Community policing has become the go-to security strategy in the Americas. But as the case of the Rio de Janeiro's "pacification" policing experiment shows, its impact has been limited and short-lived. The UPP program was once welcomed by many in the marginalized favelas as a radical change from the traditionally heavy-handed and militarized policing approach reserved for the city's impoverished areas. Security gains proved short-lived. By 2015, homicides were again on the rise. Impunity toward police abuses and extrajudicial killings -- which was singled out in Rio -- constitutes a challenge to normative changes within institutions. (See also: Rio is burning, the first UPP was literally set on fire | Why police reforms rarely succeed: Lessons from Latin America)