RESEARCH PROJECTS

IN PROGRESS

  • Support for capital punishment in Latin America
    Responsibles: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL) / Hassan Tajalli (Texas State University) / William DeSoto (Texas State University)
    Status: In progress (2020-2023);
    Funding:
    Description:  The aim of this project is to analyze the determinants of support for the death penalty in Latin America and its consequences on security policies. Much research has accumulated about this issue in the USA. However, this question has received less attention in other national contexts. We will assess both individual and contextual variables identified in the literature as important to explain support for the death penalty. Multilevel models will be estimated with data from the Americas Barometer (2018/19) and World Values Survey Wave 7 (2017/20) public opinion surveys. This investigation will help us better understand how citizens in Latin America view criminal offenders. We anticipate that Latin American countries that tend to have highly punitive citizens will also have poorer human rights records. The project is being conducted through a cooperation between researchers from Londrina State University/Brazil and Texas State University/USA.

    When the Military Police go to School: an impact evaluation of the “Escola Segura” program in the cities of Londrina and Maringá/Brazil
    Responsible: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: In progress (2020-2023)
    Funding:
    Description: School violence is a worldwide phenomenon that affects a significant number of people. This issue has led the creation of a variety of initiatives and preventive programs, whose impact have been under evaluated in Brazil in comparison with international literature. In May 2019, the government of Paraná state started implementing the Escola Segura program (School Safety) with the intention of improving the subjective security and inhibiting crimes within and around schools. The program consists of hiring military policy officers retired to work permanently in schools. The aim of this research is to evaluate the impact of Escola Segura in the cities of Londrina and Maringá through the quasi-experimental method of Differences in Differences. More specifically, the project wants to show what impact the program causes (i) in the subjective security, drug use, graffiti, theft and robbery, verbal aggression, physical fights and assaults related to students and teachers inside and without schools; (ii) in the official records of crimes and offenses within and around schools; (iii) in the disciplinary records of students maintained by schools; and (iv) number of members of the school community sued in court.

    Networks that protect, networks that kill
    Responsible: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: In progress (2019-2023)
    Funding:
    Description: This project initiates a program of systematic investigation within the Brazilian Social Sciences using Social Network Analysis (SNA) to understand bright networks of security delivery and dark networks of homicides committed by gang members. The project will carry out two case studies. The first will take place in the largest port complex in Latin America, Port of Santos, Brazil, to understand the internal dynamics and structural properties of the security network that operates in this environment, with special attention to the role played by state and non-state actors within the network. The second will analyze the characteristics of the network of gang homicides in the northern region of Cambé, a Brazilian city which, between 2004 and 2006, occupied second position in the national rank of juvenile homicides in municipalities with more than 70 thousand inhabitants. The aim of this case study is to understand the “gang effect” (Papachristos, 2009) on the dynamics of homicides registered in the city between 1991 and 2018.

  • Networks that Kill: A Study on the Structure of Gang Homicides in Cambé, PR, Brazil
    Responsible: Anderson Alexandre Ferreira (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: In progress (2019-2023)
    Funding:

    Description: This research aims to understand the homicide networks in the municipality of Cambé/PR, Brazil, which since 2001 has shown a considerable growth in homicide crime numbers. Through the Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology, coupled with the continuity of ethnographic studies already carried out, we seek to analyze and understand the processes of violent sociability of young people organized in armed groups and intertwined in a multitude of conflicts and rivalries whose outcome was death.  The study seeks to evaluate the hypothesis that most of the 357 homicides recorded between 2001-2006 come from the so-called “gang wars”.

    A study about youths, criminalization and opportunity structures in the city of Londrina, PR, Brazil
    Responsible: Franceline Priscila Gusmão (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: In progress (2019-2023)
    Funding:
    Description: This research studies the opportunity structures of young people (15-29 years) living in poor areas of the Londrina city, Brazil. The work aims to analyze how young people access and move their channels of opportunity in order to find out if broadening their ties beyond their neighborhood contributes to distancing them from the “world of crime” or if relationships restricted to the neighborhood help bring them closer to this instance. Poor young people from different regions of the city and students from different institutions will be researched – public schools; a philanthropic institution for job qualification; a socio-educational institution; and the young inmates students of the Londrina State University.

  • Security governance in the rural area: a comparative study of crime control actions carried out by small and medium rural producers in the municipality of Ibiporã (PR)
    Responsible: Luan Carlos Nalin (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: in progress (2017-2019)
    Funding:
    DescriptionThis research aims to analyze how the security governance of small and medium size farmers is execute. It seeks to answer the following questions: How is crime experienced and prevented among farmers? What are the mentalities, technologies, institutions and practices used to govern the rural areas? What are the convergences and divergences of governance performed by small and medium producers? The questions will be answered through analysis of journalistic media from 2017 to 2019 and interviews with residents and workers of the rural area of the municipality of Ibiporã/PR, Brazil.

    Governance networks of security: a case study over the organizational network of crime control in Port of Santos
    Responsible: Gabriel Antônio Cabeça Patriarca (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: in progress (2018-2020)
    Funding: CAPES (scholarship)
    Description: The expansion on the private security sector is one of the most visible faces of what is understood as a pluralization of policing and as a displacement of government to governance of security, which was strictly linked to State activities through the police. The theoretical approach over the theme has emphasized the growing importance of the concept of network for the comprehension of the relations between state and non-state actors that develop this governance. This research aims to analyze the relational and structural properties of the governance network of security through a case study on the main port complex of Latin America, the Port of Santos. Considering the responsible organizations for the authorization and/or the execution of security tasks on the port, the nodes compose networks, which are the internal features of these state and non-state nodes? By which mean they establish and characterize the bonds between nodes and net internal dynamics? How these features interact which the macro and micro levels of its structures, considering the position of nodes internally and the properties of these networks as a whole? Adopting procedures of mixed methods, these questions will be answered through content analysis and social network analysis, to be collected through qualitative data stemmed from semi-structured interviews with the managers of these organizations. The identification and selection of these managers will be done through intentional sampling with key-information and the snow ball technique. The main hypothesis of this research is that these networks are anchored by the State.

    Community governance of security in Londrina, Brazil: a study of the Vizinho Solidário project.
    Responsible: Fabricio Silva Lima (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: in progress (2017-2019)
    Funding:
    Description: Neighborhood watches are community surveillance programs implemented in the USA in the 1970s and in England in the following decade. These programs were conceived as government initiative projects aimed at reducing crime rates. However, the results have raised doubts about the success of neighborhood surveillance. There are in Brazil initiatives of neighborhood watches, that exist in Londrina for more than a decade with the name of Vizinho Solidário. This research aims to analyze the implementation and the characteristics of the Vizinho Solidário project in Londrina. The main questions are: 1) was there any difference in the conception of the community surveillance project in Londrina against the USA and British experiences? 2) What are the mentalities, technologies, resources and institutional structures involved in the existing project in Londrina? These questions will be answered in the light of the theoretical framework of nodal governance proposed by Clifford Shearing et al.

    The Military Police Strike of the Espirito Santo state (2017): consequences to public security
    Responsible: Herbert Bachett (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: in progress (2018-2020)
    Funding: CAPES (scholarship)
    Description: The strike of the Military Police of Espírito Santo state in 2017 brought the debate about the effectiveness and the role of the police in containing crime and maintaining public order. The objective of this research is to analyze the consequences for the local public security of the collective mobilization of the Military Police of Espírito Santo. Taking the strike as a natural experiment, we try to answer the following questions: how did the absence of ostensible public policing affect the security in the region of Greater Vitória? What causal mechanisms connect the absence of policing and the seemingly generated insecurity at that juncture? The hypothesis is that the strike represented a “Hobbesian” experience of the central role of the police in maintaining public order both in the objective scope (criminal records) and in the subjective (sense of security).

  • When the Military Police go to school: impact assessment of the School Safety program in the city of Londrina.
    Responsible: Rafael Gonçalves Roberto Rossato (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: In progress (2019)
    Funding: without funding
    Description: In May 2019, the Paraná State government launched the “Safe School” program to promote the security of the school community. The program consists of hiring reserve military police officers to work permanently in schools – two police officers per school, one for each shift. Three locations were chosen to participate in the pilot project: the metropolitan region of Curitiba, Foz do Iguaçu and Londrina. This research project aims to evaluate if the “Safe School” is able to increase the sense of security and reduce the violence present in schools in the city of Londrina. It is intended to contribute to the discussion on the quality of public seceurity policies formulated and implemented in Brazil, as well as to promote security in schools in Paraná from evidence-based public policies.

    Strategies for political action by the Brazilian arms industry: a study on lobbying and campaign finance:
    Responsible: Graziele de Jesus Pestana (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: In progress (2019)
    Funding: without funding
    Description: Brazil has one of the most important Arms Industries on the planet, ranking 4th in the world ranking of arms exports between 2001 and 2012. However, little is known about its forms of political action. The purpose of this research is to understand how Brazil’s Arms Industry operates through two civil organizations representing its interests: ANIAM and ABIMDE.

  • An analysis of power relations in the field of security: the interactions between vigilantes and police at the revolving doors of bank branches.
    Responsible: Luan Carlos Nalin
    Orientation: Cleber da Silva Lopes
    Status: In progress (2018-2019)
    Funding: Araucária Foundation (scholarship)
    Description: The objective of this research is to understand how interactions occur between private security guards and police officers in a specific context: the revolving doors of bank branches. Based on Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of “field” and “capital” and “capital securitization” proposed by Tessa Diphoorn and Erella Grassiani, interviews will be conducted and legal proceedings will be conducted on conflicts between private security guards and police officers at the revolving doors of banks in order to understand power relations and disputes in the security field.

    Policing Nightlife: How Pubs and Nightclubs View and Treat Illicit Drug Use in Their Establishments.
    Responsible: Luiz Fernando Ferreira Paz
    Orientation: Cleber da Silva Lopes
    Situation: In progress (2019-2020)
    Financier: CNPq (scholarship)
    Description: Research on the governance of illicit drug markets is primarily focused on analyzing the role of state actors in this process. The way non-state actors such as owners, porters and security guards of adult entertainment spaces participate in the governance of illicit drug markets has been largely ignored in the literature. The aim of this research is to investigate how pubs and nightclubs in Londrina downtown area govern the use of illicit drug in its interior.From the theoretical perspective of nodal governance, the research seeks to know which mentalities, technologies, institutions and practices are present inside Londrina bars and nightclubs and how they guide the way these spaces see and treat illicit drug users.

FINISHED

  • The powers of private security in Brazil
    Responsible: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: Finished (2015-2017);
    Funding: CNPq (Grant 459514/2014-8)
    Description: We spend part of our lives in spaces that are policed by private security guards – workplaces, gated communities, transportation terminals, entertainment areas, shopping malls, etc. Knowing the characteristics of the security guards’ powers that police our lives is important. The objective of this research was to analyze the origin, foundations and limits of the security guards’ powers to question, use physical force, arrest, deny from entries, execute ejections and search citizens in Brazil.
    Results: see here

  • The Security Spetacle in Folia Kingdom: patterns of body expressiveness, security networks and and crowd policing practices at Salvador Carnival
    Responsible: Pedro de Oliveira (UFBA)
    Supervision: Eduardo Paes-Machado (UFBA)
    Status: finished (2014-2019)
    Funding: CNPq (scholarship)
    Description: The study sought to understand the role of formal and informal security networks and policing in maintaining festive public order in the Salvador Carnival crowd. The research demonstrated that Carnival multitudes are not disorderly or shapeless agglomerations of revelers. On the contrary, they are groups structured according to the common purpose of taking advantage of festive, recreational, and predatory opportunities. The maintenance of public order is not restricted to state policing practices of crowd control and management. The preservation of the festive order is accomplished by plural networks that include revelers, artists, and carnival bloco guards. The risk management undertaken by these plural actors aims at countering the rise in tension, distrust, and violence resulting from the repressive practices of state policing. The study concludes that the festive public order of Carnival multitudes is established by the supremacy of revelers who aim at enjoying festive opportunities.

    Violence in School: study on vitimization and Security practices in three state colleges of Salvador
    Responsible: Angela Cristina Guimarães Santos (UFBA).
    Supervision: Ceci Vilar Noronha e Eduardo Paes-Machado (UFBA)
    Status: finished (2014-2018).
    Funding:
    Description: The present research approaches students’ actions and perceptions regarding peer violence, as well as the safety practices implemented by school agents in order to minimize acts of intentional violence. For collective health, interpersonal violence in different settings are a relevant issue in the conformation of the critical epidemiological framework regarding morbidity and mortality due to external causes. The theoretical contribution to victimization, nodal governance, and in particular the complex dimensions of security projects (Valverde, 2014) grounded this study. This investigation assumed a descriptive and analytical character of the case study type, covering three peripheral colleges of the capital.
    Results: see here

  • The political action of the private security sector in Brazil
    Responsible: Caio Cardoso de Moraes (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: finished (2016-2018)
    Funding: CAPES (scholarship)
    Description: From the late 1980s, the institutional arrangement in Brazil underwent major transformations that changed the relationship between the State and Society. However, there is a gap in the literature on these new patterns of relationship between social sectors and the State. This work intends to contribute to fill this gap by studying a sector that gained robustness in Brazil in the 1990s: the private security sector. The main objective of the research is to describe and analyze the interests and strategies of representation of the private security sector’s interests in the construction of a new regulatory policy for the sector, called the Private Security Statute. The analysis shows that the demand for a new regulatory policy seeks to expand private security activities and combat clandestinity, one of the main problems faced by the Brazilian private security sector. The aim is to increase the legitimacy of the segment as a security provider and, consequently, to contribute to its growth.

    The Dynamics of Homicide in the Northern Region of the city of Cambé/PR.
    Responsible: Anderson Alexandre Ferreira (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: Finished (2016-2018)
    Funding: Fundação Araucária (scholarship)
    Description: The municipality of Cambé, north of Parana state, stood out in the national scenario and was ranked second in the index of deaths by homicide among the Juvenile population (15 to 29 years) between 2004 and 2006. How did this happen? How to explain the growth of homicides among young people in this city? This work aims to contribute to the clarification of this issue through a qualitative study with police officers, residents, victims and victims of the northern area of the municipality of Cambé, considered the most violent region of the city. We support the hypothesis that the main explanation for the high rate of victimization among the youngsters of Cambé are the conflicts that arise among the “bancas”, groups of approximately thirty young people connected to a multiplicity of disputes risen from various origins.

    Youngsters and crime: an analysis of the legitimacy attributed by youngsters in conflict with the law about the world of crime.
    Responsible: Franceline Priscila Gusmão (UEL).
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: Finished (2015-2017)
    Funding:
    Description: This research seeks to analises the meaning attributed by youngsters in “conflict with the law” from Londrina (PR, Brazil) about the “world of crime”. The work explores how these youngsters define trust, recognition and accept the rules by this normative instance named “world of crime”.
    Results: see here

  • Non-state actors in maritime security governance
    Responsible: Gabriel Antonio Cabeça Patriarca (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: finished (2017-2018)
    Funding:
    Description: The provision of anti-piracy services is one chapter in the literature devoted to the study of Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs). Shipowners, shipping industry associations and specialized agencies of international organizations, until recently, held positions against the armed protection of civilian vessels, reflecting a division of tasks that resulted in the disarmament of these vessels and the state’s responsibility for security in the maritime domain for at least a century and a half. However, the resurgence of piracy and armed robbery against ships promoted the provision of armed protection services by PMSCs and led to changes in positions that were previously contrary to this practice. This work presents a review of the specialized literature with the purpose of exploring these new positions. More specifically, the work explores the changes in the positioning of some of the leading associations of the shipping industry, such as the International Chamber of Shipping, Baltic and International Maritime Council and International Group of Protection and Indemnity Clubs; of the world’s largest marine insurance Market, Lloyd’s of London; of the International Maritime Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations; and of the flag and coastal states, with regard to the armed protection of merchant ships by PMSCs.
    Results: see here

    Police Strike in state of Espírito Santo, Brazil. Analyzing the importance of police in containing crime and keeping public order.
    Responsible: Herbert Bachett
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes
    Status: Finished (2017-2018)
    Funding:
    Description: The Police strikes that took place in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil, in 2017 provoked a relevant public debate regarding the role and responsibility of the police in containing crime and keeping the public order. This work discusses the foundations, consequences and effects of this strike movement for public security. Considering the strike as a crucial event, the overall objective of this research is to analyze the importance of the police in containing crime and keeping public order in Brazilian society.

  • Police and media: A literature review on the influence of the police on public safety coverage in the media.
    Responsable: Carla Campos Avanzi (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: Finished (2017-2018)
    Funding:
    Description: The dynamics of news reports often bring the unilateral view of the agent who provides the information. The relationship of trust between the journalist and the police officer who provides the data of the event becomes increasingly tied, greatly altering the way the news are transmitted, impelling public opinion to certain currents of thought, and culminating in significant social consequences. However, despite the wide bibliography on the relationship between the media and the criminal system, there is still little research that analyzes the influence of the police on media coverage. This study aims to compare international and national studies on the subject, analyzing relevant bibliographies in order to better identify the research agenda on this relationship in Brazil.
    Results: see here

    Penitentiary policies and privatization: the processes of privatization of the Brazilian penitentiary units
    Responsable: Mayara Yuri Morelato (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: Finished (2017-2018)
    Financiador: sem financiamento
    Description: Overcrowding, gangs, break outs, unhealthy conditions, underprepared staff and clandestine commerce are some of the problems of the Brazilian penitentiary system, a constant target of international human rights violation reports. This research analyses the partnerships between State and the private sector for the administration of penitentiary units. The objective is understanding the sociopolitical conditions in which the private sector began the participation in the managing of Brazilian penitentiary system to find out if there is any relation between privatization of prisons, political party ideology and the magnitude of crise in the system. When did the privatization process begin in the Brazilian states? What were the justifications for the beginning of this process? Is there any relation between privatization and effective crises in the prison system? These questions are answered with data about the political context and prison conditions of all Brazilian states, as well as a case study more detailed about the Paraná state..
    Results: see here

    Interests representation in the Brazilian Legislative: the case of attempts to revoke the Disarmament Statute (Federal Law n. 10826/2003)
    Responsable: Graziele de Jesus Pestana (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: Finished (2016-2017)
    Funding: Fundação Araucária (scholarship)
    Description: Recently the attempts to change the Disarmament Statute (Federal Law n. 10826/2003) have returned to the public security discussion in Brazil. In 2012 the bill number 3722/2012 was presented to revoke the current Gun Control Law. This bill has brought to the forefront a group that has been popularly known by “Bancada da Bala”, an informal parliamentary group that work in the 55th Legislature of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. This work evaluates the performance of this parliamentary group. We carried out an analysis on the electoral financing campaign of the Brazilian arms companies Forjas Taurus S. A. and CBC for some congressmen that integrate the Bancada da Bala.
    Results: see here

    The opinion of students of Law, Social Service, Engineering and Architecture and Urbanism courses from the State University of Londrina about illegal punishment against taggers
    Responsable: Amanda Vitoria Lopes Moreira Da Silva (UEL)
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: Finished (2016-2017)
    Funding:
    Description: Tagging is a current social phenomenon in urban cities. The act of tagging is very controversial for the state and the society. Beyond the legal scope, tagging has caused some illegal repression actions from city residents, private security and police force. A survey was performed with 314 students from Social Service, Law, Engineering and Architecture and Urbanism courses from the State University of Londrina. This paper aims to analyze the opinion of these students about illegal actions against taggers. To what extent do the students support illegal actions against taggers? What would explain this support? This paper aims to answer these questions and test three hypothesis: (1) students who have already been victims of tagging or whose relatives have experienced similar situations present a higher probability to express greater support for illegal punishment acts for taggers compared to students who have never been victims or whose relatives haven’t either; (2) non-religious students tend to express greater support for illegal punishment than religious students; and (3) because of their education based on planning, construction and preservation of the public space, students from Engineering and Architecture and Urbanism courses, tend to express more support for illegal actions of punishment than the students from Law and Social Service courses, due to their humanistic education.
    Results: see here

    The Control of Private Security by the Judiciary: a study about the performance of TJPR and TJSP through civil lawsuits
    Responsable: Gabriel Antonio Cabeça Patriarca
    Supervision: Cleber da Silva Lopes (UEL)
    Status: Finished (2015-2016)
    Funding: CNPq (scholarship).
    Description: Brazil is one of the countries with more employees on the private security sector than in the police forces. However, few empirical researches have been conducted upon this vast contingent of professionals engaged in policing activities. The purpose of this work is to contribute with this literature, through an empirical study about the control performed by civil courts from the Justice Court of Paraná (TJPR) and the Justice Court of São Paulo (TJSP) about private security companies. Through quantitative analysis from a sample of judgments collected from online repositories of these Courts, issues were addressed such as the predominance of civil convictions; the amount of indemnities; the relation between the first and second instance decisions; the elapsed time between the fact that generated the opening of the judicial process and the judgment on second instance; and using of jurisprudence on the subject.
    Results: see here.