HomeNewsBriefBrazil Govt Faces Up to Spiraling Youth Homicides
BRIEF

Brazil Govt Faces Up to Spiraling Youth Homicides

BRAZIL / 29 JAN 2015 BY LOREN RIESENFELD EN

In Brazil, 42,000 young people -- the majority non-white males -- will die violently between 2013 and 2019, according to a recent study, raising questions about how the country plans to reduce youth violence.

The projection, based on youth murder statistics from 2012, was presented at a January 28 press conference by the Brazilian government, UNICEF, and members of civil society.

“Inequality is reflected in the map of violence,” Brazilian Minister for Human Rights Ideli Salvatti said at the conference. Previous breakdowns of youth murder statistics in the country have shown that they are skewed by race, gender, and income.

SEE ALSO:Brazil News and Profiles

Non-white youths are three times more likely to die violently than white children, boys are almost 12 times more likely to be killed than girls, and much of the increase in homicides is concentrated in the relatively poor northeastern region of the country. In the richer and more densely populated southeast, youth homicides have actually declined.

At the same conference, Salvatti announced the creation of an interagency government working group that will try to create a strategy for reducing youth violence.

InSight Crime Analysis

Deciphering the numbers can sometimes be tricky. Over the ten-year period between 2002 and 2012, youth homicides only went up by 2.7 percent, suggesting a period of relative stability. However, this masks the huge changes in the murder rates within states.

Security initiatives in major cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro contributed to reductions in homicides, while northeastern states saw murders skyrocket. In the state of Rio Grande del Norte, homicides rose by 293.6 percent over the period.

Some reports attribute the rise in violence in Brazil to the growing role of organized crime and the expansion of the drug trade. According to a 2007 article by Der Spiegel, Brazilian gangs employed children to do their dirty work, sometimes giving them drugs to desensitize them to violence. One 11-year old boy said he “felt nothing” after assassinating a rival gang member because he was “too high.”

Other studies, like a 2012 report by think tank FLACSO, showed that drugs and gangs were not the cause of rising murders. Instead, the increase was caused by a “culture of violence” and widespread impunity. 

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

BRAZIL / 26 JUL 2022

Indigenous communities in Brazil are using drones to fight deforestation and the frequent assaults of loggers on their lands.

BRAZIL / 28 DEC 2021

There was record destruction of the Amazon in 2020, as the rainforest lost an area around the size of Belize,…

BRAZIL / 21 JUN 2022

Sergio Roberto de Carvalho, known as the "Brazilian Pablo Escobar," has been arrested in Hungary.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…