Public safety, one of the areas that most concerns Brazilian voters, is experiencing a central contradiction: while state institutions remain trapped in 20th-century operational models, crime continues to advance and evolve in the 21st century. Public safety organizations remain fragmented, and problems that Brazil failed to resolve in the last century persist: low investigative capacity, poorly integrated police forces, an overcrowded prison system, and territories where the State does not fully exercise its authority. On the other hand, organized crime is expanding its borders, moving beyond purely territorial and prison-based operations to act in legal markets, the financial system, and the digital environment. Factions now combine the use of military technologies, such as explosive-laden drones in urban clashes in Rio de Janeiro, with widespread digital fraud and financial scams.
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Technological Evolution and Criminal Tactics
Organized crime today operates in both the physical territory and the virtual environment, combining warfare tactics, infiltration into the legal economy, and a variety of financial frauds. An internal survey by the Civil Police (PC), based on incident reports, identified at least 17 attacks using drone equipment since last year. Although most drone attacks are related to disputes between rival factions, the technology has also been used against security forces. Drug trafficking has incorporated technology into the battle for territorial control, using it to monitor police movements, transport weapons, and drop explosives. Furthermore, data from the Institute of Public Security (Instituto de Segurança Pública – ISP) reveals that fraud is the second most recorded crime in the state of Rio de Janeiro, averaging one case every three minutes (113,068 cases in 2026). The data shows that scam-related crimes are just a few numbers away from surpassing total thefts, the most recorded offense in the state since the tracking series began in 2003.
State Inefficiency and Fragmentation
Experts point to the lack of an integrated public safety system: public safety institutions still dispute authority and share very little information. According to the president of the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety (Forum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública), the creation of the Unified Public Safety System (Sistema Único de Segurança Pública – SUSP) in 2018 did not produce the expected transformation. According to the research director at the Igarapé Institute, there is a struggle for prominence among police forces, and full-cycle police officers operating across both street patrolling and investigations do not exist. There is an excessive focus on street confrontations to the detriment of financial and technological intelligence. According to the executive director of the Sou da Paz Institute, there is investigative incapacity and a clear need for modernization within the Civil Police.
Human Cost and Social Lack of Protection
These failures have severe impacts. For example, despite improvements in solving homicides, rates across states remain highly unequal. This investigative insufficiency also leaves crimes allegedly committed by the State itself unanswered, such as collateral victims of police interventions. Regarding firearms, the National Arms System (Sistema Nacional de Armas – Sinarm) has seen a 240% increase in active registrations since 2018. At the same time, in 2025, police seized 5.4% more weapons than in 2024. However, seizure data does not allow for an accurate estimation of the illegal market’s size. The prison system is another long-standing debt that reaches the next election unresolved. Overcrowding and control of facilities by organized crime factions coexist with low institutional capacity to reduce criminal recidivism. Violence against women adds another layer to Brazil’s public safety challenges: the difficulty of getting information where it needs to go. There are cases where protective measures and reports were not enough to stop extreme violence.
Sources: Folha de SP.
