Brazil Hit Highest Historical Level of Deliberate Violent Lethality in 2017

By Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A survey of the 2019 Atlas of Violence, conducted by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) and by the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, shows that in 2017, Brazil recorded 65,602 murders. This is the highest historical level of deliberate violent lethality in Brazil.

The study was released on Wednesday, June 5th, based on the Ministry of Health’s Lethality Information System. This is the highest historical level of intentional violent lethality in Brazil, as it reached a rate of 31.6 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.

The study shows that violent deaths affect mainly the young males age 15-19. Blacks represent 75.5 percent of all murder victims. The death rate for this segment of the population was 43.1 per 100,000 inhabitants – for non-blacks, the rate was 16.

According to the survey, the number of murders of LGBT community members increased 126 percent, registering a sharp increase in the last six years, growing from a total of 5 cases in 2011 to 193 cases in 2017.

A further aspect of this study shows that the number of firearms-related killings also broke records in 2017, rising 6 percent, with 65,200 victims.

There was also an increase in the number of feminicide killings in 2017, with 4,936 female victims. The rate increased from 3.9 to 4.7 women murdered per 100,000 inhabitants.

Looking at the 618,000 murders committed in Brazil between 2007 and 2017, 92 percent of victims were men, while only 8 percent were women, and most had low schooling levels: 74.6 percent of male and 66.8 percent of female victims had up to seven years of schooling.

The impact of violence in the country can be felt in the economy. IPEA pointed out that violence-related expenditure corresponded to 6 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).