Violence in Rio de Janeiro being reduced
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June 11th, 2010
One of the most serious concerns of the organizers of the World Cup 2010 is with the violence in South Africa; and the preoccupation is not so much with episodic terrorist attacks (which can be more easily controlled), but with the day to day violence (assaults, stray bullets, gang fights), which may kill people anytime, anywhere – and whose solution takes years of concerted planning and work.
This problem afflicts the organizers of the World Cup 2014, as well. And no other city is more under scrutiny than Rio de Janeiro, the most important of the host cities of the Cup, and the host of the Olympic Games of 2016.
Rio is aware of the responsibility, and is taking measures to reduce violence.
For many years the Government treated violence combat as a war, where the enemies (mostly drug traffickers) should be killed; this is well portrayed in the movie City of God (which is voted as one of the 20 best movies of all times). The problem with this strategy is that many innocent civilians are also killed, and the survivors start to see the Police as an enemy as evil as the traffickers; and, whereas Police come and go, the traffickers are always around.
Recently, the strategy was changed. The Government is now creating UPP – Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora – Pacifying Police Units – in the most violent areas of Rio.
Every UPP has a physical structure, with a well sized staff. The Police officers (as much as possible, only recently recruited people) are assigned to an specific UPP, hence creating links with the community. In case the goals to reduce violence are met, the UPP staff gain a salary bonus.
Besides, along with every UPP (and the subsequent reduction in violence), the Government builds schools, health centers, leisure spaces; and trailing the Government, come the utilities companies (electricity, transportation, internet, etc).
The idea is to make the communities (whose vast majority is composed by honest, working people) believe that, rather than violence and traffic, now the Law and Order should reign.
The graphic to the left shows that, even though there is still a long way to go, the levels of violence in Rio have been consistently decreasing.
Number of murderers is coming to 30 per 100,000 inhabitants; for comparison, in South Africa this figure is about 49.6 per 100,000 (source is here; figure quoted as of June 2010, and may change in the future).