Brazil recorded almost 1 million homicides in 18 years, says UN

Brazil registered almost 1 million homicides in about two decades. There were 999,548 from 2003 to 2021. The numbers are from UN Office on Drugs and Crime (United Nations) and are available to all countries by 2021.

The country leads the ranking of the United Nations since 2001. That year, it overtook India (2nd place overall) by recording 45,955 homicide deaths. It remains in 1st position until the last survey, with data from 2021. Mexico, Colombia and Russia close the top 5.

The year with the highest number of homicides since 2001 was 2017, during the government of the former president Michel Temer (MDB): 63,788. The 2nd worst was in 2016, when 61,208 homicides were recorded. In August of that year, Dilma Rousseff (PT) had left the Presidency after undergoing a process of impeachment.

The former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) was at the head of the Brazilian Executive when the country had the lowest homicide records. In his first year in office, Brazil recorded the lowest total of deaths of its kind: 44,073. It rose again the following year, in 2020: 47,722 homicides.

In 2021, Brazil recorded 45,562 deaths, the 2nd year of the covid-19 pandemic (when confinement rules were already less strict and people started to circulate more on the streets). This number represented a rate of 21.3 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants.

The country experienced a period of falling homicides during the president's first term Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), from 2003 to 2005. From 2006 to 2008, the number of deaths of this type fluctuated between decreases and increases. Below are the numbers for the period:

• 2006 – 49,165 deaths (26.0 per 100 thousand inhabitants);
• 2007 – 47,731 deaths (25.0 per 100 thousand inhabitants);
• 2008 – 50,135 deaths (26.0 per 100 thousand inhabitants).

However, in the last 2 years of the Lula 2 government, homicide cases increased consecutively in Brazil. The current president left Planalto with the statistics of 52,289 homicides in 2010.

According to UN data, the period of successive increases ran throughout the Dilma 1 and 2 government and only decreased in 2018, when, for the first time in 5 years, the country closed the year with a mark below approximately 55,000 deaths from crime. .

Read below the number of homicides in each Brazilian government since 2003:

• Lula – 397,832 deaths;
• Dilma – 344,591 deaths;
• To fear – 180,976 deaths.

Bolsonaro left the Presidency in 2022. There is still no data for Brazil compiled by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime database for the last year of the former president's government.

Dilma also did not complete her 2nd term because of the impeachment. O Power360 added the 2016 numbers for both the PT and Temer administrations.

As shown by the Power360, Brazil has had 8 public security plans in the last 20 years. There was at least 1 program in every government from Lula's first government to the current government. None of the plans brought the expected effects in combating crime in the country.

The reduction in homicides was present in most of the programs announced by the presidents:

• Pronasci (National Program for Public Security with Citizenship) (2007): set the goal of reducing deaths from crime to 12 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, in 4 years. Here's the complete of the program (PDF – 932 kB);
• PNRH (National Homicide Reduction Program) (2015): was interrupted by the process of impeachment before being released;
• National Public Security and Social Defense Plan and Policy (2018): brought the reduction of homicides and other lethal violent crimes as the 1st objective. Here's the complete (PDF – 2 MB);
• National Public Security and Social Defense Plan (2021): set a reduction in the national homicide rate to below 16 deaths per 100 thousand inhabitants by 2030. Here is the complete (PDF – 3 MB);
• Pronasci 2 (2023): brings the goal of “reduce the national homicide rate to below 16 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants by 2030”. Here's the complete (PDF – 239 kB).

BRAZIL LEADS SINCE 2001

On Friday (Nov 8), the UN published the “Global Study on Homicides”. The data shows that the world broke a record for homicides in 2021, with 457,945 deaths. Here's the complete of the document (PDF, in English – 16 MB).

Among the continents, Africa had the highest number, 176 thousand. America (154 thousand) comes next and has the highest rate per 100 thousand inhabitants, of 15 deaths. The largest share (40%) of homicides were committed with firearms. Another 22%, with a sharp object, such as a knife. In America, death from firearms is more significant: 67%.

The least violent year in the world was 2007. Read the evolution in the infographic below.