的地方警务系统中的努力。

Killings by police rose to more than 6,400 per year , amounting to approximately 17 people killed every day by various police forces in Brazil.

巴西警察每年造成的杀戮增加到 6,400 多人，相当于每天约有 17 人被不同警察部队杀害。

Lula had campaigned on a citizen-centric security program and rolled back Bolsonaro’s deregulation of weapons possession.

卢拉在竞选时提倡以公民为中心的安全计划，并推翻了博尔索纳罗放松对武器持有管制的政策。

He also emphasized police accountability.

他还强调了警察的责任。

He mandated that police officers be equipped with body cameras and the images be stored for analysis.

他要求警察配备随身摄像头，并存储图像以供分析。

But killings by police did not decrease during his term: police killed over 6,600 people in 2025.

但在他任期内，警察杀人事件并没有减少：2025 年，警察杀害了 6,600 多人。

Like homicides, these numbers reflect Brazil’s highly decentralized law enforcement system, which often prioritizes repression over crime investigations.

与凶杀案一样，这些数字反映了巴西高度分散的执法系统，该系统往往优先考虑镇压而非犯罪调查。

Lula also strengthened environmental protections after four years of erosion under Bolsonaro.

在博尔索纳罗领导下四年的侵蚀之后，卢拉还加强了环境保护。

Embracing the so-called “Beef, Bullets, and Bible” lobby—the ranchers and large landowners, tough-on-crime military and police officers, and influential evangelical leaders—Bolsonaro had gutted and defunded Brazil’s environmental regulations and environmental law enforcement agencies.

博尔索纳罗拥抱所谓的“牛肉、子弹和圣经”游说团体——牧场主和大地主、严厉打击犯罪的军队和警察，以及有影响力的福音派领袖——摧毁了巴西的环境法规和环境执法机构，并取消了对其的资助。

Those policies contributed to a surge in human-set fires and deforestation across the Amazon, the cerrado (Brazil’s crucial savannah ecosystem), and other biomes.

这些政策导致亚马逊、塞拉多（巴西重要的大草原生态系统）和其他生物群落的人为火灾和森林砍伐激增。

In contrast, Lula’s willingness to enforce environmental regulations produced declines in deforestation in both the Amazon and cerrado .

相比之下，卢拉愿意执行环境法规，导致亚马逊和塞拉多的森林砍伐减少。

Acting on an order from Brazil’s Supreme Court , hundreds of federal forces were also deployed to regions of the Amazon to disperse illegal miners and protect indigenous communities.

根据巴西最高法院的命令，数百名联邦部队也被部署到亚马逊地区，以驱散非法采矿者并保护土著社区。

Within a few weeks or months, the forces would redeploy elsewhere, and illegal loggers and miners would return, encouraged by corrupt businessmen and state and local officials or supported by large criminal groups such as the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC).

在几周或几个月内，部队将重新部署到其他地方，非法伐木者和矿工将在腐败商人、州和地方官员的怂恿下或在 Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) 等大型犯罪集团的支持下卷土重来。

The lack of a sustained security presence in the Amazon is not the region’s only law enforcement vulnerability.

亚马逊地区缺乏持续的安全存在并不是该地区唯一的执法漏洞。

A lot of crime in the Amazon and other Brazilian biomes—including illegal logging, deforestation, and mining—is not primarily perpetrated by organized crime groups or poor loggers and miners.

亚马逊和其他巴西生物群落中的许多犯罪行为（包括非法采伐、森林砍伐和采矿）主要并不是由有组织的犯罪集团或贫穷的伐木者和矿工实施的。

It is sponsored by local businesses and politicians, many of whom become mayors and governors.

它由当地企业和政界人士赞助，其中许多人成为市长和州长。

Tackling such institutional capture and corruption is a difficult political task.

解决此类制度俘虏和腐败问题是一项艰巨的政治任​​务。

Nonetheless, despite Lula’s anti-crime policies, many Brazilians perceive crime to be out of control, citing violent outbreaks in Rio de Janeiro, the spread of extortion by the Comando Vermelho (CV), and capture of legal economies by the PCC across the country.

尽管如此，尽管卢拉制定了反犯罪政策，许多巴西人仍认为犯罪已失控，理由是里约热内卢爆发了暴力事件、Comando Vermelho (CV) 敲诈勒索行为蔓延，以及巴西共产党在全国范围内夺取了合法经济。

Flávio Bolsonaro has made political hay from these concerns.

弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗从这些担忧中捞取了政治利益。

Like his father and other right-wing politicians elected across Latin America in recent years, he calls for more maximum-security prisons, mass incarceration, tougher criminal penalties, and lowering the age of legal culpability to 14 for serious crimes.

与他的父亲和近年来拉丁美洲各地当选的其他右翼政客一样，他呼吁建立更多高度安全的监狱、大规模监禁、更严厉的刑事处罚，并将严重犯罪的法定犯罪年龄降低至 14 岁。

He also supports using technology to fight crime, including building a national facial-recognition database connected to criminal databases, a proposal that has raised concerns among civil liberties advocates.

他还支持利用技术打击犯罪，包括建立一个与犯罪数据库相连的国家面部识别数据库，这一提议引起了公民自由倡导者的担忧。

Importantly, he and his brother successfully lobbied the Trump administration to designate the PCC and its major rival, the CV, as foreign terrorist organizations.

重要的是，他和他的兄弟成功游说特朗普政府将 PCC 及其主要竞争对手 CV 列为外国恐怖组织。

The Lula administration strongly opposes that designation, while the Trump administration has embraced the approach and promoted it across Latin America .

卢拉政府强烈反对这一指定，而特朗普政府则接受这一做法并在整个拉丁美洲推广。

The salience of crime in voters’ electoral agenda has pushed Lula to step up his response.

选民选举议程中犯罪问题的突出促使卢拉加大了应对力度。

In May 2026, he launched Brasil Contra o Crime Organizado (Brazil Against Organized Crime), a national program backed by approximately 1.065 billion reais ($200 million) in direct federal resources and up to 10 billion reais ($1.9 billion) in financing for states and municipalities.

2026 年 5 月，他启动了巴西 Contra o Crime Organizado（巴西打击有组织犯罪），这是一项国家计划，由约 10.65 亿雷亚尔（2 亿美元）的直接联邦资源以及为各州和市政府提供的高达 100 亿雷亚尔（19 亿美元）的资金支持。

Targeting the PCC and CV, the plan has four pillars: financially disrupting criminal organizations; strengthening prison security; improving homicide investigations and clearance rates; and combating the trafficking of weapons and ammunition.

该计划针对 PCC 和 CV，有四大支柱：从经济上瓦解犯罪组织；加强监狱安全；提高凶杀案调查和破案率；打击武器和弹药贩运。

In September 2026, Lula also announced a pilot initiative to expand federal-state-municipal cooperation against organized crime in Rio de Janeiro .

2026 年 9 月，卢拉还宣布了一项试点举措，旨在扩大联邦-州-市合作打击里约热内卢的有组织犯罪。

The initiative seeks to expand joint operations along major highways and in selected territories, emphasizing shared intelligence, coordinated policing and inspections, surveillance, and action against cargo theft, weapons and drug trafficking, and criminal financial networks.

该倡议旨在扩大主要高速公路沿线和选定地区的联合行动，强调共享情报、协调治安和检查、监视以及针对货物盗窃、武器和毒品贩运以及犯罪金融网络的行动。

The focus on Rio is not accidental.

里约受到关注并非偶然。

Next to the city’s affluent beaches are the poor favela areas where roughly one million people live in marginalized conditions —lacking access to public health, education, legal jobs, and safety.

城市富裕的海滩旁边是贫困的贫民窟地区，那里大约有一百万人生活在边缘化环境中——缺乏公共卫生、教育、合法工作和安全保障。

Their lives and freedom of movement are ruled by highly violent actors, such as the CV or pro-police militias, which barricade the favelas, deal drugs, and extort money from residents.

他们的生活和行动自由受到高度暴力的行为者的统治，例如志愿军或亲警察的民兵，他们封锁贫民窟，交易毒品，并向居民勒索钱财。

The CV also regularly uses spectacular violence in affluent parts of the city to extract economic or political concessions.

CV还经常在城市的富裕地区使用引人注目的暴力来获取经济或政治让步。

During Lula’s first two terms, his government belatedly supported a Rio-led public safety initiative known as the Pacification (UPP) Program .

在卢拉的前两届任期内，他的政府姗姗来迟地支持了里约领导的公共安全倡议，即“安抚计划”。

Starting in 2008, the effort sought to replace decades of violent, temporary military-police incursions into the favelas with a sustained police presence that communities would accept and embrace.

从 2008 年开始，这项努力旨在以社区能够接受和接受的持续警察存在来取代几十年来对贫民窟的暴力、临时军警入侵。

Initially, the UPP program appeared to work well: security improved in a few favelas, the government expanded social services in them, and some legal jobs arrived.

最初，UPP 计划似乎运作良好：一些贫民窟的安全得到改善，政府扩大了这些贫民窟的社会服务，并带来了一些合法的工作岗位。

But the program soon encountered serious problems: creating community-based UPP police was slow, and the military police often had no UPP force to take over once an area was “pacified.” Legal jobs and expanded services never arrived in most of the slums.

但该计划很快就遇到了严重问题：建立以社区为基础的统一人民党警察的速度很慢，而且一旦某个地区被“平定”，宪兵往往没有统一人民党部队可以接管。大多数贫民窟从未获得合法工作和扩大的服务。

And once Brazil’s commodity boom ended in 2014 and Rio hosted the 2016 Olympics, federal, state, and local funding for the UPP dried up.

2014 年巴西大宗商品繁荣结束且里约举办了 2016 年奥运会后，联邦、州和地方为 UPP 提供的资金就枯竭了。

Public spaces such as libraries and community centers closed, and education, training, sports, and arts programs ended.

图书馆和社区中心等公共场所关闭，教育、培训、体育和艺术项目结束。

Many of the buildings themselves fell into disrepair.

许多建筑物本身年久失修。

Policing reverted to the highly violent, temporary police incursions that UPP had sought to replace.

治安恢复为统一人民党试图取代的高度暴力的临时警察入侵。

Civilian casualties rose sharply, while the CV regained power and expanded control through warzone-like violence.

平民伤亡人数急剧上升，而CV则通过类似战区的暴力重新获得权力并扩大控制范围。

The CV has since expanded beyond Rio to large parts of Brazil, where it engages in violent extortion.

此后，该组织已从里约扩展到巴西大部分地区，并在那里从事暴力勒索活动。

But it is a latecomer to such an expansion, trailing the PCC.

但它是这种扩张的后来者，落后于PCC。

Although the PCC is often mythologized as not engaging in violence, it is itself a violent group—especially where it competes with the CV over turf.

尽管 PCC 经常被神话为不参与暴力，但它本身就是一个暴力团体——尤其是在它与 CV 争夺地盘的时候。

PCC has expanded across Latin America and Africa, funneling substantial amounts of cocaine into Europe and increasingly also into Australia .

PCC 的业务已扩展到拉丁美洲和非洲，将大量可卡因输送到欧洲，并越来越多地输送到澳大利亚。

Although it is not as powerful and internationally present as the Mexican cartels or Chinese criminal groups , it has emerged as a new competitor to them.

尽管它不像墨西哥卡特尔或中国犯罪集团那么强大和国际影响力，但它已成为它们的新竞争对手。

In São Paulo, where the PCC is dominant, potent synthetic opioids known as nitazines are also emerging.

在 PCC 占主导地位的圣保罗，被称为尼嗪的强效合成阿片类药物也正在出现。

The PCC is highly diversified, extending beyond illicit economies such as illegal mining into legal ones.

PCC 高度多元化，从非法采矿等非法经济扩展到合法经济。

A large 2025 Brazilian law enforcement operation, Carbono Oculto , for example, revealed the group’s efforts to take over ethanol production and fuel distribution.

例如，巴西 2025 年大型执法行动 Carbono Oculto 揭露了该组织试图接管乙醇生产和燃料分销。

It is also involved in international scams, smuggling fake GLP products , cryptocurrencies, and money laundering through fintech companies , among other activities.

它还参与国际诈骗、走私假冒 GLP 产品、加密货币以及通过金融科技公司洗钱等活动。

And unlike the CV’s violent favela boys, the PCC is well connected to Brazil’s business and political elites and is increasingly focused on influencing local elections , something the CV has long done in Rio.

与 CV 的暴力贫民窟男孩不同，PCC 与巴西商界和政治精英有着密切的联系，并且越来越注重影响地方选举，这是 CV 长期以来在里约热内卢所做的事情。

The Trump administration is closely watching Brazil’s presidential elections, and its preference for Flávio Bolsonaro is no secret.

特朗普政府正在密切关注巴西总统选举，其对弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗的偏爱已不是什么秘密。

It also opposed the legal prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro for the coup attempt and temporarily sanctioned the Brazilian justice who presided over his trial.

它还反对对雅伊尔·博尔索纳罗的政变企图进行法律起诉，并暂时制裁主持审判的巴西法官。

Flávio has promised to join the Trump administration’s Shield of the Americas.

弗拉维奥承诺加入特朗普政府的美洲之盾。

But a Flávio Bolsonaro government could face tensions with Washington over the scope of U.S. involvement in Brazil.

但弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗政府可能会因美国参与巴西事务的范围而与华盛顿关系紧张。

Allowing U.S. military strikes—or even just a U.S. military presence —in Brazil would deeply challenge the ethos of the powerful Brazilian military.

允许美国对巴西进行军事打击——甚至只是美国的军事存在——将深刻挑战强大的巴西军队的精神。

There is also no need for such a U.S. military role since U.S.-Brazilian law enforcement cooperation has long been strong.

由于美国与巴西的执法合作长期以来一直很牢固，因此美国也没有必要扮演这样的军事角色。

Although Flávio wants to permanently deploy the Brazilian military to ports such as Santos to combat drug trafficking, reducing China’s role in Brazilian critical infrastructure, as the Trump administration would like, won’t be easy.

尽管弗拉维奥希望将巴西军队永久部署到桑托斯等港口打击贩毒，但正如特朗普政府所希望的那样，减少中国在巴西关键基础设施中的作用并不容易。

His father postured tough on China but didn’t shrink China’s economic presence.

他的父亲对中国采取了强硬态度，但并没有削弱中国的经济存在。

Even Trump’s close ally Javier Milei in Argentina has not delivered on the Trump administration’s demand to kick China out of its deep-space base in Patagonia or reduce China’s role in Argentina’s economy .

就连特朗普在阿根廷的亲密盟友哈维尔·米雷也没有兑现特朗普政府的要求，将中国赶出巴塔哥尼亚的深空基地或减少中国在阿根廷经济中的作用。

In fact, his government is trying to strengthen it.

事实上，他的政府正在努力加强它。

Credibility on addressing urban crime may well determine the outcome of Brazil’s elections.

解决城市犯罪问题的可信度很可能决定巴西选举的结果。

Anti-crime policies also increasingly impact strategic relations between the United States and Brazil.

反犯罪政策也日益影响美国和巴西之间的战略关系。

But regardless of who wins in Brazil, they are not going to be the U.S. beachhead for deeper influence that the Trump administration may hope for.

但无论谁在巴西获胜，他们都不会成为美国特朗普政府可能希望的更深入影响力的滩头阵地。