Squeezed between the ocean and the mountains of Rio de Janeiro are beautiful, well-kept areas that are known throughout the world. They provide a spectacle of sandy beaches, deep-blue ocean waters, and impressive condominium complexes with carefully maintained garden plots and unforgettable views. These are the everyday delights for the wealthy residents of Barra da Tijuca, Botafogo, Copacabana, Gávea, Ipanema, Jardim Botânico, Lagoa, Laranjeiras, Leblon, Leme, and Urca, who live in the so-called bairros nobres (noble districts) of the Zona Sul (Southern Zone). The residents include some of the richest people in the world. Their children go to state-of-the-art private...

The strength of the favelas lies in their history of development by way of themselves. Because they are largely self-sufficient, they historically have placed almost no burden on the state, which, until recent decades, has been mostly absent or, at times, hostile. Since the rise of drug gangs in the 1980s, the state has not fulfilled its responsibility to provide security in the favelas, leaving them at the mercy of trafficking gangs, intimidating militias, or violent police. Despite this, the favelas continue to grow, and people are not moving out of them. For various reasons, they have become an optimal...

We visited a school in an area of great conflict. This interview was conducted with several teachers on the condition that we would not identify them. They feared retaliation by state educational authorities, the police, other government authorities, members of the local militia, and even drug dealers active in the region. We wish to make clear that this school is not within the Alemão complex; it is in an entirely different community. Because of our commitment to the safety of those who provided testimony, and their families, however, we have made it a point to disguise the locality and all...

Jaqueline Felix is a young photographer and a graduate of the School of Popular Photographers, a project of Imagens do Povo of the NGO Observatório de Favelas in Rio de Janeiro. In this interview, she tells the story of her life growing up happily in the New Holland favela in the Maré complex and of her work in theater performance and as a photographer, which took her out of the favela to other areas of Brazil. She also tells the dramatic story of trying to get to a maternity hospital to give birth to her son during early-morning hours when...

Carlinhos Costa is a community leader who was born and raised in Rocinha, in the Zona Sul. It is the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro and one of the largest in Latin America. He describes how Rocinha has changed and provides perspective on the rise of gangsterism in Rio de Janeiro during his lifetime.

Question:Tell us about your life in Rocinha.

Carlinhos:I was born in Rocinha. I was born of one mother and raised by another. At the time I was born, my biological mother had tuberculosis. She distributed her children to friends and to neighbors to...

Ensuring human rights and, at the same time, providing efficient policing has become one of the most difficult challenges Brazilian authorities face. Democracy was restored to Brazil in 1985 after twenty-one years of military dictatorship, with a coinciding increase in crime and violence in Rio de Janeiro. The emergence of a robust illegal economy in drug trafficking and an arms race between drug gangs and the police brought on the violence. Police were sent to attack drug gangs in the favelas, which unleashed a civil war in metropolitan Rio de Janeiro. This background and the low salaries of the police...

José Mariano Beltrame became secretary of public security in January 2007. He is a member of the Federal Police and was recommended to Governor Sérgio Cabral for the position by the Brazilian federal government. Beltrame, like Governor Cabral, has been a defender of the policy of confrontation, which in practice leads to confronting drug trafficker groups directly in densely crowded favelas. For critics, this means the police often come in shooting and kill and wound innocent people. While Beltrame does not deny the violence and mistakes of police, he has argued that these actions are necessary so that crime and...

Luis Inácio Lula da Silva was born into a poor family in the backlands of the Brazilian northeast in 1945. The region was known for periodic and devastating droughts, and Lula has often spoken about how, as a child, he watched a favorite goat die of thirst in his arms. At seven, he migrated with his family to São Paulo, making the journey in the open cargo area of a truck. He learned to read at ten. Lula worked as a machinist in São Paulo and emerged as a trade-union leader and public figure at a time when industrial workers...