Brazil's incoming justice minister Sergio Moro attends an anti-corruption event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil November 23, 2018. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

(Reuters) - Brazil’s incoming justice minister Sergio Moro said on Monday that he will create a secretariat to coordinate all security efforts by federal and state police forces to fight violent crime in the country that has more murders than any other.

Brazilian states have control over nearly all police forces in the country, and Moro underscored he would respect their sovereignty. But he said federal coordination was badly needed to improve street policing across Brazil and to tame the country’s prisons, which are under the control of drug gangs who recruit from the jails and where violent uprisings are rampant.