O Jogo dos Sete Mitos e a Miséria da Segurança Pública no Brasil

Daniel Cerqueira, Waldir Lobão and Alexandre Carvalho

No 1144, Discussion Papers from Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada - IPEA

Abstract: Since 1980, the number of homicides in Brazil have increased to an annual averagerate of 5,6%, which resulted in about 800 thousand murders in the last 25 years.Why do the State and society allow the degradation of public safety conditions? Inthis article, we discussed three hypotheses that explain such a situation: a) lack ofresources; b) inexistence of technologies and effective methods of prevention andcontrol of the crime; and c) absence of real interests in order to solve the problem,because effective actions would implicate in possible losses of status quo for somesocial groups. We will argue that the two initial hypotheses are not able, bythemselves, to explain Brazilian hiper-criminality, if examined to the light of bestpractices to reduce crime in several developed and emerging countries. On the otherhand, the largest evidence of the lack of emphasis in order to solve the problem is thealmost absolute inexistence of necessary indicators of public safety, which allows theappearance of countless ?myths?, according to which the responsibilities for publicinsecurity are out of the responsible authorities` control. Based in results of severalpapers, we analyzed the dynamics of the homicides in Brazil and their causes, so as todeny those myths.

Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2005-12
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