Life in the time of a violence epidemic: The joint decrease of homicide rates and perception of security in São Paulo

This thesis took around four months to get completed. During this time, over 13,000 people were murdered in Brazil – more than the total of Syrian War victims in 2019 (Globo 2019; SOHR 2020). But comparing tragedies is not this work’s purpose. Instead, the aim is to contribute to the understanding of the complexity of violence and security in the state of São Paulo, the most populated federal unit of Brazil. The violence has become so dire in the whole country that major media, as well as international organizations, started calling it an epidemic (World Bank 2018; Boechat 2018). To understand how the epidemic works, public security is approached with the perspective of perception of safety, which is argued to be underrated in the Brazilian context. The first chapter offers an overview of the current academic debate, with public security and perception of safety being the guiding concepts. The second part has a rather political point of view. Public policies in the field of security...Show moreThis thesis took around four months to get completed. During this time, over 13,000 people were murdered in Brazil – more than the total of Syrian War victims in 2019 (Globo 2019; SOHR 2020). But comparing tragedies is not this work’s purpose. Instead, the aim is to contribute to the understanding of the complexity of violence and security in the state of São Paulo, the most populated federal unit of Brazil. The violence has become so dire in the whole country that major media, as well as international organizations, started calling it an epidemic (World Bank 2018; Boechat 2018). To understand how the epidemic works, public security is approached with the perspective of perception of safety, which is argued to be underrated in the Brazilian context. The first chapter offers an overview of the current academic debate, with public security and perception of safety being the guiding concepts. The second part has a rather political point of view. Public policies in the field of security are analyzed, with an emphasis on the paradigms that guided legislative decisions. That is also how the chapter with the case study begins. The effectivity and consequences of individual decisions are questioned. Next, the perspective shifts from political to social, challenging the way security and violence are put in numbers and arguing that homicide is overestimated as an indicator. Additionally, the reliability of how crime data are collected and published is assessed. For there is a vigorous debate about what made homicide rates drop so much in São Paulo, but very little effort has been made to question the data on which this debate is based. Since the fall is confirmed, the factors that could explain the consistent drop in killings in the state since the turn of the century are analyzed. Then, the link – or better, its absence – between homicide rates and perception of security is examined. Despite a considerable murder reduction, São Paulo is still far from not being regarded as dangerous by its people. Therefore, public security elements that deserve greater heed are outlined. Finally, the conclusion zooms out from the case study and places it in a wider perspective.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

Life in the time of a violence epidemic: The joint decrease of homicide rates and perception of security in São Paulo