Abstract
This article presents trends in homicide rates in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by discussing the dynamics of social life in the poorest areas of the city, often characterized by youth violence, guns and drug trafficking. The study begins by examining how patterns of socio-economic inequality relate to youth deaths, but goes beyond the common assumed link between homicide and poverty. The city has experienced a sharp increase in homicide rates since the 1980s as irregular or subnormal dwellings (the so-called favelas) expanded in Rio de Janeiro. However, as argued in this article, such development cannot fully account for the increase in homicides in Rio. More likely to contribute to this outcome was the development of new forms of criminal business that affected informal markets, transforming them into gateways for criminal set-ups. Trafficking gangs began to dominate some favelas whilst drug lords restricted dweller and government agent movements in others. Armed mobs appeared and militias were formed. Young males have been the most common victims of homicides under these warlike conditions. Finally, this chapter concludes by discussing changes in current crime prevention policies: better schooling, better professional training for those working in the favelas and sports and cultural programmes in which different generations socialize should be the focus of long-term interventions to ensure that young males are not killed prematurely. In the short term, gun-oriented policing and an effective investigative police force are also much in need.
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Notes
- 1.
This term is the official definition of murder as it appears in the data collected from the National System of Deaths’ Information (SIM) of the Ministry of Health, found at www.ms.gov.br/sim/datasus
- 2.
Militias are in fact paramilitary, and not civilian, forces linked to killing groups that were first created to banish by illegal means the presence of those suspected of mugging, a criminal activity that traffickers used for sharing profits in order to buy drugs and guns. Later on, other forms of criminal business activities were developed by their members.
- 3.
Nevertheless, the Catholic Church is one of the most trusted institutions in the country, according to public opinion polls. On the other hand, Evangelical politicians, who were elected to represent their religious congregations, as well as some Evangelical charitable organizations, have been involved in scandals about corruption at the National Congress.
- 4.
Hyper-masculinity consists of three dimensions: callous attitudes towards women, aggression as a manly posture and danger as exciting, sustained by the lack of empathy for potential victims.
- 5.
In 1991, my research assistant Paulo Lins estimated the number of youths using drugs in Cidade de Deus. A study at FIOCRUZ (www.fiocruz.gov.br), calculated that 15% of adolescents in another favela were so involved.
- 6.
In the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro, the homicide rate by handguns tripled from 20.5/100,000 in 1982 to 61.2/100,000 in 1989, when it reached its peak. From then on, it has been around 50/100,000, with a lower rate in 2001 (45.3/100,000), up again in 2002 and down again in 2005 (34.9/100.000) (www.isp.rj.gov.br).
- 7.
The survey took place in 2006 in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro with people 15 years and older, that is, a universe of 4,658,482 people. The sample was random in three stages: 3,435 questionnaires done in 200 census tracts where 20 domiciles were chosen and one person was interviewed in each of them. Each person accounted for 1,500 other city dwellers 15 years old and older. The research was sponsored by federal and municipal agencies and is accessible at the NUPEVI site, where the executive report can be found: www.ims.uerj.br/nupevi since January 2007.
- 8.
A careful list was compiled of all deaths by aggression as registered at the health secretary of the municipality, a source that contains the victim’s address. These were spatially marked so that one could see the main clusters or kernels of these violent deaths in the city. On the other, another team, during fieldwork, made a list of the 976 favelas in the city according to the organization that dominated its territory, that is, whether the favela was dominated by one of the three then existing trafficker commandos or by a militia.
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Zaluar, A. (2011). Turf War in Rio de Janeiro: Youth, Drug Traffic, Guns and Hyper-masculinity. In: Ceccato, V. (eds) The Urban Fabric of Crime and Fear. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4210-9_9
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