Gun violence at catastrophic rates for young adults in Brazil

INTERVIEW/Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz

Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz, author of the “2006 Map of Violence in Brazil,” speaks to Comunidad Segura about the results of the study that places Brazil as the world leader in youth homicides involving firearms.

Brazil leads statistics on youth homicide rates involving firearms. It ranks third if considering other forms of homicide in the 15-24 year-old range. For Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz, author of the “2006 Violence Map”, which made these statistics public, the country’s problem is not just plain and simple violence. “The history of violence in the country involves the extermination of Brazil’s youth”, he stated in an interview for Comunidade Segura.

For the researcher, the Disarmament Statute and Weapon Collection Campaign had an effect on the decrease in homicide rates between 2003 and 2004, but the lack of continuity in the public policy of arms control resulted in gains soonbeing forgotten.

This is the fifth Violence Map. Since its first edition in 1998, the violence rates in Brazil have not changed in any significant way and youth always appear as the main victims of the sad correlation between the excess of firearms and what the author calls the “culture of violence”. For him, preventative measures and arms control policies could change this reality.

How was the study developed?

Every two years we publish new maps to update the information. The database is death certificates, which are necessary documents for any kind of legal procedure. The state health secretaries collect the death certificates, and send the data to the Ministry of Health, which normally sends me a CD-Rom with a million death certificates. I then process the information according to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD), which also stipulates the external causes of death. In these cases, there is information about the causes of death. The WHOSIS (World Health Organization Statistical Information System) provides the international statistical database and I analyze the information.

What are the criteria for the choice of countries?           

There is only one selection criterion: data after the year 2000. For several reasons, some countries only had information prior to that year, so it would be useless for a new study, and would complicate the comparative process. To make comparisons, I need data collected during the same period of time. The data analyzed is not new.

What are the highlights and contributions of this study in relation to previous ones, such as “Deaths Caused by Firearms” or “Saved Lives” by Unesco?

The “Deaths Caused by Firearms” study was released before I had access to the 2004 data, the first year of the disarmament. After that I published an evaluation of the campaign’s results, while working with preliminary data provided by the Ministry of Health. Since there have been a few modifications, I decided to redo the analysis. The result was a slight alteration in the statistical results, a difference of 2-3%. The “Saved Lives” study was based on a projection related to the increase in death rates involving firearms. While the first referred to a decrease of around 5% in the number of homicides, the second pointed to something like 10%, since I considered that not only had the number of homicides decreased, but had stopped following the trend, which was a 5% annual increase rate.

Brazil leads a ranking of 65 countries in youth homicide rate involving firearms. In your opinion, what created this situation?

Studies done with youngsters in school show that about 40% knew where to obtain firearms. There are two phenomena combined, which, taken separately, would not constitute such a severe situation. There is a large circulation and availability of firearms in Brazil. It is very difficult to know the exact number, because those who possess firearms don’t declare them, but estimates point to 120 million firearms in circulation. In the United States there is also a large circulation of firearms, but the homicide rate is a third of what is registered yearly in Brazil.What determines this leadership is the connection of the first factor with a culture of violence, a predisposition to kill one’s opponent, whatever the nature of the conflict.

How should one evaluate Brazil’s position (3rd) in the ranking of 84 countries in youth homicide?

For those outside this specific age bracket, that is, for children younger than 15 and young adults over 24 years old, the homicide rates do not show significant changes from the 1980s to today. In 1980 the rate was 21.3 for each 100,000 inhabitant outside this age bracket. The number fell to 18.1 per 100,000 in 1990 and went up to 20.8 per 100,000 in 2000.

But in the 18-24 year old range, the numbers were already larger and increased a lot more in the same period. In 1980 the rate was about 30 homicides per 100,000; in 1990 it grew to 38 per 100,000 and in 2004 reached 51.7 homicides per 100,000 young inhabitants. The history of violence in the country involves the extermination of Brazil’s youth. It is not exactly a problem of homicide, but a problem of youth. As long as the problems of young people in Brazil are not tackled, and education, culture and work are not offered, this situation will not change.

Rio de Janeiro leads the national ranking in youth homicides. Certainly drug trafficking has an influence on this situation. In your opinion, what can the responsible authorities do to solve the problem?

Rio de Janeiro is the only place in Brazil where crime is associated with criminal organizations. A study based on information about bullet wounds that turn up at the Sarah Kubitschek hospital network in Salvador and Brasilia showed that 60% of victims are “of proximity,” that is, they have some type of relationship with the aggressor. I do not know of any research that specifically analyzes this correlation, but given the drug traffic structure, it is most likely that Rio de Janeiro is one of the few States in Brazil where organized crime has a larger influence on homicide rates involving firearms than “crimes of proximity.”

Some countries, even those not in a declared state of war, have serious problems that make youth homicide rates rise, like countries in Central America, where juvenile gangs are involved in armed violence. What are the reasons that make Brazil surpass these countries in the ranking?

It’s the same problem: Brazil does not have religious or linguistic conflicts or border disputes and in spite of this it manages to kill many more youngsters then declared military conflicts. This is the culture of violence that exists in Brazil. Arab and Asian countries, the other countries in Latin America and the  former Soviet Union are historically and culturally associated with violence. These are areas that lead the ranking in violence and stay at around the same statistical level.

The national homicide rate decreased between 2003 and 2004, but increased greatly compared to 1994. What contributed to the reduction during this period?

The decrease in homicide rates in the 2003-2004 period was 5% in absolute numbers, a significant figure that I attribute to the approval of the Disarmament Statute and to the Campaign to Voluntarily Surrender Firearms. This was an inexpensive initiative and I don’t understand why it is not mentioned more frequently in the media. After the referendum, I didn’t see any newspaper articles asking what was happening with disarmament and with the Statute.

Would these data, in your opinion, justify the repetition of the Firearms Collection Campaign as part of a strategy for the reduction of death involving firearms?

Our levels of violence, even today after disarmament, are catastrophic. We reduced them a little, but we still have 102 deaths by firearms every day; 37 thousand people died by firearms in 2004. This is a lot more then in the Israel-Palestinian war, or in Iraq. Even so, after the population turned in half a million firearms, not a word has been spoken about disarmament. The problem is the discontinuity of the policies related to this issue, even though they showed positive results.

Translated by Steven Harper

Read Further:

The UN global report on violence against children

Available at the Virtual Library (in Portuguese):

Children of the Narcotics Trafficking: a Case Study of Children in Organized Armed Violence in Rio de Janeiro (in Portuguese)

Deaths by Firearms in Brazil (in Portuguese)