Rio de Janeiro: 60,000 Unsolved Murders In 10 Years

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Rio de Janeiro's public defenders' department says the Brazilian state has accumulated more than 60,000 unsolved murders in the last 10 years.

The department investigated the matter for the federal Ministry of Justice as part of a national plan to improve public safety.

The survey shows that 24,000 of the victims haven't even been identified.

Creation of a special homicide division in the city of Rio de Janeiro did little to improved the solution rate. It went from 11 percent to 14 percent.

Across Brazil, police solve about 8 percent of murders. In the United States and in European countries the rates are reportedly around 70 percent to 80 percent.

Comments

[dangar]

08:31 PM on 07/11/2011

Get this movie about the drug wars in Rio.....excellent stuff.....called Tropa de Elite.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861739/

[dangar]

12:27 PM on 07/11/2011

You want to understand the relationships and war between the drug militias and police in Rio de Janiero? Find this movie: "Tropa de Elite" from 2007. It is a fictional story but quite realistic and VERY well made. There should be some versions with english subtitles. There is also a sequel out Tropa de Elite 2 that came out last year, as the first was very popular in Brazil.

[Danlantic]

11:04 AM on 07/11/2011

Plot for a murder mystery. Lure an enemy to Brazil and bump him/her/they off. Assume the Brazilian police won't figure it out.

[mikey09]

10:23 AM on 07/11/2011

Friends kd just got hired by a Brazilain Company and moved there last December, she told me you don't go anywhere without bodyguards....seems kidnapping is a popular form of employment. Sad stats for a country that wanted to host the 2012 Olympics.

[dangar]

08:21 PM on 07/11/2011

FYI I am an American (with lily-white skin) living in Rio de Janeiro since January 2010. Have had zero problems with crime. I live in a middle class neighborhood .....everything is calm. I prefer to walk whenever possible, weather permitting.....everyone I meet or pass on the street is perfectly normal. I know plenty of wealthy people, but nobody has bodyguards. You are getting some bad information.

[entreMundo]

12:44 PM on 07/13/2011

If she said you don't go anywhere in Rio without bodyguards, she's either 1) lying to her parents to make them feel better (and failing), or 2) just ignorant. Just because it "seems" like something to you doesn't mean it's the reality. Why not check ACTUAL stats on crimes against foreigners before forming opinions.

[LibertarianJon]

10:10 AM on 07/11/2011

Great motivation for Tourism!

[piul05]

10:08 AM on 07/11/2011

Part III

By then, crime was well organized, with plenty of volunteers to fill their ranks, as they filled the void left by the State never fulfilling its part in the Social Contract; and the majority who doesn’t is just terrified of their “warlords”. Then the modern, global, sophisticated drug trade was added to this explosive mixture, making the problem take gargantuan proportions.

There have been serious attempts in recent years to clean the “machine” but it is not easy and not something that will happen overnight; every now and then there is a hit against someone investigating corruption and it took military intervention recently to face drug traffickers who had a whole favela under siege. There are billions at stake and the criminal machine has long gone pro.

There are winds of change both at institutional and citizen’s level, with increased political will and transparency on one hand, and active participation on the other.

I, for one, am an optimist - I trust my people resolve and resilience and believe we will build a better future.

[piul05]

10:07 AM on 07/11/2011

Part II

Now, criminality in Rio is something which is endemic, multifold and which stretches back decades, but which saw a "boom" in the 70's due in no small part to the connivance of the military regime; corporate interests meant that there was a huge influx of migrants from the North-East as they were kicked out of their land to make room for monocultures – these people joined the already disenfranchised poor from Rio, swelling the favelas and periphery; the police was poorly recruited, under-trained, underpaid, thus open to corruption; death squads killed with impunity with bodies (or “hams” in the morbid jargon of criminals and tabloids) being found by the dozens almost every day; local governments were one giant pork barrel, with money being siphoned off to their cronies’ pockets. The oil crisis in 73 didn’t help either, with the IMF joining in, to make a wonderful triad of police state/oligarchy and corporate interests/foreign intervention. And the issue of security dragged on, affecting mainly the already long-suffering poor, mainly in “Baixada Fluminense”, away from the eyes of the elites, but also in the favelas. These elites only started paying any attention to the issue when it started spilling over onto their space and “cramping their style”.
(continue...)

[piul05]

10:05 AM on 07/11/2011

Part I

I'm sorry but CNSC, who happens to have the most faved post is factually incorrect.

Indeed, Brazil had only some years ago the 2nd largest disparity in income, behind Burundi; her History has been marked by movements and revolutions which were elitist in nature – from the Declaration of Independence from Portugal by the then heir to the throne, to the Proclamation of the Republic by the military. That meant that from the onset her fate has until recently been decided by a small and ostentatious elite, living in gilded cages and controlling most of the country's wealth, whilst the majority lived in very poor (and miserable - especially in the urban areas) conditions.

But Brazil has also sizable middle class - my family included - something tourists and foreigners who go there or who live in little gated ex-pat communities never see because they can't go beyond the contrast of what was described above; people who went to state school and universities like my sisters and I did; people who work as bank clerks, secretaries, teachers, IT technicians, state agents, accountants, nurses, who own small businesses, etc, etc, etc. And, although "Collor Plan" back in the early 90's set us all back, for the last decade, the middle classes have been making huge strides forward.
(continue...)

[ILUVMEDICINE]

09:51 AM on 07/11/2011

Good luck to all those who chose Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympics over Chicago. If police does not bother with 60,000 murder cases then how does anyone expect them to provide safety for all those clueless tourists

[philss]

09:48 AM on 07/11/2011

and this is the host country for the olymics
hummm
glad it is them and not america wasting billions on a fake sports event

[ILUVMEDICINE]

09:44 AM on 07/11/2011

Brazil is the new Mexico...if you are running from the law

[haddanuff]

04:52 PM on 07/11/2011

With one of the hottest economies on the planet.

[ObiWan415]

09:42 AM on 07/11/2011

And they keep pumping out them babies. They say, when you are in a hole, stop digging.
They are the same as mexicans. They can't stop pumping and they are taking us down
with them and we are letting it happen.

[who38]

10:15 AM on 07/11/2011

Guess you haven't read the latest census figures on Latino births in the US? But go ahead, just keeping pumping out that kind of thinking. BTW, how do you feel about Mormons and orthodox Jews pumping out all of those chidlren?

[piul05]

10:27 AM on 07/11/2011

Brazil's current population growth rate is 1.26% and is steadily declining.

The country's problem is not the number of children it produces, but income distribution.

[ObiWan415]

10:30 AM on 07/11/2011

and if you believe that, i have some beach property for you in plaster city, az.

[vitaocs]

09:39 AM on 07/11/2011

Maybe it's because the police in Rio has the worst salary in Brazil. They made an average ~ US$ 700,00 per month. Do you really wanna get the investigation going with this salary?

[CraigVale]

09:26 AM on 07/11/2011

I did indeed forget to mention the drugs. Although not comparable to Mexico or some of the other Central American countries in terms of sheer numbers, it is still a major problem that will indeed be exacerbated by the influx of tourists for the two most anticipated sporting events on the globe. You hear very little emanating from Brazil concerning this issue, but then again most of the western world has been kept in the dark as it relates to the nations ubiquitous poverty. Quintessential " Haves vs. the have nots."

[huff reader]

10:02 AM on 07/11/2011

Don't knock it. You're lookin' at our future, you know...

[who38]

10:17 AM on 07/11/2011

I thought it was our present. I am sure that when Chicago lost the Olympic bid, some of the most disappointed people in the US were the those who own meth kitchens in Iowa.

[pa30]

09:14 AM on 07/11/2011

No doubt drug related