Sam Novacich and I have a piece at ISN in which we take a closer look at one of Rio’s Pacifying Police Units (UPP) in the Cantagalo/Pavão-Pavãozinho communities and document some of the challenges the community members and UPP are facing with the new game in town.
In addition to looking into some of the lesser-reported impacts of the UPP actions on community residents, we also wanted to show how some of the problems with the UPP programs can be applied to regional security challenges for the entire hemisphere – namely that arrests don’t guarantee safety for all, that these arrests do not necessarily weaken criminal networks, that criminal groups are involved in more than just drug trafficking, and that success cannot be measured by numbers alone.
The entire article can be found over at the ISN.