Police and Society in Brazil by Riccio Vicente Skogan Wesley G

Author:Riccio, Vicente,Skogan, Wesley G.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

But shifting control of Operation Mandacaru to the NADS also resulted in pushback by the Federal Police. They argued that, with their more efficient use of resources, in operations costing 85,000 reais (44 thousand dollars), they had eradicated more plants using fewer agents. The NADS alleged in return that the Federal Police had also received funding from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for purchasing equipment and reimbursing other police agencies (Isto é 1999). In Operation Mandacaru, the NADS did not have American support.

The plan had been that following Operation Mandacaru, responsibility for plantation eradication would pass to the state of Pernambuco. The federal government did transfer equipment and money to the state, but the Federal Police continued to take the lead in drug eradication campaigns, and they continue to do so until this day. They claimed that the NADS did not actually have the powers of the police, and that coordination of eradication actions by this “civilian” secretariat would be unconstitutional. The ensuing controversy led to the fall of several Justice Ministers, and it was finally resolved by a decree of the president limiting the powers of NADS. NADS lost its police-like roles and retreated from coordinating and directing direct eradication operations. In 2011, it was folded into the Justice Ministry and given a policy-advising role in support of actions by other agencies in drug use prevention. The Federal Police continues to coordinate significant eradication operations around four times a year, still coinciding with harvest times. Control of operations in the São Francisco Valley have been decentralized to a local branch of the Federal Police in the region, rather than being centralized in Brasilia.

Most recently, it appears that continued enforcement efforts have changed the character of the drug business there. Important gangs have been broken up, and the size of plantations has gone down, with a reduced quantity of cannabis now being grown in many but smaller operations. An officer we interviewed in the area reported that enforcement operations have become more effective when they are guided by satellite photographs, which identify in advance the location of farms. Enforcement has pushed production from the mainland bordering the São Francisco River out onto islands in the river itself, where smaller plantations are to be found. In compensation, producers have been employing more fertilizer in order to enhance their harvests.

Police officer: Today, few plantations are encountered on “the continent” (on the riverbank). And another thing which is also interesting is that the farms have diminished in size. They prefer to plant a small farm here, plant another smaller one there. It is difficult to find a plantation of forty thousand plants, which we had already considered to be a big farm. This year we only managed to find one big farm, of more than forty thousand plants. You asked me how the calculation is made. What happens generally is that in each hole (we call them holes), they plant from 3 to 4 plants of marijuana, right? Previously we made the following calculation, 3 marijuana plants generates about 1 kilo of marijuana at the time.

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