Criminal governance in times of crisis: Evidence from the COVID-19 outbreak in Rio de Janeiro

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dc.contributor.affiliationUniversity of Chicago
dc.contributor.affiliationFundacao Getulio Vargas
dc.contributor.affiliationUniversidad EAFIT
dc.contributor.authorLessing, Benjamin
dc.contributor.authorMonteiro, Joana
dc.contributor.authorTobón, Santiago
dc.coverage.spatialMedellín de: Lat: 06 15 00 N degrees minutes Lat: 6.2500 decimal degrees Long: 075 36 00 W degrees minutes Long: -75.6000 decimal degreeseng
dc.creator.emailblessing@uchicago.edu
dc.creator.emailjoana.monteiro@fgv.br
dc.creator.emailstobonz@eafit.edu.co
dc.date.accessioned2024-06-25T13:14:02Z
dc.date.available2024-06-25T13:14:02Z
dc.date.issued2024-01
dc.description.abstractIn urban peripheries worldwide, and especially in Latin America, criminal groups use coercive power to impose rules on and provide order to civilians. The reasons why gangs govern in particular ways, or at all, are poorly understood. Many charge taxes in exchange for governance provision—suggesting they act as stationary bandits— but some do not. Many control retail drug markets, but some also earn rents from licit goods and services like cooking gas and internet. During the COVID-19 crisis, anecdotes of gangs enforcing lockdowns and providing health-related public goods suggested they seized opportunities to consolidate their authority and perceived legitimacy. We present novel, systematic data on criminal governance practices in Rio de Janeiro, whose gangs are notoriously militarized, persistent, and—usefully, from our perspective—diverse. While many belong to prison-based drug syndicates, others are police-linked groups known as mil´ıcias. We surveyed residents from almost 200 favelas about local gangs’ type, economic and governance activities, taxation, and pandemic response. Contrary to expectations, we find that drug gangs and mil´ıcias alike earn rents from a range of licit products and services, enjoy similarly high levels of perceived legitimacy, and largely avoided involvement in pandemic response. Yet milicias are far more likely to tax, and seldom sell drugs. Our findings suggest that gangs’ core motives are economic rather than political, that they strategically distinguish between direct taxation and extracting monopoly rents from control over utilities.eng
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10784/34022
dc.language.isoengeng
dc.publisherUniversidad EAFITspa
dc.publisher.departmentEscuela de Economía y Finanzas. Centro Valor Públicospa
dc.rights.accessrightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesseng
dc.rights.localAcceso abiertospa
dc.subject.keywordcrimeeng
dc.subject.keywordorganized crimeeng
dc.subject.keywordcriminal governanceeng
dc.subject.keywordCOVID-19eng
dc.subject.keywordBrazileng
dc.titleCriminal governance in times of crisis: Evidence from the COVID-19 outbreak in Rio de Janeiroeng
dc.titleGobernanza criminal en tiempos de crisis: evidencia del brote de COVID-19 en Río de Janeirospa
dc.typeworkingPapereng
dc.typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/workingPapereng
dc.type.hasVersiondrafteng
dc.type.hasVersionVersión publicadaspa
dc.type.localDocumento de trabajo de investigaciónspa

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