Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Rio de Janerio murder rate shows a sharp fall

UPDATE: There are strong signs that the governmet has applied "creative accouting" methods in their numbers. Sorry for misleading you.
30 homicides per 100,000 is not a rate to be proud of. Nevertheless, things are getting better in Rio (and in São Paulo as well). I am not following the debate, but possible causes are: demographics, rising incarceration rates, new police practices, and falling inequality and unemployment.
The graph bellow shows the absolute number of homicides since 1991:

(Source, in Portuguese)

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Are the olympics playing a role? More stringent practices to get crime in check before the big event, or perhaps some incentives to massage the numbers?

Leo Monasterio said...

I do not think so. Brazilian politicians are not that far sighted...Plus, homicide rates are falling in other metropolitan areas.

Unknown said...

Most likely the police are cheating on their accounting. It is Brazil after all ...

Leo Monasterio said...

The number comes from Datasus, related to the ministry of health. It is not perfect, but it is reliable.

Rafael Guthmann said...

How 4,800 homicides mean a murder rate of 30 per 100,000? I thought that Rio had 6 million inhabitants. If this graph is about the metropolitan area, well you should signalize that. Anyway the metropolitan area has 12 million inhabitants, that would mean a murder rate of 40 per 100,000 about the same as Detroit.

Leo Monasterio said...

Rafael, check the source of the graph/post. It is about Rio de Janeiro State (pop. 16 M).