Olympic Security: What’s Different About Protecting Rio

By Samantha R. McRoskey

January 2010

Security surrounding the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver surpasses any before it in size and scope, at $1 billion and a force 15,000 strong comprised of Canadian military, Vancouver police, U.S. security forces, and private contractors. And with the Games just weeks away, security officials are putting the finishing touches on an effort that will guard the city by air, land, and sea. Despite its monumental scale, what is most different about security at these Olympic games is the approach. Keeping a low profile amid the crowds, thousands of closed-circuit cameras and unmanned drones will be the eyes and ears of security officials.

Technology and surveillance have become the defensive weapons of choice in our current reality where the “worst possible threat,” as echoed by Vancouver Olympic Security coordinator Ward Elcock, would be a terrorist attack. In a city with concentrated or low overall crime, directing resources toward observation in hopes of thwarting a large-scale, isolated attack would seem to make sense. But this broad approach may be overlooking another important and deadly global threat: indiscriminate street violence.

Security for past Olympic Games has traditionally focused on containing threats during the Games with the goal of allowing events to run smoothly and security forces to maintain their invisibility. In a place with an authoritative approach to the law, like China, preparation to make Beijing look like a safe, thriving city happened far in advance and without much uproar. Communist Party leaders ensured that government dissidents, activists, migrants, and beggars were removed from sight, often by forced eviction and imprisonment.

This type of clamp-down on potential disruptors, however, would not work well in places where violence is not solely political, where root causes of violence are multiple and intertwined, and where violence is often random. Particularly, I am referring to the city that will host the 2016 Summer Olympics: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The city of Rio de Janeiro lies close to the coast, curving around a wide inlet and bordering white sand beaches. From north to south the city is surrounded by mountains; at night the coastline dances with light and behind it, set back against the mountain basins is the glow of the city’s favelas, or slums. Rio’s favelas have a homicide-by-gun rate of 240 per 100,000, comparable to a country in a full state of war. And non-fatal gun violence numbers are much greater. These numbers stand in stark contrast to Vancouver’s rate of gun-related offenses, both fatal and non-fatal, of 45.3 per 100,000.

Thus, while terrorism will always remain an imminent threat during symbolic and worldwide events like the Olympics, protecting civilians from violence should also involve proper precautions for unorganized and random violence.

Even more disconcerting in Rio is that this violence is not contained to the favelas. Violent crime rocks the streets and public transportation systems in Rio with disturbing frequency.  Moreover, homicide maps have shown that murders by firearms are clustered around areas where police stockpile and supposedly confiscate weapons. Yet there is a growing trend, whereby recently seized guns bear serial numbers that were already listed as being previously “confiscated” by police—pointing to police corruption as yet another dimension of violent crime.

Both the causes of violence and the shortcomings of attempted solutions in Rio demonstrate that the approach to security during the Olympic Games will have to go beyond technologically outsourced surveillance methods at the center of this year’s effort. Containing violence during the Olympics in Rio will require eliminating everyday violence, beyond the two weeks when the eyes of the world will be watching, by addressing the core motivations and not simply the weapons with which it is carried out. This means treating violence as a social problem rather than one of purely firearm control.

There are the obvious causes of violent crime in Rio’s slums and beyond, including drug trafficking, territorial disputes, and opposition to police. Newer to the scene are organized vigilante militias that seek to banish drug traffickers. They function much like a mafia, extorting local business owners and the informal market to finance salaries, and then offering protection. Not loyal to the police, gangs, or traffickers, these vigilantes have complicated efforts to rid the slums of violence.

Less obvious, but no less important, are the roles that poverty and family influence play in maintaining a culture of violence in the favelas. “There’s no way not to have contact [with guns],” testified a young child raised in one of Rio’s favelas. “Today it is normal. Today you even see kids with guns in their hands.”¹ With fewer opportunities—economic, educational, and vocational—children turn to what they know. And what they know is that their fathers, brothers, uncles, and cousins are engaged in violence and crime.

Up until now, most measures to address gun violence in Rio have been aimed at the guns themselves: reducing demand, reducing supply, and improving stockpile controls. Certainly, the 2003 Disarmament Statute has been partly effective in curbing gun-related deaths by tightening ownership controls, outlawing firearms to be held in public, and encouraging hundreds of thousands of voluntary gun handovers.

However, much less has been done to change gun culture. Addressing the problem by its means has not necessarily been effective. A lowered supply of official guns has been counteracted by a surge of clandestinely-made firearms, and many previously confiscated firearms make their way back to the illegal market. In 2006 Brazilian police shut down an illegal workshop that was making sub-machine guns in São Paulo that was likely operating under the direction of former military and gun-manufacturing personnel. Without simultaneously addressing the greater causes of violence—poverty, drugs, and lack of education—firearms will continue to be diverted to the illegal market.

Preparing for the Olympics in Rio should not be another strategy to bypass the complexities of slum-generated violence. Rather, it should capitalize on the time, resources, and skills of those who will become involved. There are three main dimensions that security and Olympic planners should keep in mind in order to prepare the city for the event and curb violence for the future. 1.) The city should enlist outside security forces to share in the strategic planning and deter corruption within Rio’s police force (a process that was recently initiated with the contracting of Rudy Giuliani’s security company); 2.) Rather than increase police raids, strategists should concentrate on non-violent means of curbing violence, using education, vocational training, and social spending to the benefit the youth of the favelas; 3.) Finally, planners should use the six-year time horizon to their advantage and, once they have a strategy in place, launch a full-scale effort as soon as possible.

With a time sensitive strategy and proper planning, Rio’s Olympic debut could unveil a new era in city safety.

Notes

¹ Dreyfus, Pablo, et. al. Small Arms in Rio de Janeiro: The Guns, the Buyback, and the Victims. Viva Rio Special Report. Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies: Geneva, 2008: 86.