RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Data released by the Public Safety Institute (ISP) show that while Rio de Janeiro State‘s other 83 municipalities registered 2,650 homicides between January and September this year, nine cities – Cantagalo, Rio das Flores, Duas Barras, São Fidélis, Cambuci, Rio Claro, São José do Vale do Rio Preto, São Sebastião do Alto, and Engenheiro Paulo de Frontin – all of them with fewer than 39,000 inhabitants, have had no recorded murders in 2020. Still according to the ISP, the rate of robberies in the same period was low, virtually zero.
No robberies were recorded in the city of Rio das Flores. São José do Vale do Rio Preto had only one. The capital of the Rio de Janeiro State alone recorded 723 murders between January and September.
Duas Barras had no murders and recorded two robberies in nine months. There were 27 thefts, the majority in the rural area. One of the last occurred on September 10th, when two pigs disappeared from a farm. The case is being investigated by the city’s 152nd police station.
Among the urban area residents, unthinkable customs are maintained for much of the Metropolitan Region of Rio, such as parking unlocked vehicles or leaving a helmet on top of a motorcycle when going to stores.
Police interaction with residents
According to the State Police (PM) and the Civil Police, the secret to a higher feeling of safety and low crime rates in the nine cities lies in a number of factors. Among them are a greater closeness between its agents and the population, the deployment of patrols to prevent crimes of passion, constant monitoring to prevent the onset of drug trafficking activities, and the use of social media to receive anonymous denunciations.
In Duas Barras, for instance, much of the information received by police officers is made through virtual tools. Delegate Diogo Schettini, from the 152nd Police Precinct, spread billboards around the city to disclose the unit’s WhatsApp number and an email for denunciations.
In Rio das Flores, a municipality that borders cities in the southern zone of Minas Gerais state, the police also invested in monitoring to prevent the presence of drug dealers. The work is conducted based on information gathered by investigators. According to them, the main goal is to prevent the city from being included in a map of territorial disputes and, consequently, from recording homicides.