Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, translated by Judy Rein

In the following viewpoint, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro claims that democracy in Latin America has failed because not all citizens are equally protected from violence. According to Pinheiro, the Latin American poor are victimized by common crime and by police who use violence to protect the rich against the poor. He asserts that Latin American democratic states need to end the repressive tactics of the police and military. Pinheiro is director of the Center for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo in Brazil and a member of the editorial board of the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), an independent nonprofit organization that provides information on major trends in Latin America and its relations with the United States.

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