The document summarizes crime trends in Brazil from 1980 to present. It finds that: 1) Violent crime rates increased significantly since the 1980s, primarily in urban areas of the southeast region. 2) After 2000, crime rates declined in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo but increased in other cities, especially in the northeast. 3) More recently, crime has become "interiorized" spreading to medium-sized cities rather than being concentrated in capital cities.

1. Trick or Trends:
Crime and Violence in Brazil
Corinne Davis Rodrigues, Ph.D.
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

2. General Crime Trends in
Brazil
• Since the mid-1980’s, there has
been a significant increase in crime
in Brazil
• These increases have occurred
primarily in urban areas and in
violent as opposed to property
crime.
• The largest increases up to 2000
ocurred in the Southeast region,
especially in the cities of Sao Paulo
and Rio de Janeiro.

3. Total de homicídios para toda a população do Brasill
53.325
(Taxa 30,6)
14.435
(Taxa 12,2)
0
10.000
20.000
30.000
40.000
50.000
60.000
Ano 1980 Ano 2002
Númerodehomicídios

4. 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
15202530
Anos
TaxaTrends in Brazilian Homicide Rates – 1980 to 2000

5. 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
10152025303540
Anos
Taxa
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
10152025303540
Anos
Taxa
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
10152025303540
Anos
Taxa
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
10152025303540
Anos
Taxa
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
10152025303540
Anos
Taxa
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
10152025303540
Anos
Taxa
Brasil
Norte
Nordeste
Sudeste
Sul
Centro-Oeste
Trends in Brazilian Homicide Rates by Region
1980 to 2000

6. Recent Crime Trends in Brazil
• However, after 2000, violent crime
rates in Rio de Janeiro and São
Paulo have declined, whereas
violent crime in other cities has
increase, especially in the
Northeast.

7. Taxas de Homicídio (em 100.000) na População Total por Capital e Região 2000/2007
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Anos 2000 - 2007
TaxasdeHomicídio(em100.000)
Belo Horizonte
Rio de Janeiro
São Paulo
Vitória
Recife

8. Robbery, Theft and Assault – Capital
Cities
2004-2005
Robbery Theft Assault
2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005
Belo Horizonte 1,537.2 934.52 1,091.3 939.11 203.9 227.76
Rio de Janeiro 1,258.6 1,268 985.7 1,078.14 419.7 424.90
São Paulo 1,525.4 1,416.55 1,887.4 1,853.63 346.5 370.52
Vitória 1,175.6 1,165.94 2,457,7 2,416.46 397.9 393.86
Florianópolis 501.7 370.48 4,278.4 2,801.06 727.3
0
490.20
Fortaleza 1,908.1 2,617.7 2,264.7 2,678.29 342.8 425.36

9. “Interiorization” of Crime
• While rates for the capital cities are still
high, most recently the capital cities are
not “driving” the crime rates.
2005
Homicide – Jaboatão dos Guararapes, PE
(92,08)
Assault – Rio Branco, AC (1752,20)
Robbery – Fortaleza, CE (2617,7)
Theft – Brasília, DF (9916,01)

10. Explaining Crime in Brazil
• What are the explanations for crime
in Brazil?
• Explanations developed in the social
sciences emerged beginning in the
1980’s.
• Prior to then, discussions of crime
were relegated to legal scholars.

11. Explaining Crime in Brazil
• Explanations from Brazilian scholars
center around four explanations
• Inequality/poverty
• Inefficiencies of the formal system
of social control
• Socal transformations/social
interactions
• Inequality revisited

12. Crime Trends for Minas Gerais
• In Minas Gerais, we see a crime “peak”
between 2003-2005, with substantial
declines after 2005.
• Minas Gerais also demonstrates the
“interiorization” phenomenon, with
concentrations of crime occurring in other
medium size cities and not just in the
Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte

18. Crime in Belo Horizonte
• Just as in the state as a whole,
crime is not equally distributed in the
city of Belo Horizonte.
• Who you are, where you live and
where you circulate affect your crime
risk.

20. Determinants of Crime Risk
• Routine activities/Lifestyle
theory
• Social disorganization/Broken
Windows

21. Socio-demographic
characteristics
• Sex
• Age
• Race
• Socio-economic status
• Marital status
• Employed (working at time of the
survey)

22. Routine activities/Lifestyle
Variables
• Exposure
• Leisure risk
• Street risk
• Everyday risk
• Proximity
• Lives in favela/public housing
• Guardianship
• Number or adults in household
• Preventive measures

23. Social Disorganization Variables
• Public disorder
• factor score (abandoned builidings,
empty lots, and trash)
• Social disorder
• sum of 10 items (street vendors,
informal car attendants, homeless,
beggars, public urination or defecation,
public acts of obscenity, general
vandalism, vandalism of public
property, public arguments, and
prostitution)

24. Determinants of Crime Risk
TYPE OF CRIME CRIME RISK
Robbery
Leisure Risk 7.2%
Street Risk 8.9%
Prevention Measures - 7.1%
Assault
Physical incivilities scale - 24.5%
Buglary
Never married - 12.8%
Lives in favela/public housing 169.6%

25. Determinants of Crime Risk
• Physical characteristics don’t matter
• Being white, male, etc.
• Where you live matters
• What you do (lifestyle) matters
• -both degree of risk and safety
measures
• Lifestyle matters more for robbery
than for assault

26. What is being done to keep
you safe?
• Fica Vivo
• Homicide reduction
• Olho Vivo
• Monitored cameras downtown
• IGESP – Integration of Public
Security Management (modeled on
Compstat)
• Integration of information and
resources between police