Brazil had 36 attacks on schools; post-pandemic has 60% – 10/23/2023 – Education

The attack on the Sapopemba State School, in São Paulo, in which a 16-year-old student killed a student and injured two others, is the 36th of its kind in Brazil since the first recorded case — which occurred in 2001 in Macaúbas (BA).

Young Giovanna Bezerra, shot dead in this Monday’s attack (23) at the age of 17, is the 35th fatal victim of this type of attack in Brazilian schools (not counting five suicides by attackers). 12 boys, 17 girls, four teachers, a coordinator and an inspector were killed. 102 people have already been injured.

The data are part of a report signed by Telma Vinha and other researchers from Unicamp and Unesp who are part of Gepem (Group of Studies and Research in Moral Education). The group is dedicated to studying coexistence in the school environment and has been researching attacks on Brazilian schools.

Of these 36 attacks, almost 60% occurred post-pandemic. Since February 2022, when Brazilian schools reopened after a closure that lasted almost two years in some regions, there have been 21 attacks with 11 deaths. This represents 58.3% of the entire history of this violence in the country. In 2022 there were 10. In 2023 there have been 11.

In total, these 36 cases had 38 authors, according to the survey. Of these, seven were 13 years old at the time of the attack, the most common age. There are also two cases of attackers aged 12 and one in which he was 10.

For researchers, this recent increase in violence involving young people is linked to mental health problems worsened by social isolation and excessive use of technology, among other factors. Another piece of information reinforces this analysis: in 23 cases, that is, more than 60%, there was evidence that the attackers had undergone online radicalization (not counting Sapopemba, which has not yet been analyzed from this aspect).

The research focuses on attacks committed by students and former students and does not count those carried out by someone outside the school community. Cases in which the attacks were thwarted before taking place, nor those that were unplanned, which happen during a fight, are also not included in the account.

Most of the 39 attackers who participated in these attacks were school students. There were 22 students, and this makes a police solution to this type of violence even more complex. Furthermore, 17 are former students and seven of them had left the school.

Most of the schools that suffered attacks are public. 17 state schools, 13 municipal schools and 7 private schools were attacked, a statistic that follows the proportion of these schools in the Brazilian reality.

The report also highlights that the majority of schools that experienced this violence are not in the most socioeconomically vulnerable regions. More than 80% are from places of medium, medium-high and high socioeconomic status.

Of the total cases, 17 involved the use of firearms, while 15 involved the use of knives. Of the deaths, 35 were caused by firearms and two by knives. Seven of the attackers had weapons at home, six had purchased them from third parties and three were of unknown origin.