A Typification of the Organized Crime Weapons Traffic and Its Relations With the Rio De Janeiro State Security System

The repercussions of violence in Rio de Janeiro are visible and known, but studies on the nature of this violence are still few. Most of these studies focused on social and political-historical conditioners considered the impact of social and development structures on the conflict and violence degrees (Shyne 2010; Misse 2007). In addition to studies associated with violence as a result of the social instability of Rio de Janeiro, it is also essential to observe the organizational aspects of crime, concerning the logistics chains and suppliers, mainly because this is an aspect that is necessary for the maintenance of profitability and stability of the system of the illicit economy.Thus, Rio de Janeiro ceases to be only a consumer and becomes a supplier of other types of crime, offering an essential group of weapons to various organizations and groups focused, for example, on the theft of cargo vehicles, among others. There is no doubt that the state of violence in this state of the federation is primarily associated with the possession of high caliber weapons by criminal organizations and their members. That part of the territory also suffers from the precarious care of citizens by the institutions because of the limitations that the areas occupied by criminal factions provoke, from the possession of high lethal power weaponry.In this context, this policy brief presents the context of crime in Rio de Janeiro, which deals with a large volume of weaponry of high lethality, and the objectives outlined for the typification of weapons in the illegal economy of Rio de Janeiro. The Rio de Janeiro case may offer insights to other phenomena where gun traffic is a function of other types of crime. The case study (Yin 1997; Masud 2018) is the method chosen to detect the seizure experience of DESARME police station to give conditions to observe a more general phenomenon that illustrates the field of arms trafficking, its components, and, finally, the results for public security. Thus, from the case study of the work of the DESARME civil police station in the first two years of its stablishing by the government of Rio de Janeiro, between 2017 and 2018, we detect the purchasing preference model that is in progress, the most relevant variables that characterize the subsystem of arms trafficking, the origins, and possible viable routes to feed this system of illegality. Thus, the inductive method benefits this study from original interviews and databases are organized according to research interests, from primary data provided by the public security system of Rio de Janeiro. The interviews used in this study were conducted individually, as well as the questions are mainly assembled according to the area of specialty and experience of the interviewees. There were eight interview respondents between agents (inspectors) of DESARME, the specialized police station stablished for few years, and inspectors linked to the purchasing and seizure control systems. In addition, a questionnaire was sent to a group of high-level officials of the Rio de Janeiro Public Security Secretary (extinguished in 2019), which sought to detect impressions about the weapons system of organized crime, as well as its relationship with that of the police. As for the primary data, some are those produced by the Institute of Public Security or from DESARME, which is the focus of this work. The weapons and military mean that matter to the study is those used in combat, especially the weapons and ammunition used, of operational solid appeal. The variables considered are those as follows: the origin of the armament in terms of company and country, the routes and volume of material, and the repercussions on the other types of crimes. Finally, this study seeks to give visibility to certain elements and analyses that are limited, contributing with insights also derived from unpublished data.