"Murder rate up 27% in September" - Sec. of Public Safety São Paulo

William, your post caught my attention because I was in Brazil from july to September, and for the first time I felt fear.  I have been living overseas for over two decades.  I have returned to my birth country on an average of three years, and I had never felt this way before.  I had bought an apartment in Joao Pessoa and went to Brazil to finalize it.  I was there for about a month trying to get my Property Deed but not being able to accomplish it.  I also had opened a bank account, and I was waiting for my permanent debt card to be mailed to me.  Frustrated for not receiving it on the mail, I went to the bank manager to find out the reason.  When he opened my account information on the screen, I saw that the address was completely different from the one on the electricity bill I had provided when I opened the account.  I asked the manager how that had happened and he couldn't give me an answer.  This was the drop in the bucket for me.  I decided to go Rio de Janeiro to ask for help.  In Rio I had friends who are lawyers and could help me.
I stayed in Rio for about two months; during this period, I could observe that something was happening in the country that I wasn't aware of until then.  I saw a great number of policemen on the streets as I had never seen before.  One time, I was on the bus, near Avenida Presidente Vargas, when I saw a van with its door opened.  Inside it, there were about four policemen; one of them was holding a long riffle (not sure about the name  of it) who was pointing it to the ground...my chin dropped. I was shocked!  I felt the same way, once again, during a mass when I saw an uniformed guard walking across the church to pick up the money that had been given by the church goers.  The news I saw on TV didn't make me fell any better.
My conclusion as I observed while I was in Brazil is that the crime and murder rates have increased because the  the police is going after the people responsible for the drug problems in the country. The juvenile crime rate-increase might be a consequence of it.  Perhaps, the clean up by the police is happening because of pressure from other countries due to Brazil being the host-country of the Soccer World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016.

Hi homes tweet homes,

I'm surprised that you didn't see army vehicles and soldiers in the streets while you were in Rio, they're everywhere too.

Unfortunately, as a result of worldwide pressure to clean up the violence in Rio in the run-up to the World Cup and Olympic Games the state government has put extra forces into play in 'pacifying' the favelas where drug trafficking is most active. This has some pretty negative effects as well as the positive ones. Traffickers simply invade other favelas and try and take over there, this causes mini-wars between the traffickers that are already there and the invaders. The other effect is that many of the drug lords have just moved to other cities and states to continue their activities. This suits the Rio de Janeiro government just fine but it's hellish for everybody else. The problem in Rio has existed for far too long, government abandoned it's role of taking care of the population in the favelas long, long ago and the drug lords took over that role, taking care of the people, so the general population just kept quiet and let trafficking go on. Now the government has decided to do what they should have been doing all along and the traffickers don't like it one bit.

In São Paulo the organized crime faction PCC which is controlled from inside the prisons has launched an all out war against law enforcement agencies. In the past few months there have been many police officers murdered, the crime faction declares a curfew and recently murdered a bar owner because he didn't obey the curfew. Every time a drug dealer gets arrested or killed during a police operation in one of the favelas residents take to the streets burning buses.

The main causes of all these problems are firstly an outdated Penal Code from 1940 that hasn't kept pace with the real world and has penalties that are a joke. Second on the list is the fact that convicted offenders have far too many rights and liberties. No other country in the world allows it's criminals out of prison for Christmas, New Years, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, etc. Hell they don't even check to make sure a convict has a living mother or father they let them all out. Many use the time simply to commit more crime and many others just don't return to jail afterward. Also we have here a juvenile justice system that gives complete immunity to everyone under 18 and they all know that. There is absolutely no mechanism to raise violent young offenders to the adult court system like many other countries have. Up until the day you reach 18 years of age you can murder someone and the worst penalty is three years in a juvenile detention center that only turns the inmates into more sophisticated criminal adults. Politicians in this country couldn't care less about creating stronger laws and resolving these problems.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team

Hi Williams,

Thanks for your prompt reply.  I just hope that in a long run this measures will help to decrease the crime rate. If the justice system, health care, and education benefit only a few, then all they do is shuffle things around.  If there is any hope for a better world, it starts with us by caring for one another through community spirit.  The government won't change if we don't!

I have been living in Sao Paulo for 5 weeks and take the bus almost every day. Never saw anything worrying, except one time a policeman was standing in front of the bus for all the ride and looking at people. It was a bit scary. Strange how someone representing protection can trigger fear here.

I also wish they would rehabilitate the youths instead of just putting them in prison. They are still quite young and i heard the prison are very crowded and conditions almost not human.

Never heard they could go out at Christmas, what an idea!! Is that because they are afraid of riots?

I have been living outside Brazil for over two decades.  I cannot answer you the reason why they let the prisoners go home on certain holidays.  William is problem the person who would be able to answer you this question.  I don't feel I am 100% brazilian anymore because I have been living almost half of my life in Canada.
The way we feel about the world around us has a lot to do with what we experience.  My last trip to Brazil was stressful, partially because of what I did, I bought an apartment without getting a lawyer.  My advice to anyone thinking in purchasing a home in Brazil is ....Get a Lawyer First!  It's just not safe.  The other reason why I felt that way is because I saw that violent crimes had increased and, also, I had never seen so many police on the streets as I did.  My friend who lives in Brazil saw that the presence of police meant safety; I saw that as a sign of violence.
I love Brazil!  I pray that the brazilians who can change the laws do make Brazil a safer place; the ones who can improve the education do allow to every child and youth the same opportunities; the ones who can provide good health care do give to all the same right to heal and to live.  I also pray that the people in Brazil who love their families do love their neighbours and help the community where they live.  Brazil deserves the best of everyone.  It gives its people two harvests, wonderful beaches, a beautiful landscape, lots of sunshine and mild weather.  All it asks back is love.
I feel fortunate to have two countries that I equally love.  I won't choose one over the other.  Canada is a caring and peaceful country. Brazil is my birth place; the country where I grew up and the place of my ancestors.

Hi Emilie,

You've only been there for a short while, wait until after the Christmas / New Year holidays are over to say that it's a good idea letting them out of jails. While many use the time as intended to visit family and try and learn how to get along in society many others simply use it to get out and commit more serious crimes and others still use the pass to further torment their original victims and yet others simply never return. Just watch the television news reports and you will see when someone is arrested they report that the criminal was on leave (indulto) from prison. The big problem is we never know who they are and end up being easy prey, end up as their victims without ever knowing it.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team

Oh no William, you understood me wrong!! I think its the worst idea ever!! lol

Only here in Brazil would something like this happen. The reason is that they can't even control the prisoners while they're behind bars let alone out on the streets. The druglords and organized crime kingpins still 'manage' all of their criminal operations from inside, with the help of you know who.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team

Well, if the Minister of Justice of Brazil ever visit this forum, I strongly suggest they de-activate cellular waves to block the delinquants to call from jail. Duh!

...

I know its not that simple, but that would sure help...

It always makes me sad to read reports like this as I really like Brasil.  My wife and I don't live there but we take vacations in Floripa.  A few days ago I ran across this:  50 MOST DANGEROUS CITIES IN THE WORLD  http://www.businessinsider.com/most-dan … ld-2012-10

It is absolutly filled with south american cities and in particular Brasil.  Now I know that no place is safe unfortunately in this world but if your city lands on lists like this it is not good.  What really surprised me was Curitiba.  I always pictured that city much safer than other cities.  Any comments about any of these cities in the above list I would appreciate it.  As a side note although it is the capital it seems I NEVER hear anything, good or bad, about Brasilia.  Maybe it is just me.

Hi redwingpy,

Unfortunately newspapers, magazines and television are in the business of selling advertising first and foremost so they tend to sensationalize everything.

Yes, Brazil is definitely a country that has a real problem with violent crime and it's growing steadily. Having said that, this does NOT mean that the country is a really unsafe place for the average citizen or tourists.

The greatest amount of violent crimes here are related to the drug culture or other criminal factions, so the average Joe (or José here in Brazil) isn't in any worse a situation than before.

Anyone who is not involved in the drug subculture or in criminal activities shouldn't have any worries at all if they take normal safety precautions. You stand a greater chance of being killed in traffic accidents in Brazil than by crime, believe me.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog

DON'T EXPECT JUVENILE CRIME TO GO DOWN EITHER!!!!

Maria do Rosário, Minister of the Secretariat for Human Rights of the Presidency of the Republic stated clearly on Tuesday that she is completely opposed to more severe penalties for young offenders in Brazil.

The Brazilian people are fed up with the current situation which finds an extremely lax set of juvenile laws (Estatuto de Crianças e Adolescentes – ECA) creating a generalized sense of impunity for minors and has sent juvenile crime out of control in this country. São Paulo’s governor criticized the law which provides a maximum penalty for those under the age of eighteen years of three years of internment in a juvenile detention center as being too weak and contributing to the astronomical crime rates. Sadly, while he himself was one of those responsible for creating this situation he is right in this criticism.

The Minister fired back that the reason she is opposed to stiffer penalties (that would certainly go a long way to curbing juvenile crime) is due to the fact that the detention facilities offer them no education or any kind of professional training, treatment programs for drug dependency or medical attention. “Why should we simply condemn them to spend more time in a place that offers them absolutely no hope of reform?” she asked.

What the illustrious Minister fails completely to grasp when she makes a statement of her own personal opinion, which she by virtue of her position, she establishes as a matter of policy is that if the prison system as a whole offers no basic human conditions and hope for reform, it is the politicians themselves who have created this situation with years of neglect and inaction. The blame rests firmly upon their shoulders. They should not now be able to point to the very conditions they have created and use them as a feeble excuse for resisting the overwhelming public demand for radical changes in the law and much stiffer penalties for all offenders, juveniles and adults alike. In the first place her opinion is based entirely on untruth. There are very few countries in the world where prisoners have such perks as getting out every holiday to either commit more crimes or simply never return. Where they have access to cellular phones and thus the internet in order to carry on managing their crime networks or threaten those individuals who testified against them, simply because the government is too tightfisted and too lazy to install blocking technology in the prisons.

Unfortunately we are talking about Brazil, a country where politicians do exactly as they please mostly to the detriment of the very people who put them there in the first place. It’s the only so-called ‘democratic’ country where politicians act in direct opposition of the political wishes of the vast majority of the population, who they are supposed to represent. It is a country where the citizen simply has no voice and no power whatsoever; a democracy in name only. It is not difficult to understand why lawmakers deemed it necessary to make the vote compulsory in this country. I wouldn’t vote for this band of buffoons and lazy louts either if I weren’t forced to do so and subjected to a number of very serious consequences if I didn’t, as the Brazilians are.

The Penal Code in this country is older than I am, it has remained virtually unchanged since 1945 and still the politicians resist reforming it at all costs. The ECA is a complete joke, a system the just turns out highly skilled criminals when they turn eighteen and nobody in power gives a tinkers damn or is willing to do anything to improve the situation in the least.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team

As a psychologist and psychoeducator, I gotta say it is in part true what she says.

In Quebec it has been demonstrated over serious studies that making the laws harder on teenager has no effect on the crime rate from their part, as teenagers don't even think they will get caught, whatever they do. It basically just makes the society feels better about it, like "they got punished".

This works a bit better for adults.

But rehabilitation programs (real ones and of course, with an obliged length of stay) do work well for teenagers and have shown significant results, helping not only these teenagers but the society has a whole, making them valuable active members of this society instead of crooks.

Of course, none of this applies to Brazil where indeed prisons are of awful conditions and lacks readaptation.

In that case, unfortunately, keeping criminals plainly out of the streets in a punitive manner might be the only solution.

Hi Emilie,

While in theory what you say is correct and logical, these studies are generally carried out in more affluent so-called First World countries with relatively stable crime rates, effective police forces to investigate crime and adequate penal systems to punish and to reform. Don't forget that part of the criminal process is to PUNISH the offenders and DETER others from crime. That should never be abandoned.

I firmly espoused your sentiments when I arrived in Brazil. I have however rethought much of my 'privileged' belief systems in the eleven years I've been living here. I soon found that my pampered Canadian values simply don't match with reality here in Brazil.

While Unicef's efforts to change things on a global scale are laudable their wacky notion that there can be a "one-size-fits-all" solution for all countries of the world, flies in the face of reality and fails completely to deal with the situation as it exists here in Brazil and many other developing nations.

We have a juvenile justice system here that offers complete impunity to everyone under eighteen and they take full advantage of that fact, wielding it like a sword over society as a whole. These excessively weak laws combined with incompetent police agencies and crime solution rates below 5% leave the general public totally unprotected as it is. To weaken the laws even more, especially when the majority of Brazilians are calling for them to be more severe, is a slap in the face for Brazilian society.

Nobody can tell me that a child can have a criminal rap sheet that spans years, 14 separate offenses of car theft, escalating to even more violent behavior DOESN'T KNOW WHAT HE'S DOING, or that there is any hope whatsoever of reform for this individual. Nor is someone of 16 who murders one or more people UNAWARE of the nature and consequences of his or her actions. Society deserves a mechanism to protect themselves from these individuals and to punish them in a more significant manner such as raising them to the adult justice system, this does not exist here.

I find it rather amusing that organizations such as Unicef, Amnesty International and the like aren't complaining about so-called First World countries like Canada, the USA, the United Kingdom who can, when a judge believes it's warranted raise juvenile offenders to the adult justice system. Yet they cast their value judgements on developing nations, some like Brazil who treat young offenders in a much more lenient manner in many cases.

What is needed here in Brazil starts with having a government [politicians] that cares more about the people than they do about themselves; one that instead of giving lip service to things like education, healthcare, social programs to eradicate poverty, police forces that are not only competent but also uncorrupted, a justice system that is fair for all and equal (i.e. not favoring the wealthy, powerful and famous) provides these things without fail. Unfortunately that does not happen here and likely never will. Until then we really can't afford to adopt the 'pampered' value systems of countries so much better off than we are.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team