This report sets out to show that by failing to address the long-term public security needs of all sectors of Brazilian society, as part of a broad governmental strategy to combat violence, successive governments have allowed for the institutionalization of policing based on human rights violations and corruption. That in itself has contributed to levels of crime and violence while reinforcing and perpetuating patterns of social discrimination and exclusion. The document looks at a history of violence and discrimination; ‘criminalizing poverty’; corruption; massacre in the Baixada Fluminense; judicial failings; fighting for human rights; government policy; and concludes with recommendations.