Scholars, law enforcement officials, business leaders and community activists will meet next week at Stanford to examine violence and policing in Latin American and the United States.

A two-day conference beginning April 28 will highlight the work of entrepreneurs and grassroots organizations trying to reduce violence and rebuild civil society. The gathering is hosted by the Program on Poverty and Governance (PovGov) at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. It is hosted in partnership with the Bill Lane Center for the American West, the Center for Latin American Studies, the ‘Mexico Initiative’ at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

"Violence linked to drug trafficking, gang wars and criminality is one of the leading barriers to development that effects the lives of millions in Latin America,” said Beatriz Magaloni, an associate professor of political science who directs PovGov, a program that studies the links between public action, goverance and poverty.

“The conference brings together people who have dealt with these problems in cities in Latin America and in the U.S. Seldom is the case that we bring to campus practitioners with first-hand experience dealing with some of the most pressing problems the hemisphere is confronting,” said Magaloni, who is also a senior fellow at FSI. 

The first day of the conference will feature a panel with Jose Galicot, the driving force of Tijuana Innovadora, a movement that helped Tijuana recover from devastating criminal activity and violence the last four years. Galicot will be joined by Jailson Silva, from Observatório of Favelas, one of the most reputable grass-roots organizations in the slums of Rio that undertakes research, consultancy and public actions focused on the city's favelas.

Many violence-plagued cities in the U.S. have implemented innovative initiatives to address the challenge that have included community policing tools and youth violence interventions. Similar initiatives are also taking place in Latin America with varying degrees of success. One of the goals of the conference is to get practitioners to share their experiences and best practices to reduce violence in major cities.

One of three featured keynote speakers, Sergio Fajardo, the current governor of Antioquia, Colombia, will speak on April 29 and help build the foundation for such dialogue. From 2003 to 2007, Fajardo implemented an effective strategy to reduce the level of violence in Medellin while he was mayor of the Colombian city.

By providing alternatives to illicit work, allocating resources to the most disadvantage areas, reclaiming public spaces and fostering dialogue among different sectors of society to create a sense of collective ownership, Fajardo transformed Medellin.

The two other keynotes include Mariano Beltrame, minister of security of Rio de Janeiro who is credited for the enactment and implementation of the Pacification Police Unites to reduce violence in the favelas of the city and Hector Robles, major of the municipality of Zapopan who has implemented various innovative policies to give better opportunities to the youth in Mexico, including an initiative called Jovenes con Porvenir (Youth with a Bright Future). 

The conference will also bring together police chiefs from Brazil and the U.S. to share their experiences and insights on grassroots implementation of initiatives designed to reduce violence. General Commander of Operations, Coronel Paulo Henrique, from the military police of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Chief Eric Jones from Stockton, CA will be speaking on a panel titled, “’Pacification’ Strategies and Policing” on day two of the conference. Tony Farrar, chief of police for the city of Rialto, CA will be joined by Robert Chapman, deputy director of Community Policing Advancement and others to present on police accountability and gang violence in the U.S shortly thereafter.  

The conference will build upon a PovGov research project that is focused on the Brazilian military police in Rio de Janeiro. Targeting an important initiative in the city's favelas, the "Pacifying Police Units", the ongoing project investigates the use of lethal force by the police and reforms aimed at controlling violence.

A number of conference sessions will be led by CDDRL faculty members and affiliates, including: FSI Director Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar; Francis Fukuyama, the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow; FSI senior fellow and CDDRL affiliated faculty member Alberto Díaz-Cayeros; and former President of Peru and CDDRL Visiting Lecturer Alejandro Toledo. A conference report will be made available following the event.

Sessions will be held at Stanford University's Bechtel Conference room in Encina Hall on Monday, April 28 and the Alumni Center on Tuesday, April 29.  All sessions are free and open to the public. Please RSVP here to attend. A complete agenda can be found here.

For conference updates via Twitter please visit #PovGov

In June 2013, Beatriz Magaloni, associate professor of political science and director of the Program on Poverty and Governance (PovGov) at the Freeman Spogli Institute’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law led the Stanford Bing Overseas Studies Program (BOSP) to Brazil. The three-week seminar entitled, “Rio de Janeiro: A Cultural and Political Social History,” drew 15 outstanding and diverse Stanford undergraduate students eager to experience life in Latin America’s largest country. The trip allowed the group to learn more about the political and social factors that have transformed - and continue to shape - life in economically marginalized sections of Rio.

Despite recent efforts to fight poverty and accelerate income redistribution, Brazil suffers from high levels of income inequality. In Rio, one of Latin America's largest cities, the results of this inequality are even more profound. There are roughly 763 favelas – urban slums- in Rio that are home to approximately 1.5 million people. The local government has tolerated, but never incorporated favelas into the formal city, leaving residents to organize public services such as electricity, running water or garbage collection in their neighborhoods. As a result of the virtual absence of the state, favelas have long been notoriously violent areas and breeding ground for criminal organizations, specially drug trafficking.

Students at Rocinha, with Paulo Amendoim, their local guide, showed them the highlights of the neighborhood including food, dance and pipa (kite flying).

In 2008, the state of Rio de Janeiro embarked on an unprecedented effort to take back the territories in favelas controlled by criminal organizations ahead of the upcoming World Cup and Summer Olympics, as well as securing favela citizens’ rights to freely move across their own communities. The Pacifying Police Units (UPPs) is at the center of the policy, with 24-hour patrolling and community policing every day. UPP officers focus on breaking down negative police stereotypes by working closely with the population – teaching classes, coaching sport teams, hosting events and organizing forums where community members can express their needs and concerns. The “pacification” process has already involved 31 favelas, with 70 more to come by the 2016 deadline.

Aligned with the ongoing research being carried out by Magaloni and her team at PovGov, the goal of the BOSP seminar in Rio was to introduce students to this important development and analyze how it has impacted the complex social dynamics found within the city. The students explored some of the implications to favela residents in terms of security, local governance, the preservation and dissemination of culture, as well as prospects for economic and social development in “pacified” territories.

The in-country seminar included an introduction to the Portuguese language and cultural activities, including field trips and lectures by experts on a variety of fields including: criminal violence, public security, local history and culture, social entrepreneurship, local governance and public policy. Speakers that participated in the program included: representatives of non-profit organizations such as Viva Rio and the Observatory of Favelas; officials from the Military State Police, including former UPP Commander Colonel Paulo Henrique; as well as university professors from Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro and Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, including criminal violence expert and director of the Laboratory for the Analysis of Violence, Dr. Ignacio Cano.

In order to provide students with a more inclusive perspective of the pacification process on the ground, the PovGov team - working alongside local guides and community leaders - planned visits to the “pacified” favelas of Rocinha, Complexo do Alemão and Morro Dona Marta. During these visits the students had the chance to visit the UPP headquarters, talk to the UPP captain, and participate in a community work initiative with Coral Tintas - one of Brazil’s largest paint manufacturing companies committed to improving favelas by providing free paint for locals to renew the facades of houses and buildings. The students also visited the BOPE headquarters, Rio’s elite squad police unit, and Jongo da Serrinha, an NGO that seeks to preserve the tradition of Jongo - a style of music and dance - through a children’s daycare and education center. Additional day-trips and sightseeing tours included: the Rio Art Museum, the Imperial Museum of History, as well as many of Rio’s famous beaches.

According to student participant Marilyn Travis ('16), “Going to Brazil this summer was the trip of a lifetime. We were very lucky to have gifted faculty and staff who worked hard to put together such a rich program. This opportunity has literally shifted my frame of mind on many issues I was previously naive about. I have gained a more global perspective and had the opportunity to contemplate the affects of mega events on marginalized people.”

To view images from the trip please click here.  

About the Program on Poverty and Governance

The Program on Poverty and Governance at CDDRL explores factors that affect good governance and poverty alleviation in Latin America, with a focus on Brazil and Mexico. Led by Beatriz Magaloni, associate professor of political science at Stanford University, the program conducts empirical research, bringing together experts from across the disciplines of political science, economics, law, medicine and education to increase understanding of the complex causal linkages between political institutions, the quality of governance, and the capacity of developing societies to meet basic human needs. One of the research platforms, “Governance and Criminal Violence,” studies ways to rebuild the social fabric in violent places where the society does not trust law enforcement and government institutions, with the Pacification of favelas of Rio as a case study.

Access to life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical treatments is a nagging problem for millions of Latin Americans. In several countries of the region, judicial actions for the protection of basic rights have proved to be instrumental for gaining access to such goods. Brazil and Colombia are, allegedly, the two Latin American countries with the largest number of right to health cases. Everaldo Lamprea suggests that dismantling right to health litigation in order to reduce public costs--as was recently proposed by the Colombian government-- would be a catastrophic event for many Colombians, trapped in a heavily privatized and deregulated health system where many life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical treatments are out of the reach of most pockets. Lamprea will suggest that a more reasonable governmental reaction should include an analysis of the role played in the current health-sector crisis by global actors such as International Financial Institutions and BigPharma companies