ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the challenge of public security policy for the government of President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva (2023–present) in the context of recent history. It first reviews the changing trajectory of crime and violence, as well as police and public security policy, during Lula's first two terms as president (2003–10). It then analyses the transformation that Brazil went through after the 2013 protests and the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, including the liberalisation of controls over – and the proliferation of – gun ownership and the encouragement of police violence during the Bolsonaro administration (2019–22). In the third section, the chapter examines the agenda the third Lula administration (2023–present) brought to the government and how it was largely eclipsed in importance by a relatively new threat: military and police personnel with affinities to hard-right insurrectionary social movements.
