São Paulo Civil Police lost practically a third of its staff in 20 years. Today, the institution has around 10,000 fewer servants than it had in 2002. This means that the state currently has a greater number of officers dedicated to prison security than the group of civil police officers, responsible for investigating and solving crimes.
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Lowest Number of Officers Ever Recorded
According to data from the end of last year, in absolute numbers, the entire Civil Police has 26,350 police officers, which represents the lowest number of personnel in the history series, which began in 1991.
The Criminal Police has 29,241 civil servants, not counting the 3,292 employees in the administrative sectors. Added to the losses of the Military Police, whose staff is also the smallest in the century, the security forces responsible for preventing and investigating crimes in SP recorded a drop of 20,027 police officers since 2006 (from 126,725 to 106,698).
This staff is superior to the entire Federal Police, which currently has 15,136 professionals, according to the institution. This flattening of the Civil Police is revealed by numbers obtained via the Access to Information Law.
Our Analysis:
For the president of the Delegates Union, Jacqueline Valadares, the drop in staff is one of the problems faced by the Civil Police. The institution also suffers, according to her, from a lack of structure in the police units and, also, from low wages – one of the worst in the country. The high rates of violence in the state are a reflection of years without investment in security, especially in the Civil Police, which undermined the quality of investigation. It is necessary to start to see public security as an investment and not as a mere public expense. Lawyers claim that the disarming of the São Paulo Civil Police is historic, which interferes with the quality of the investigation. Consequently, this reflects on the work of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which, without sufficient elements, is obliged to ask for the archiving of investigations.
