Brazil's paramilitary problem expanding

Today's NYT covers the issue of militias in Brazil, an issue this blog has covered several times over the past few years. The militias are often made up of off-duty or former police officers who commit acts of extrajudicial executions against gangs and criminals that the authorities seem otherwise incapable of catching or prosecuting.

A few trends noted in the story as to how this problem is changing:

• The problem is moving outside of Rio, with militias now found in 11 states.
• Police who commit these crimes are now being punished, with hundreds removed from duty and a lower but still significant number prosecuted.
• One secondary effect of those prosecutions is that militia leaders are now growing, recruiting, planning and operating from Brazil's broken prison system.
• Once involved in criminal acts, the militias often move from attacking criminals to working with or protecting criminals. A number of cops linked to militias are also found to have taken bribes from drug traffickers and gangs.