Brazil reduces homicides by a third between 2017 and 2022

Homicides in Brazil fell 30.9% between 2017 and 2022, according to data released this Wednesday (1st) by the Brazilian Public Security Forum (FBSP). The reduction in the number of people killed is almost a third. In 2022, the country registered a total of 40,824 homicides, the lowest number in the historical series of the FBSP, which publishes data since 2007. The information is published by the entity in partnership with the portal G1 on the Violence Monitor page.

In 2016, the last year of the Dilma Rousseff (PT) government, 57,842 homicides were registered in the country. The following year, the first year of the Michel Temer (MDB) government, the country had its worst historical record, with 59,128 murders, which represents 18,304 more deaths than in 2022. Since then, there has been a downward trend in these records, which began still in the Temer administration in 2018, when there were 51,558 homicides in the country. In 2019, already under the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the index dropped to 41,730, followed by an increase in 2020 to 44,061 and a further decrease in 2021 to 41,160 deaths.

Between 2021 and 2022, the country reduced the homicide rate by another 1%. The regions with the greatest reduction in the number of murders last year, according to the study, were the North and Northeast. Even so, currently, the states with the worst homicide rates per 100,000 inhabitants are all in the Northeast: Pernambuco (35.3), Bahia (34.2) and Alagoas (33.5). The safest states are, in that order, São Paulo (7.1), Santa Catarina (8.7) and the Federal District (9.7).