Brazil: New Bill Seeks to Equate Criminal Faction Crimes with Terrorism, Proposing Harsher Penalties

Federal Deputy Guilherme Derrite Proposes Stricter Measures Against Organized Crime

Federal Deputy Guilherme Derrite (PP-SP), currently on leave from his role as Secretary of Public Security of São Paulo, has introduced a substitute bill in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies that aims to equate crimes committed by criminal factions, militias, and paramilitary groups to terrorism. This legislative initiative, rebatized as the 'Legal Framework for Combating Organized Crime,' seeks to implement significantly harsher penalties for such offenses.

The proposal, which Derrite is rapporteur for, builds upon an original bill (PL 1.283/2025) authored by Deputy Danilo Forte (União-CE). It gained momentum amid a recent security crisis in Rio de Janeiro and follows the federal government's initial reluctance to classify criminal organizations as terrorist groups.

Equating Crimes, Not Organizations, to Terrorism

The core of Derrite's substitute bill is to extend the provisions of the existing Anti-Terrorism Law (Law No. 13.260, 2016) to criminal organizations, effectively transforming it into an 'anti-mafia law.' While the bill equates the *crimes* and their legal treatment to terrorism, it carefully avoids strictly classifying the criminal organizations themselves as terrorist groups in the traditional sense. This distinction is crucial to circumvent potential international implications, such as economic sanctions, that could arise from a direct classification.

The current Anti-Terrorism Law typically requires crimes to be motivated by ideological, political, xenophobic, discriminatory, or prejudice-based reasons to be categorized as terrorism. Derrite's new text, however, aims to typify crimes regardless of their underlying motivations, focusing instead on the social and political effects of the actions, which he argues are equivalent to acts of terrorism.

Proposed Harsher Penalties and Legal Ramifications

The substitute bill introduces several stringent measures:

• Increased Prison Sentences: Penalties for crimes committed by these groups would range from 20 to 40 years, a significant increase from the current Anti-Terrorism Law's provision of 15 to 30 years.
• Stricter Regime Progression: The bill toughens rules for regime progression, aiming to ensure that prisoners 'really comply with the determined sentence' by requiring them to serve up to 85% of their total sentence.
• Cumulative Penalties: It proposes the cumulative application of penalties for individuals involved in both carrying war weapons and drug trafficking.

Deputy Derrite has stated that confronting organized crime in Brazil requires 'legislation of war in times of peace,' emphasizing the need to financially suffocate criminal organizations, silence their leaders, seize illicit assets, discourage new members, and re-establish the state's monopoly on force.

Government Opposition and Legislative Status

The federal government has expressed reservations about the original bill, with Minister of Justice and Public Security Ricardo Lewandowski stating that 'one thing is terrorism, another thing are criminal factions.' Critics, including PT leader in the Chamber Lindbergh Farias, have labeled the initiative 'unconstitutional,' citing concerns about its broad scope and potential impact on the division of investigative competencies between state and federal authorities.

Despite these criticisms, the urgency for the proposal was approved in May 2025, and it is currently awaiting a vote in the plenary of the Chamber of Deputies.