Brazil community policing program to be downsized
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Brazil's public security minister says that a Rio de Janeiro community policing program created to wrest control of the city's slums from armed gangs and drug traffickers will be downsized because it has failed to meet its objective.
Raul Jungmann said Friday that half of the 38 Police Pacification Units will be shut down.
He said the units failed because they did not expand in a way the state government could afford and were not accompanied by social programs to improve health, education and other community services.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The program started in 2008 and at first succeeded in reducing gang-related violence and murders in Rio's slums. But over the past few years investments in the program have dwindled and the gangs have reoccupied their turfs.