Nev Usp
The Center for the Study of Violence of the University of São Paulo (NEV/USP) is one of the Research Support Centers of USP. Since 1987, NEV/USP has beendeveloping researches and training researchers having as one of its main features the interdisciplinary approach in discussing the relationships between violence, democracy and human rights.
The Center for the Study of Violence of the University of São Paulo (NEV/USP) is one of the Research Support Centers of USP. Since 1987, NEV/USP has been developing researches and training researchers having as one of its main features the interdisciplinary approach in discussing the relationships between violence, democracy and human rights.
Throughout its 20 years of existence, NEV/USP has developed a series of research projects and extension programs funded by the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the International Committee of the Red Cross, CNPq and FAPESP, and has also entered into agreements with UN agencies (WHO/PAHO, UNDP), European Union, and in Brazil, with the Ministries of Health and Justice and the Secretariat of Human Rights.
Currently NEV/USP is engaged in investigating what kind of democracy and governance is being developed in Brazil, especially considering the current context where: gross human rights violations persists; territories are dominated by the organized crime; the presence of corruption is systemic; homicide rates are still high; impunity is high; access to some civil rights is limited; the culture of human rights, supportive to the Rule of Law, is often absent.
To meet these challenges, the researches conducted by NEV/USP seek: to monitor both violations and policies and programs to promote human rights; to identify and understand continuities and changes in society and in the State on issues relating to democracy, violence and human rights, focusing particularly in which Rule of Law emerges from these relationships, what kind of transparency and responsiveness are being consolidated and how these factors affect the perception and public support for a democratic system and for the respect for human rights.
In October 2000, NEV/USP was awarded with FAPESP’s Special Program, becoming one of the ten Research, Innovation and Diffusion Centers (CEPID). As a CEPID, NEV/USP’s functions of research and intervention became more institutionalized, establishing to this end a line of action that puts together the vocation of scientific research center with the growing experience of intervention, whether in training human resources qualified to the professional work in judicial and promotion of human rights agencies, and in the formulation and implementation of public policies for human rights and violence decrease.
Since it is one of the Research Support Centers of USP and
participates in the project CEPID/FAPESP, NEV/USP was selected in 2011 to join the Research Incentive Program of the Dean of Research of USP. This is a supplementary financing program that seeks to strengthen competitive and highly specialized research groups which act synergistically and that form qualified human resources. To participate in this Research Incentive Program and aiming to broaden and deepen its researches, NEV/USP has established partnerships with the departments of Sociology, Anthropology and Classical and Vernacular Literature (Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences), Preventive Medicine (Medical School) and Philosophy and Theory of Law (Law School).
NEV/USP also hosts the National Institute of Science and Technology (INCT) Violence, Democracy and Citizen Security, coordinating a collaborative action between six national centers of excellence around a common agenda for research in the areas of violence, democracy, public safety and human rights, covering four of the five Brazilian macro-regions.
Coordinators:
Sérgio Adorno: PhD in Sociology, Professor of the Department of Sociology - University of São Paulo.
Nancy Cardia: PhD, London School of Economics and Political Science
Homepage: http://english.nevusp.org/
Address: São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
The Center for the Study of Violence of the University of São Paulo (NEV/USP) is one of the Research Support Centers of USP. Since 1987, NEV/USP has been developing researches and training researchers having as one of its main features the interdisciplinary approach in discussing the relationships between violence, democracy and human rights.
Throughout its 20 years of existence, NEV/USP has developed a series of research projects and extension programs funded by the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the International Committee of the Red Cross, CNPq and FAPESP, and has also entered into agreements with UN agencies (WHO/PAHO, UNDP), European Union, and in Brazil, with the Ministries of Health and Justice and the Secretariat of Human Rights.
Currently NEV/USP is engaged in investigating what kind of democracy and governance is being developed in Brazil, especially considering the current context where: gross human rights violations persists; territories are dominated by the organized crime; the presence of corruption is systemic; homicide rates are still high; impunity is high; access to some civil rights is limited; the culture of human rights, supportive to the Rule of Law, is often absent.
To meet these challenges, the researches conducted by NEV/USP seek: to monitor both violations and policies and programs to promote human rights; to identify and understand continuities and changes in society and in the State on issues relating to democracy, violence and human rights, focusing particularly in which Rule of Law emerges from these relationships, what kind of transparency and responsiveness are being consolidated and how these factors affect the perception and public support for a democratic system and for the respect for human rights.
In October 2000, NEV/USP was awarded with FAPESP’s Special Program, becoming one of the ten Research, Innovation and Diffusion Centers (CEPID). As a CEPID, NEV/USP’s functions of research and intervention became more institutionalized, establishing to this end a line of action that puts together the vocation of scientific research center with the growing experience of intervention, whether in training human resources qualified to the professional work in judicial and promotion of human rights agencies, and in the formulation and implementation of public policies for human rights and violence decrease.
Since it is one of the Research Support Centers of USP and
participates in the project CEPID/FAPESP, NEV/USP was selected in 2011 to join the Research Incentive Program of the Dean of Research of USP. This is a supplementary financing program that seeks to strengthen competitive and highly specialized research groups which act synergistically and that form qualified human resources. To participate in this Research Incentive Program and aiming to broaden and deepen its researches, NEV/USP has established partnerships with the departments of Sociology, Anthropology and Classical and Vernacular Literature (Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences), Preventive Medicine (Medical School) and Philosophy and Theory of Law (Law School).
NEV/USP also hosts the National Institute of Science and Technology (INCT) Violence, Democracy and Citizen Security, coordinating a collaborative action between six national centers of excellence around a common agenda for research in the areas of violence, democracy, public safety and human rights, covering four of the five Brazilian macro-regions.
Coordinators:
Sérgio Adorno: PhD in Sociology, Professor of the Department of Sociology - University of São Paulo.
Nancy Cardia: PhD, London School of Economics and Political Science
Homepage: http://english.nevusp.org/
Address: São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
less
InterestsView All (18)
Uploads
Papers by Nev Usp
relationship between these violations and socioeconomic and demographic
indicators.
METHODS: Cross-sectional ecological study of 96 census districts of the
city of São Paulo (Southeastern Brazil) in the year 2000. The data used came
from the gross human rights violations database maintained by the Núcleo de
Estudos de Violência (Center for the Study of Violence) at the Universidade
de São Paulo. This database contains information on all the cases of summary
executions, lynching and police violence reported on the written press.
Socioeconomic and demographic data were obtained from the 2000 Census
carried out by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografi a e Estatística (Brazilian
Institute of Geography and Statistics). A descriptive analysis of the data
was carried out, and the association between the dependent variable – gross
human rights violations (number of police violence victims, lynching episodes
and summary executions) –, and different socioeconomic and demographic
variables was tested. In order to test this association the Spearman’s correlation
test was used.
RESULTS: The correlations between gross human rights violations and the
socioeconomic and demographic indicators were statistically signifi cant,
except for the urbanization rate and the hospital beds per 1000 inhabitants.
The strongest correlations were found between the dependent variable and the
following variables: size of the resident population (r=0,693), proportion of
youths aged from 15 to 24 years (r=0,621), and proportion of household heads
with no education or with up to 3 years of schooling (r=0,590).
CONCLUSIONS: Gross human rights violations more markedly occur in the
population with the worst living conditions. Therefore, in a scenario in which
inequality in attaining social and economic rights is directly superposed to the
violation of civil rights, the violence cycle is intensifi ed and perpetuated.
considerando o efeito de variáveis contextuais.
Métodos. Estudo ecológico de corte transversal considerando os 96 distritos censitários do
Município de São Paulo. A associação entre as variáveis foi determinada através de correlação
de Spearman e de análise de regressão linear simples e múltipla.
Resultados. Nas análises univariadas, encontramos associação forte e significativa entre os
coeficientes de mortalidade por homicídio e todos os indicadores de desenvolvimento socioeconômico
e violência policial. Após controle dos potenciais confundidores, a associação entre a
violência policial e os coeficientes de mortalidade por homicídio manteve-se forte e significativa.
Apenas com o controle para o tamanho da população residente a associação perdeu a significância
estatística.
Conclusão. Os resultados indicam que uma ação policial centrada na violação de direitos
humanos básicos não parece ser a resposta correta para o enfrentamento da violência urbana.
A combinação de homicídios que resultam de violência interpessoal com mortes por violência
policial representa uma situação de socialização negativa, favorecendo ainda mais violência.
This dissertation tests three causal models of lynch mob violence in an effort to better understand the social forces that lead to the rise and decline of this behavior. Specifically, I conduct a national case study of lynching in Brazil and focus upon three structural causal models of Latin American lynch mob violence: lynching as a result of economic frustration, lynching as a response to threats by the "dangerous classes" (racial groups, interstate immigrants, and the landless); and lynching as a form of "street justice." Using occurrence data systematically gathered by the University of São Paulo's Center for the Study of Violence (USP/NEV) on lynching in the state of São Paulo for the last two decades of the twentieth century, I use time series regression analysis to compare and test these explanations. Additionally, I make use of cases studies in order to further understand the nature of Brazilian lynchings on a micro-level.
All evidence taken together, the analyses suggest that lynching in Brazil is best characterized as street justice---a collective violent action by community members against alleged criminals or deviants under social circumstances where crime is epidemic and police-citizen relations are tenuous due to police corruption, violence against citizens, sweeps of poorer neighborhoods, a war-on-crime ideology, and police vigilantism-for-pay during the transition to democracy. In this setting, lynching is primarily reactive in nature, constrained by the availability of suspects apprehended by the mobs without regard to race or class.
In the final chapter I use the comparative method to juxtapose lynching in contemporary São Paulo (1980 to 2000) with lynching in the Postbellum U.S. South (1880-1930). This analysis reveals two necessary components for a society to be prone to large-scale use of lynching. First, for lynching to occur on a large scale, hegemony ideology in the society must depict certain groups as threats worthy of violence---blacks in the Postbellum U.S. South and a "criminal class" in contemporary São Paulo. Second, hegemony must characterize the law as lacking legitimacy in regards to these threat groups.
“What kind of democracy prospers in an environment where there is continued violation of human rights” and secondly “How can change take place so that ‘good’ democracy can develop?”
The importance of these issues is highlighted by the survival in Brazil of forms of violence that collide with the concept of rule of law, or that challenge the idea that democratic rule of law prevails in this country and protects most of the people against abuses from powerful groups whatever their source of power.
The most visible indicators of the fragility of the rule of law are the continuing: a) abusive use of lethal force by the police across the country ‐ extra‐judicial executions, b) executions by organized groups, c) lynching, and d) torture. Other indicators are the high level of impunity or conversely, the low visibility of efforts by the State to identify perpetrators, bring them to justice and punish them, which reinforces feelings that the laws are not universally applied. Such feelings are further strengthened by the disclosure of cases of corruption that again appear to go unpunished.
The specific questions we asked were: what kind of rule of law has emerged, what type of accountability and responsiveness, and how have these affected the public’s perceptions and support for a human rights regime? In addition we asked: have human rights become morally and legally binding behavioral norms, despite the people’s experience of growing urban violence? To answer these questions we proposed to carry out a series of integrated analyses of the data we had collected so far, and to continue to monitor human rights violations in order to identify what changes, and what does not, in society and in the state.
Depois de vinte e um anos de autoritarismo (1964-1985), a sociedade brasileira retornou à normalidade constitucional e ao governo civil. Resultado de um complexo e longo processo de transição - o mais moroso de todas as transições políticas contemporâneas; a reconstrução democrática acenou para substantivas mudanças que incidiram bem ou mal sobre a cultura e o comportamento políticos bem como sobre o funcionamento do Estado.
Como o conjunto de dados é muito extenso optou-se por um recorte e por apresentar apenas aqueles dados mais diretamente relacionados com os temas abrangidos pela publicação. O tratamento estatístico realizado tratou apenas de identificar se as diferenças de frequência eram ou não significantes através do uso da técnica de Quiquadrado de Pearson. Estes dados podem eventualmente sofrer tratamentos mais refinados em busca da identificação de relações de causalidade principalmente no que se refere a mudanças no tempo.
segurança dos cidadãos.
Além de monitorar o impacto que a contínua exposição à violência tem sobre a percepção, atitudes e valores, esta pesquisa pode auxiliar na identificação e desenvolvimento de programas de prevenção à violência e de campanhas educativas para minimizar os efeitos/riscos da violência, sensibilizar os encarregados da aplicação das leis para a percepção que a população tem do desempenho de suas instituições e o impacto desta percepção sobre a credibilidade delas, e apontar fatores, até então subestimados, na reprodução da violência. Os dados coletados podem também auxiliar na disseminação de temas presentes no Programa Nacional dos Direitos Humanos e na implementação de programas educacionais voltados aos direitos humanos.
Este survey foi originalmente aplicado em 1999, em 10 capitais de estados brasileiros (Porto Alegre, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Recife, Belém, Manaus, Porto Velho e Goiânia). Em 2010, foi aplicado em 11 capitais de estados brasileiros, o que permitiu que se traçassem comparações com os dados de 1999. Foram realizadas em 2010, 4025 entrevistas domiciliares com pessoas residentes nestas capitais, com 16 anos ou mais, selecionados segundo o perfil demográfico dos respectivos setores censitários. Para a seleção destes setores foi utilizada a técnica probabilística.
relationship between these violations and socioeconomic and demographic
indicators.
METHODS: Cross-sectional ecological study of 96 census districts of the
city of São Paulo (Southeastern Brazil) in the year 2000. The data used came
from the gross human rights violations database maintained by the Núcleo de
Estudos de Violência (Center for the Study of Violence) at the Universidade
de São Paulo. This database contains information on all the cases of summary
executions, lynching and police violence reported on the written press.
Socioeconomic and demographic data were obtained from the 2000 Census
carried out by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografi a e Estatística (Brazilian
Institute of Geography and Statistics). A descriptive analysis of the data
was carried out, and the association between the dependent variable – gross
human rights violations (number of police violence victims, lynching episodes
and summary executions) –, and different socioeconomic and demographic
variables was tested. In order to test this association the Spearman’s correlation
test was used.
RESULTS: The correlations between gross human rights violations and the
socioeconomic and demographic indicators were statistically signifi cant,
except for the urbanization rate and the hospital beds per 1000 inhabitants.
The strongest correlations were found between the dependent variable and the
following variables: size of the resident population (r=0,693), proportion of
youths aged from 15 to 24 years (r=0,621), and proportion of household heads
with no education or with up to 3 years of schooling (r=0,590).
CONCLUSIONS: Gross human rights violations more markedly occur in the
population with the worst living conditions. Therefore, in a scenario in which
inequality in attaining social and economic rights is directly superposed to the
violation of civil rights, the violence cycle is intensifi ed and perpetuated.
considerando o efeito de variáveis contextuais.
Métodos. Estudo ecológico de corte transversal considerando os 96 distritos censitários do
Município de São Paulo. A associação entre as variáveis foi determinada através de correlação
de Spearman e de análise de regressão linear simples e múltipla.
Resultados. Nas análises univariadas, encontramos associação forte e significativa entre os
coeficientes de mortalidade por homicídio e todos os indicadores de desenvolvimento socioeconômico
e violência policial. Após controle dos potenciais confundidores, a associação entre a
violência policial e os coeficientes de mortalidade por homicídio manteve-se forte e significativa.
Apenas com o controle para o tamanho da população residente a associação perdeu a significância
estatística.
Conclusão. Os resultados indicam que uma ação policial centrada na violação de direitos
humanos básicos não parece ser a resposta correta para o enfrentamento da violência urbana.
A combinação de homicídios que resultam de violência interpessoal com mortes por violência
policial representa uma situação de socialização negativa, favorecendo ainda mais violência.
This dissertation tests three causal models of lynch mob violence in an effort to better understand the social forces that lead to the rise and decline of this behavior. Specifically, I conduct a national case study of lynching in Brazil and focus upon three structural causal models of Latin American lynch mob violence: lynching as a result of economic frustration, lynching as a response to threats by the "dangerous classes" (racial groups, interstate immigrants, and the landless); and lynching as a form of "street justice." Using occurrence data systematically gathered by the University of São Paulo's Center for the Study of Violence (USP/NEV) on lynching in the state of São Paulo for the last two decades of the twentieth century, I use time series regression analysis to compare and test these explanations. Additionally, I make use of cases studies in order to further understand the nature of Brazilian lynchings on a micro-level.
All evidence taken together, the analyses suggest that lynching in Brazil is best characterized as street justice---a collective violent action by community members against alleged criminals or deviants under social circumstances where crime is epidemic and police-citizen relations are tenuous due to police corruption, violence against citizens, sweeps of poorer neighborhoods, a war-on-crime ideology, and police vigilantism-for-pay during the transition to democracy. In this setting, lynching is primarily reactive in nature, constrained by the availability of suspects apprehended by the mobs without regard to race or class.
In the final chapter I use the comparative method to juxtapose lynching in contemporary São Paulo (1980 to 2000) with lynching in the Postbellum U.S. South (1880-1930). This analysis reveals two necessary components for a society to be prone to large-scale use of lynching. First, for lynching to occur on a large scale, hegemony ideology in the society must depict certain groups as threats worthy of violence---blacks in the Postbellum U.S. South and a "criminal class" in contemporary São Paulo. Second, hegemony must characterize the law as lacking legitimacy in regards to these threat groups.
“What kind of democracy prospers in an environment where there is continued violation of human rights” and secondly “How can change take place so that ‘good’ democracy can develop?”
The importance of these issues is highlighted by the survival in Brazil of forms of violence that collide with the concept of rule of law, or that challenge the idea that democratic rule of law prevails in this country and protects most of the people against abuses from powerful groups whatever their source of power.
The most visible indicators of the fragility of the rule of law are the continuing: a) abusive use of lethal force by the police across the country ‐ extra‐judicial executions, b) executions by organized groups, c) lynching, and d) torture. Other indicators are the high level of impunity or conversely, the low visibility of efforts by the State to identify perpetrators, bring them to justice and punish them, which reinforces feelings that the laws are not universally applied. Such feelings are further strengthened by the disclosure of cases of corruption that again appear to go unpunished.
The specific questions we asked were: what kind of rule of law has emerged, what type of accountability and responsiveness, and how have these affected the public’s perceptions and support for a human rights regime? In addition we asked: have human rights become morally and legally binding behavioral norms, despite the people’s experience of growing urban violence? To answer these questions we proposed to carry out a series of integrated analyses of the data we had collected so far, and to continue to monitor human rights violations in order to identify what changes, and what does not, in society and in the state.
Depois de vinte e um anos de autoritarismo (1964-1985), a sociedade brasileira retornou à normalidade constitucional e ao governo civil. Resultado de um complexo e longo processo de transição - o mais moroso de todas as transições políticas contemporâneas; a reconstrução democrática acenou para substantivas mudanças que incidiram bem ou mal sobre a cultura e o comportamento políticos bem como sobre o funcionamento do Estado.
Como o conjunto de dados é muito extenso optou-se por um recorte e por apresentar apenas aqueles dados mais diretamente relacionados com os temas abrangidos pela publicação. O tratamento estatístico realizado tratou apenas de identificar se as diferenças de frequência eram ou não significantes através do uso da técnica de Quiquadrado de Pearson. Estes dados podem eventualmente sofrer tratamentos mais refinados em busca da identificação de relações de causalidade principalmente no que se refere a mudanças no tempo.
segurança dos cidadãos.
Além de monitorar o impacto que a contínua exposição à violência tem sobre a percepção, atitudes e valores, esta pesquisa pode auxiliar na identificação e desenvolvimento de programas de prevenção à violência e de campanhas educativas para minimizar os efeitos/riscos da violência, sensibilizar os encarregados da aplicação das leis para a percepção que a população tem do desempenho de suas instituições e o impacto desta percepção sobre a credibilidade delas, e apontar fatores, até então subestimados, na reprodução da violência. Os dados coletados podem também auxiliar na disseminação de temas presentes no Programa Nacional dos Direitos Humanos e na implementação de programas educacionais voltados aos direitos humanos.
Este survey foi originalmente aplicado em 1999, em 10 capitais de estados brasileiros (Porto Alegre, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Recife, Belém, Manaus, Porto Velho e Goiânia). Em 2010, foi aplicado em 11 capitais de estados brasileiros, o que permitiu que se traçassem comparações com os dados de 1999. Foram realizadas em 2010, 4025 entrevistas domiciliares com pessoas residentes nestas capitais, com 16 anos ou mais, selecionados segundo o perfil demográfico dos respectivos setores censitários. Para a seleção destes setores foi utilizada a técnica probabilística.