In northeastern Brazil, the government of the state of Paraíba is committed to Community Policing.

“We’re making arrests in the most violent areas in order to be able to occupy these locations and allow Community Policing to come in and do its job,” says Cláudio Lima, the secretary of public safety and social defense in Paraíba.

Community Policing will be an essential part of the fight against narco-trafficking, Lima says.

“João Pessoa [capital of Paraíba] is a major city with several pockets of poverty, where there’s widespread occurrence of small and medium-scale drug trafficking, which we’re going to vigorously combat,” Lima says.

Paraíba ranks third with the most firearm-related homicides among Brazil’s 27 states, according to a survey published by the National Federation of Municipalities on May 5.

Of the total number of homicides in Paraíba, 80.5% were committed with firearms, trailing only the states of Alagoas (83.5%) and Bahia (81.3%).

The government of Paraíba wants to turn these figures around by establishing pacifying police forces within its communities.

“We’re going to implement Community Policing in more neighborhoods throughout the year,” Lima says. “But we can’t specify exactly how many, because we first want to ensure that the foundation has been securely established, particularly in Mandacaru, before we open new fronts.”

The goal is to train 450 police officers in Community Policing by the end of October, bringing the total of law enforcement agents stationed in the João Pessoa metropolitan area to more than 1,000.

“We want to spread this philosophy, demonstrating both the importance and the need for this new practice, because community policing can be more effective in recognizing the problems of the community and its residents,” says Col. Marcos Alexandre de Oliveira Lima Sobreira, the state’s coordinator of Community Policing. (Read more)

By Andre Soliani

April 4 (Bloomberg) — Brazil’s central bank will take the necessary steps to ensure inflation will slow to its 4.5 percent central target over the course of 2012, a government official familiar with monetary policy strategy said.

Policy makers in Latin America’s biggest economy will also attempt to bring 2011 inflation as close as possible to the midpoint of its target, said the official, who asked not to be named because he isn’t authorized to discuss the issues publicly. (Read more)