Brazil sees 5% rise in murders in 2020, with greatest increase in Northeast region states

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil posted a 5% increase in murders in 2020 compared to 2019, after two consecutive years of decline. This is shown by the national homicide index created by G1 news service, based on official data from the 26 states and the Federal District.

Last year, 43,892 violent deaths were recorded, compared to 41,730 in 2019. That is, 2,162 additional deaths. Victims of intentional homicides (including feminicides), robberies and bodily injury followed by death are included in the figures.

The rise in deaths was driven mainly by the Northeast, which had a significant increase in murders: 20%. It is worth noting that the region had been largely responsible for the drop in deaths over the last two years.

The South region also registered a slight increase. In the remaining regions (North, Midwest and Southeast), the number of violent crimes was lower compared to the year before. The North region registered the sharpest drop: – 11%. In all, more than half of the states reported an increase. There was a rise in murders in 14 states.

The data show that: Ceará state was the negative highlight, with an 81% surge in murders; 14 states showed an increase in murders in the period; 4 states reported increases of over 15%: Paraíba, Piauí, Maranhão, and Ceará; the highest decrease was recorded in the Northern region: -11%; and Pará was the state with the highest decrease in murders: -19%.

The survey, which compiles monthly data, is part of the Violence Monitor, a partnership between G1, the Center for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo (NEV-USP), and the Brazilian Public Safety Forum.

For Bruno Paes Manso, from NEV-USP, sudden indicator fluctuations, such as seen mainly in Northeastern states, are not typically linked to structural issues, such as the population’s education level, inequality, income, among other factors that often produce medium- and long-term effects.

“These marked changes can be better understood when circumstantial factors in each state are observed, such as the dynamics of the criminal market and the resulting disputes between local armed groups and the political strength of the state authority and its ability to implement policies to reduce violence and control excesses and crimes committed by the police,” he says.

For Samira Bueno and Renato Sérgio de Lima, from the Brazilian Public Safety Forum, the numbers show that the country missed an opportunity to convert the reduction in homicides observed in 2018 and 2019 into a virtuous cycle.

In addition to the dynamics of organized crime and the fact that Brazil is an important transit route for the flow of cocaine to Europe, which has exacerbated conflicts, they point to laws and decrees that have loosened gun control as an aggravating factor for the violence scenario.

“Reversing this scenario involves investing in human and financial resources, as in any public policy, but also by adopting measures already widely documented as effective in other contexts,” they state.

“It is clear that police work, prevention policies, investment in investigation and a more strategic action model, with coordination among the different agencies and financial investment, are and were significant in reducing violence levels in several states. But data from the execution of the National Public Security Fund show that, even with increased financial resources, the country has not been able to halt the escalation of violence.”

State of Ceará

After dropping for a year, the number of violent deaths in the state of Ceará skyrocketed: from 2,235 in 2019 to 4,039 in 2020. Unlike other states, social isolation fostered by authorities because of the Covid-19 pandemic failed to prevent an increase in deaths in any of the 12 months.

One of the causes of this increase, according to experts, is the state police officers’ strike a year ago, in February 2020. During the 13 day-long strike, there were 312 homicides, an average of 26 per day. Previously, it averaged 8 per day. But this is not enough to explain the 105% hike in April, for instance, in the first month of social isolation measures in the state, say experts.

Different causes explain the phenomenon, according to Richard Moura, researcher at the Laboratory for the Study of Violence at the Federal University of Ceará, among them territorial disputes between criminal factions. One such example is the murder of altar boy Jefferson Brito Teixeira, 14, killed in August in Barra do Ceará, Fortaleza. The Integrated Security Area that the neighborhood is part of experienced the highest drop in 2019 and the highest increase in 2020 in the state.

According to the prosecutor’s office, the boy was killed because of three cuts he had on his eyebrow. Those implicated in the murder believed that the cuts symbolized a rival criminal faction. However, a parish official says that the boy was not involved in crime and that the neighborhood lives in fear, under the control of criminal factions.

“The neighborhood is now divided among factions. The parish is in a area controlled by one faction, but two blocks away, it is controlled by another faction. That’s where the confusion lies. We can’t even cross the street. We can’t work adequately because of the violence,’ he says. ‘We can’t even cross the street. We can’t do our work perfectly because of the violence,” he says.

Another reason for the increase in the records, according to Moura, is that the police has been working at the limit of its manpower and has prioritized the wealthy and tourist areas. With the layoffs following the riots and the need for surveillance during the social isolation period, the police have been overwhelmed, limiting their ability to control these latent tensions, whether from organized crime disputes or fights between citizens, he says.

“Without police and with emptier streets, the chance of taking someone’s life and not being investigated is very high,” says the researcher.

In the months when activities were resumed, from June to September, there was a lower growth rate than the rest of the year. In October, with the electoral campaign, the number of murders increased again, due to violent local disputes, mainly in smaller towns. “In the last quarter there was at least one big massacre, of five people in inland cities,” Moura points out. According to him, the violent death curve rose similarly in 2016, also a year of municipal elections.

Finally, Moura says that one must take into account the comparison with the low 2019 figures, a year in which there was a reduction in conflicts between criminal factions. “There was a reduction in conflicts because it preceded two years of intense confrontations. So, an assumption is that resources have become scarce. In addition, police intelligence operations succeeded in financially asphyxiating the GDE [Guardiões do Estado], which stripped the group of its ability to operate – paving the way for the Comando Vermelho to take over new areas.”

State of Pará

In contrast, Pará was the state with the highest drop in the number of violent deaths in 2020: 543 fewer murders, a variation of -19% compared to 2019.

According to researcher Aiala Couto, from the State University of Pará (UEPA) and the Brazilian Public Safety Forum, there are two hegemonic forces that influence the drop in crime rates: one related to the state and the other related to illicit activity, mainly drug trafficking.

“Today we have a greater state police presence on the streets and we also had several arrests of militia groups that promoted executions uncontrolled in the periphery, which mainly affected the young black population,” explains Couto.

However, he points out that, from empirical research in the neighborhoods of the capital Belém, one observes a change in the organization of crime, which is close to the model followed by factions in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

“The neighborhoods where there was a reduction in violent deaths were the same ones where drug trafficking imposed an organizational model that banned robberies, neighborly fights, and husband/wife quarrels. But the data [from the Security Secretariat] don’t show this dynamic,” says the researcher, who cites the Terra Firme and Barreiros neighborhoods in Belém as examples.

However, he says that Pará is an important area in the trafficking route and, therefore, of interest to large organized criminal groups. Therefore, there may be conflicts in the future. “We are still in the process of reducing the crime data, but the quantity of drugs seized has grown significantly,” says Couto.

National homicide index created by G1 details:

The tool developed by G1 enables the monitoring of data on violent crime victims monthly in Brazil. Victims of intentional homicides (including feminicides), robbery and bodily injury followed by death are accounted for. Together, these cases make up the so-called lethal and intentional violent crimes.

The data collected monthly by G1 do not include deaths resulting from police intervention. This is because there is a greater difficulty in obtaining these data in real time and systematically from state governments. The 2019 balance was performed within the Violence Monitor, separately, and was published in April. The first semester of 2020 was published in September. The balance for 2020 is still to be released.

Source:  G1