Despite being a middle-income democracy, Brazil has a serious and apparently intractable problem with violent crime, with nearly 60,000 homicides, that is, 10% of the world's total. Its homicide rate is the 11 th highest, at 32 per 100,000 population (the world average is 6.7, and 3.8 in wealthy developed countries). This has steadily worsened since its return to democracy in the mid-1980s, and puts it out of step with a 16% drop in homicides globally over the last decade. Brazil's institutional responses have followed the same upward trajectory. In 2014 it had the fourth largest prison population in the world with 622,000 inmates, up 575% from 1990. Yet, the three countries above it have reversed their policies and decreases in their prison populations since 2008: the USA by 8%, China by 9% and Russia by 25%. High levels of incarceration in Brazil have not reduced crime and insecurity. On the contrary, overcrowding, appalling conditions of detention, inadequate legal counsel, and other human rights violations have prompted inmates to form selfdefensive syndicates and gangs, and use their control of the prison system as a base from which to direct organized crime in the wider community (Dias and Darke 2016). Ineffective law-and-order policies not only cause anxiety to the general population, but also pose a threat to democratic legitimacy and functioning. 1 Yet, in Brazil, and other Latin American countries that have transitioned from authoritarian rule or civil conflict, presidents have been ambivalent about investing political capital in security and justice sector reform, and found it difficult to enact their policy preferences (Macaulay 2012a). This article analyzes the governance tools available to three Brazilian presidents, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), and how successfully they used them to direct and enact policy to reduce crime, develop effective and accountable policing, and promote effective penal responses. It examines the common patterns, and the differences, in the ways that each approached their key roles as president: communicating with the public on the issues, using the agencies of the 1 A survey published by Datafolha in conjunction with the Brazilian Forum on Public Security, published in November 2016, showed that 76% of the population feared being murdered. Some 55% fear police violence and 70% think the police use excessive force (Fórum Brasileira de Segurança Pública 2016)