Drug economy and security policies in Triângulo Mineiro:

crime control between wholesale and retail markets

Abstract

This article aims to elucidate four economic models present in the illicit drug market and its intersections and connections with Minas Gerais’ public security policies for the Triângulo Mineiro region. In 2003, the public security field in Minas Gerais went through a redefinition in the course of university researchers administration due to the creation of the Social Defense Secretariat (Secretaria de Defesa Social — SEDS). The crime control management has incorporated a violent criminality prevention segment, which had resulted in positive outcome in other Brazilian federative units and other countries. The Fica Vivo! program has become a model to be followed in pursuance of homicide rates reduction. It has been observed that localities in Belo Horizonte that hosted the program have perceived social effectiveness by reducing these types of occurrences by 47%. Thus, it is interpreted how the policies implemented by SEDS influenced the crime control management in upcountry cities far from the capital of Minas Gerais. How do managers and other agents of these programs, as well as local population segments perceive the constitution of the drug markets in the Triângulo Mineiro region? In this context, the first model of drug trafficking described was the political-business model. The research was based on the conclusive report from the Minas Gerais’ Narcotrafficking Parliamentary Inquiry Commission, which documented accusations against politicians, businessmen and public security officers. The second model was the caipira route, which revealed drug markets installed on farms via air transport, discovered by Federal Police operations and reported by the local press. The third was the peripheral model, which was located in poor neighborhoods and consisted of a market generally made up of young people networks that determine moral norms in the territory. The last model identified was the cultured model, which involves the middle and upper class artistic and intellectual academic population of the cities. The selected method was an ethnographic research developed between 2011 and 2015, and the material analyzed was extracted from interviews, the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission’s report on illegal drug trade and files from the local press. It is possible to conclude that the first two models of drug trafficking are associated with a wholesale economy regimented by middle and upper class liberal professionals; the third model mixes the wholesale and retail economy in peripheral neighborhoods with changes derived from the consolidation of the First Command of the Capital (Primeiro Comando da Capital — PCC); and the last model describes multiple retail markets within and around the Federal University of Uberlândia (Universidade Federal de Uberlândia — UFU), carried out by middle class students. In addition, we will see how the intersections between these markets have also become customary, creating zones of circularity. Lastly, it is noted that the state crime control managers and local police officers relate the perception of drug consumption and trafficking by local population segments only to the peripheral model’s operation. Furthermore, the mentioned social agents usually propagate the notion that drug consumption, drug trafficking and violent crimes are limited to the population living in territories called risk areas and criminality rings.