In the two weeks since a man killed four children at a day care center in Brazil, authorities have arrested some 300 adults and children across the country on charges of spreading hate speech or encouraging violence in schools.
Little information has been revealed about the crackdown, which could amount to judicial abuse, but underscores that the country is determined to respond at the federal, state and municipal levels. The general push to quickly end the emerging trend of violence in schools contrasts with the gradualist approach applied in the United States, where such attacks have long been more frequent and deadly.
The Brazilian response takes into account the measures taken in the United States and their perceived shortcomings, said Renan Theodoro, a researcher at the Center for Studies on Violence at the University of Sao Paulo.
“We have learned from the successes and mistakes of other countries, particularly the United States,” Theodoro told The Associated Press.
Brazil has known about twenty attacks or violent episodes in schools since 2000, half of them in the last 12 months, including that of the nursery on April 5.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said the concept of schools as safe havens has been “ruined.” His government, which has sought advice from independent investigators, convened a meeting of ministers, mayors and Supreme Court judges this week to discuss possible solutions.
Some measures in force are consistent with those that have been applied for a long time in the United States, such as the creation of special telephone lines, the training of teaching and administrative personnel in security issues, federal funds for mental health, security equipment and infrastructure.
Other measures – such as the nationwide manhunt for suspected threatening suspects involving more than 3,400 police officers, or the new campaign to regulate social media – have not been implemented in the north.
The goal of the arrests is to assuage the fear of Brazilians, said Luis Flávio Sapori, a senior researcher at the Brazilian Forum on Public Security. “The priority is to reduce panic,” he said.
In the weeks since the daycare massacre, unconfirmed threats and rumors have circulated on social media, causing terror among students, teachers and parents.
Vanusia Silva Lima, 42, mother of a five-year-old boy, says, “I’m afraid to send my son to school. Not just me, my friends too, women I’ve met in the salon.”
Many Brazilian states anticipated the federal response. Sao Paulo, for example, temporarily hired 500 psychologists for its public schools and permanently hired 1,000 private security guards.
While in the United States massacres tend to provoke arguments, at the federal level they generally fall into an impasse. Democrats advocate gun control, Republicans for tightening security measures.
The campaign in Brazil has won broad support in part because the proposals have not included limiting access to guns, a topic of heated political debate here as in the United States. In addition, attacks in Brazil are often carried out with other weapons, especially knives.
Few laws are passed in the United States. One notable exception has been the bipartisan agreement reached last year following the massacre at a Texas elementary school and other deadly shootings. The law tightened background checks and rules that prevent domestic violence offenders from accessing guns, and allocated $1 billion for student mental health and school safety.
Other changes have been gradual since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. In almost all states, schools are required to approve security plans that include simulated armed attacks. Many school districts have their own hotlines, and some use computer programs to search for threats on social media, with mixed results.
Many states in the north have given funds to schools to equip buildings with metal detectors, security guards, armored doors and other measures, which has given rise to another debate, about police presence in schools.
In Brazil, lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the far-right ex-president who preceded Lula in office, was one of the few prominent voices to call for detectors and armed guards modeled on the American example and introduce a bill to make them mandatory in all schools.
Lula has said that his government will not allow detectors or inspections of the backpacks.
Sapori said that Brazil has adopted a method that combines an emphasis on mental health with preventive monitoring of threats and teacher training, in addition to a police presence.
“In Brazil we clearly understand, based on the US experience, that it is not enough to invest in armed security in schools, that a police presence in schools does not prevent attacks,” Sapori said. “It only serves to transform schools into prisons.”
For Brazil, the second most populous country in the Western Hemisphere, the search for quick solutions often creates the risk of abuses of power.
Regarding the suspects arrested for two weeks until Thursday, Theodoro noted that the authorities have not explained the criteria for the arrests, and the investigations are under judicial secrecy. Asked by the AP, the Justice Ministry refused to reveal how many of the 302 arrested were minors.
The ministry has authorized a national consumer agency to fine tech companies that fail to remove content that glorifies school massacres, encourages violence or makes threats.
Holding social media to account appears to be widely supported. In the meeting a few days ago in the capital, both Lula and the Minister of Justice, two Supreme Court judges and the President of the Senate supported the regulation of the platforms, arguing that speech that is illegal in real life cannot be legal online.
“If we don’t have the courage to discuss the difference between freedom of expression and stupidity, we won’t get very far,” Lula said.
The Coalition for Rights on the Net, which brings together 50 organizations promoting fundamental digital rights, has expressed concern about giving the government the power to decide what can be said on social networks.
Some social media platforms that initially resisted requests to delete content have ended up accepting them, removing or suspending more than 750 profiles in the previous 10 days, according to Justice Minister Flávio Dino.
When a man jumped over the wall of a day care center in Santa Catarina state and killed four children with an ax on April 5, prosecutors asked the media not to publish images or identify the killer because investigations show this may encourage to other bullies.
The large media conglomerate Grupo Globo announced that it will stop identifying or portraying the perpetrators of such crimes in its stations and publications. O Estado de S. Paulo, one of the newspapers with the largest circulation in Brazil, adopted the same measure, as did CNN Brasil and Band.
The United States has not seen a similar shift in the media, although some have begun to be parsimonious in naming the perpetrators and focusing on the stories of the victims, largely at the request of their relatives. Some organizations have stopped publishing portraits of the attackers, as usual.
The events in Brazil are reminiscent of a surge of federal support in the United States for school safety after the Columbine massacre, said Ken Trump, president of Ohio-based consultancy National School Safety Services.
“Since then, it has become much more irregular,” he said.
The success of the campaign in Brazil will depend on the ability to maintain momentum when public opinion stops paying attention to school violence, he added.
“The crucial question is, will it be sustainable?”
