This week was supposed to be a step forward for Brazil: Resolution 310—a crucial resolution requiring that prosecutors lead investigations into police killings and that those investigations comply with international standards—was scheduled to take effect.
Instead, the resolution is on ice.
After years of advocacy by Human Rights Watch and other organizations, the National Council of the Offices of the Prosecutors approved the resolution in 2025, the deadliest year on record for police violence, with 6,588 killings. Among them were 117 young men who died in a low-income neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro on October 28, 2025. Five police officers were also killed in that raid.
Prosecutors were supposed to comply with Resolution 310 from May 7, 2026. However, the council has postponed full implementation for a year to give Prosecutors’ Offices around the country more time to prepare. Officials will have to present implementation plans to the council’s commission on public security within the next two months.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights and Brazil’s Supreme Court have established that prosecutors should lead investigations into killings by police; Resolution 310 details how this should be done. It requires that prosecutors ensure that the chain of custody for evidence and the crime scene be preserved and that forensic analysis is conducted independently. It also grants victims’ families access to updated information about the investigations.
Associations of civil police officers in Brazil oppose prosecutors leading investigations into police abuse, claiming that it is their role. But their record is abysmal. Human Rights Watch has documented scores of investigations in Brazil with very serious shortcomings, such as lack of crime scene analysis and failure to question all police officers involved in a killing and to interview non-police eyewitnesses.
Brazil needs to end public security policies that lead to shootouts and adopt effective policing practices that dismantle criminal organizations and protect the public and the officers themselves. A key measure to accomplish that is to carry out independent investigations into police abuses.
Prosecutors around the country should implement Resolution 310 without delay. The public deserves to know the circumstance of every killing by police. Those who violate the law need to be held accountable, even if they are wearing a uniform.
