Lula on security: "Maybe it was a mistake to give all power to the States"

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) assessed that the distribution of responsibility for public security among the states was "possibly" a mistake. In an interview with Programa Sem Censura, on TV Brasil, this Friday (22), Lula said that the decision defined in the 1988 Constitution ended up not defining the role of the federal government in the topic.

"Me and [Geraldo] Alckmin were constituents in 88 and why did we take everything from the federal government and pass it on to the states? Because, in the military regime, it was always a general who was in charge of public security in the states, so we no longer wanted the military to have any interference in the figure over the states. We started giving all the power to the state government. Was it a mistake? Possibly it was, because we didn't define in the Constitution of 88 what the role of the federal government was in security of the states", declared the president.

The attribution of states and the federal government in public security has been the subject of debate, mainly with the PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) that reformulates the current system, which has already been approved in the Chamber of Deputies and awaits analysis by senators.

For the government, the agenda has been one of the flags for combating crime in the country. The PEC is seen as a response to the population, which has shown great concern about the issue, as recent research shows.

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Source: CNN