Brazil records the lowest homicide rate in 11 years, but insecurity wears out Lula

Brazil records the lowest rates of violence in recent years just when insecurity has climbed to become the main concern of Brazilians. In 2023 (the last year with complete data available) in Brazil, 45,474 people were killed, according to the data of the Violence Yearbook, released Monday by the Brazilian Public Security Forum. Yes, it is a very high figure, but it is 20.3% less than ten years ago. The lethality rate is 21.1 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. It is still among the highest in the world, but it is the lowest in 11 years.

The specialists attribute the fall to a mixture of factors: on the one hand, historically most victims are young (and black), and Brazilians are aging. The less young, less dead. In addition to the demographic issue, the non -aggression pact also weighs between the two main features of the country’s drug trafficking, the Primeiro Da Capital (PCC) and the Vermelho Command (CV). He has just broken a few weeks ago and it is still early to foresee its consequences, but in recent years it helped stop blood spill. Finally, specialists speak of a “silent revolution” in public safety: managers of states and municipalities that gradually leave the inertia of putting how many more policemen in the street better and invest in more effective policies, based on intelligence, measurement of results and prevention.

The authors of the report assume that the improvement of the data does not correspond to the perception at street level. According to a recent Quaest survey, violence is the main problem for 29% of Brazilians, a percentage that has been tripled compared to December 2023. They attribute it to multiple factors, such as the impact of some specific crimes in the media and social networks or geospatial reasons: little matters if there are no longer dead in the favelas and peripheries of my city if they just rob me to rob me to rob me to rob me to rob me.

Be that as it may, insecurity has become a wear factor for the Lula government, something that, together with food inflation, are pushing their popularity down in recent months. Historically, Lula has not had the security flag as his favorite conversation themes. There is the circumstance that the states of the Northeast region of Brazil, its traditional barn of votes, are one of those who present worse rates of violence. It is no longer enough to appeal to the fight against hunger and social programs such as Family bagthe Nordestines now claim peace in the streets. La Palma, however, takes a stadium in the northern region: AMAPÁ. Isolated together with the Amazon Delta, in this corner of Brazil the murders increased 42%. The extreme right and its hard hand promises is capitalizing that discontent: in the municipal elections last year, there was a record of Bolsonarist mayors in former fiefs on the left.

The responses to the problem are shy and, if any, they promise fruits that will take a long time to arrive. The main proposal of the Lula Government is not very colorful and complex to explain to the voter: modify the Constitution to expand the role of the central state in security policies. Until now, most powers (such as the command of the military police) correspond to the States. A priori, the governors, the conservative majority, criticized the measure with fear of losing competences. The proposal has been advancing for months at the pace of Tortuga, but the specialists of the Violence yearbook They trust that it be ahead, even if it is very modified, so that at least a national security system has just been created, a basis for the 27 police forces of the country to stop walking each other.

Although the yearbook data allows us to start fantasizing with a light at the end of the tunnel, the truth is that if they are observed in detail they offer a still very raw reality: femicides grew by 2.5%, which represents an average of ten women killed every day. And racial inequality not only persists, but also aggravates, since a black Brazilian has 2.7 times more possibility of dying murdered than one with lighter skin. It is a 15.6% increase compared to ten years ago.