Death Certificates in Paraná Will Now Identify Deaths in Police Actions
A new rule from the CNJ also allows updating old records.
The death certificates issued by the Civil Registry offices of Paraná and all over Brazil will identify the cases in which the death occurred during or as a result of interventions of public safety bodies. The change was approved by the National Council of Justice (CNJ) and seeks to increase the transparency of official records.
The new regulation also opens the possibility for family members to request the update of old certificates that do not provide information on the circumstances of the death.
The decision comes in the face of high rates of deaths in police interventions in the country. According to data from the 20th Brazilian Yearbook of Public Security, Brazil recorded 6,602 deaths resulting from police actions in 2025, the equivalent of approximately 18 deaths per day.
What changes in death certificates?
Until then, the documents of people who died during police interventions usually presented only the clinical cause of death, such as injuries caused by gunfire, without clarifying the context of the occurrence.
Under the new standard, notaries should follow standardized procedures to include additional information on the circumstances of the death, provided that the necessary documentation is presented.
In this way, a certificate that previously recorded only death from gun injuries can also inform that the case happened during an intervention of public security agents.
The additional information does not change or replace the medical cause of death, but complements the document to offer greater accuracy on the circumstances of death.
Terms like "self-resistance" are banned
Another important change is related to the language used in official records.
The CNJ has established a standardized text to identify these occurrences:
"Unnatural, violent, or death as a result of or in the context of intervention by a public security agency, in accordance with the title presented."
The regulation also stipulates that expressions such as "self-resistance", "resistance followed by death" and "confrontation" are not used in the records and certifications covered by the new rule.
The measure seeks to avoid terms that can convey anticipated interpretations of the circumstances of deaths, especially when investigations are still ongoing.
Families can update old documents
The regulation also includes relatives of people who died in police interventions before the standard was approved.
In such cases, it will be possible to request the inclusion of the circumstances of death in the already existing records, upon presentation of the required documents.
The initiative represents a change in the way Brazilian notaries register deaths related to the performance of security forces, allowing official documents to present more complete information.
In addition to benefiting family members, standardization may contribute to the organization of public data and to the monitoring of deaths related to interventions by security agencies in Brazil.
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