The government plans of Brazil's two leading presidential candidates both put public safety high on the agenda, and they point in opposite directions. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party (PT) bets on continuing his administration's policies, with emphasis on oversight of police activity. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party (PL) concentrates his proposals on harsher punishment: lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 16, tighter rules on sentence progression and chemical castration for people convicted of sex crimes. The comparison of the two programs comes from the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo.
Lula bets on control and management
His plan proposes expanding the use of police body cameras and setting national standards for how the footage is used, stored and preserved, according to Record News. "We will stimulate the strengthening of internal and external control mechanisms over police activity," the document says. For young offenders, the program prioritizes violence prevention, community mediation and restorative justice, and does not propose lowering the criminal age.
It also includes institutional changes: a new Ministry of Public Security and a National Pact on Penal Enforcement to Fight Organized Crime. "We will keep supporting states to implement national standards for management, monitoring and modernization of state penitentiaries," the plan says. Folha also lists closer integration of security forces, the financial strangulation of organized crime and gun control as pillars of the program.
Flávio Bolsonaro proposes harsher penalties
His plan calls for lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16 and harsher punishment for people over 14 who commit serious crimes such as rape, drug trafficking, torture and murder, Folha reports. The program does not detail how the change would work. It also promises 500,000 new prison places and tighter rules on sentence progression. At a campaign event in Rio de Janeiro on August 22, Flávio spoke of taking criminals "out of circulation, standing or lying down," according to CNN Brasil.
Surveillance has a central role in his program: a project called "Muralha Brasileira" (Brazilian Wall), with more than 1 million cameras and a national facial recognition system linked to criminal databases, plus five new maximum-security federal prisons, Record News reports. The model draws on Smart Sampa, run by the city of São Paulo, and on the Muralha Paulista program of Governor Tarcísio de Freitas. The lower criminal age, however, faces a constitutional barrier: the 18-year limit is written into Brazil's 1988 Constitution and can only change through a PEC, a constitutional amendment approved by Congress.
Neither program details costs, targets or implementation, and several promises depend on legislation in Congress, Folha reports. A Datafolha poll released on September 3 shows Lula with 38% of first-round voting intentions against 33% for Flávio. The first round of the presidential election is scheduled for October 4.