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This book by Renato Sérgio de Lima examines the challenges of implementing police reform at a time when rising crime rates and demands by citizens for quick-fix solutions give rise to hard-line emergency policies rather than fundamental institutional change to create effective and respectful policing. Demonstrating the importance of reliable research and measurement of factors affecting crime and recognizing important innovations in public safety -- the new emphasis on police management, the multi-causality of crime, the role of municipalities, and the participation of civil society, among others, -- the author nevertheless places these advances in the realistic context of institutional resistance working against reform in Brazil s criminal justice system. It is essential reading to understand one of the most complex problems facing Brazil and Latin America. Elizabeth Leeds

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Renato Lima is Ph.D. in Sociology by the University of SÆo Paulo and took his Post-Doctorate at the Institute of Economics at UNICAMP. He is currently the Secretary General of the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety and Editor of the Brazilian Journal on Public Safety. He was Head of Socioeconomic Studies of the State System of Data Analysis - SEADE.

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