Jair Bolsonaro will not defeat crime in Brazil by tolerating militias

JAIR BOLSONARO, Brazil’s president, was elected last year on a promise to rid his country of a trio of plagues: economic stagnation, corruption and sickening violence. For residents of Rio de Janeiro, the last of these is most urgent. The number of murders in Rio state reached 40 per 100,000 in 2017, 14 times the rate in New York state. The government felt compelled to send in the army, temporarily, to quell the mayhem. Much of the city and its favelas are controlled by organised criminals, who are difficult to prosecute because residents are terrified to testify against them. Mr Bolsonaro is well aware of this. He was a seven-term federal congressman for the state of Rio de Janeiro and has deep personal ties to the city. Yet his prescription for fighting crime in Rio and places like it is clueless (see article).