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Brazil: The next 10 years
Can crime levels be rolled back?
One troubling feature of Brazilian society over the last decade has been the sustained increase in crime. A significant proportion of the electorate feels threatened and unsafe on the streets and in their own homes. The data show that in terms of the homicide rate, Brazil is a violent country in a violent region of the world. Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is home to 8% of the world’s population but accounts for 33% of the world’s homicides. In 2016 there were just under 160,000 murders in the region as a whole, equivalent to about 21.5 per 100,000 inhabitants (this is three times the global average of seven per 100,000). The highest homicide rates were recorded in countries like El Salvador, Jamaica, and Venezuela, but in absolute numbers the greatest number of homicides occurred in just four countries: Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela.
