The Senate of Brazil has given its approval this Tuesday, with no votes against, to a proposed constitutional amendment (PEC) on Public Security that rearranges how the security forces operate, granting greater prominence to the federal government in this area and leaving out of the debate the option of lowering the age of criminal responsibility, which continues to be set at 18 years.
The initiative, the approval of which has been communicated by the chamber itself through its social media, establishes the creation of a Unified Public Security System (SUSP) and a stricter prison regime for the heads and members of the so-called "factions"—criminal organizations such as Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) or Comando Vermelho (Red Command)—as well as for paramilitary groups and militias.
With 73 votes in favor in the first round and 75 in the second, and with no senator speaking out against it, the full chamber has moved ahead, according to the news agency Brasil, on a PEC that only required 49 endorsements to be approved. Now only its formal promulgation by Congress is left, after it has already cleared the process in the Chamber of Deputies.
Among the most relevant changes is the rollout of the SUSP, a new organizational model that enshrines in the Constitution that public security must be developed "within a framework of federative cooperation" and "through integrated and decentralized action" by the different institutions with powers in the matter.
"Public security agencies will be coordinated under a system of federal cooperation, through the Unified Public Security System, designed to ensure the effectiveness of prevention, prosecution, and criminal execution," the text of the PEC states.
The reform also includes the possibility of establishing municipal police forces of a civil nature, subject to the external oversight of the Attorney General's Office and tasked with visible surveillance and community-oriented work in the urban areas within their jurisdiction. In addition, it expands the powers of the Federal Highway Police, opens the door to the creation of new municipal police forces, and provides for an increase in the item in the public budget allocated to public security.