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Crime in Brazil
There are few reliable statistics on the incidence of crime in
Brazil. The United States Department of State, in its Country Reports
on Human Rights Practices for 1995 , concluded that "A high
crime rate, a failure to apprehend most criminals, and an inept
criminal justice system all contribute to public acquiescence in
police brutality and killings of criminal suspects. Acts of intimidation,
including death threats against witnesses, prosecutors, judges,
and human rights monitors, often hindered investigation into these
incidents." Intimidation seems to be most prevalent in the
rural areas of the North
and Northeast, where large landowners often threaten police,
judges, lawyers,
and reporters.
The skewed distribution of income in Brazil (one of the most unequal
in the world) may be partially responsible for an endemic and increasing
problem of nonpolitical crime. Since returning to civilian government,
Brazil has experienced a dramatic increase in the level of crime.
In 1992 Brazil's homicide rate of 37.5 per 100,000 residents surpassed
that of the United States, with 22.76 per 100,000. Rio
de Janeiro registered 4,253 murders in 1993, up from 3,545 in
1992. Rio de Janeiro had seventy-two murders per 100,000 residents
in 1993, compared with thirty per 100,000 in New York City. Meanwhile,
Rio de Janeiro State spending on security dropped from 15 percent
of the state budget in 1984 to 8 percent in 1994.
As discussed earlier in this chapter, the rapid increase in the
level of drug trafficking in Brazil raises numerous security issues.
One has to do with the very control of national territory, as drug
traffickers operate in the vast expanses of the Amazon and other
regions. Indeed the threat of drug trafficking was used to justify
the costly Sivam (Amazon Region Surveillance System) project. A
second issue has to do with state control of entire favelas in Rio
de Janeiro and possibly in other cities, where drug traffickers
have a virtual monopoly over force. A third issue is that of potential
corruption of the security forces, at all levels.
The shortcomings of the judicial system lead the public to tolerate
vigilantism, in the form of lynching of suspected criminals. In
Bahia
State, for example, eighty-four documented cases of lynching occurred
in 1993. In at least one case, the lynching occurred while the police
watched.
Data as of April 1997
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