Safe in São Paulo - Stats and Tatts - the Last in our Series

In our final post in the Safe in São Paulo series, Born Again Brazilian and I are bringing you some of the statistics of crime in Brazil, São Paulo and in your own neighborhood. And just for "fun," we’ll show you some of the tattoos that may show a criminal background.

Let’s first take a look at some data on the 190 emergency number. Remember that you can dial the emergency code from your home country (e.g., 911 in the US) and get connected to 190. If you do not speak Portuguese, you may ask to be transferred to an English or Spanish-speaking attendant.

190*:

43.2 million emergency calls per year

~150,000 calls per day

15,000 dispatches of PMs every day

42,000 interventions

310,000 rescues

120,000 sent to prison

12,300 guns apprehended every year

45 Tons of drugs apprehended every year (this number is double last year’s)              *Source: Policia Militar

Crime statistics nationwide

In 2010, there were 26 homicides per 100,000 residents in Brazil. This is up from 11 per 100K in 1980. Just as  comparisons, Pakistan has a population similar to Brazil (185 million) and its homicide rate is around 7.5 per 100K. The US has about a 4.7/100K rate and Mexico 23.7/100K (Mexico's rate has more than doubled since 2008). Please note that intentional homicide statistics vary from source to source. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the Brazil rate is 21.3. Ah, the UNODC is working with 2011, our most recent Brazil-sourced numbers are 2010.

Depending on where you live, the numbers are worse (see state by state numbers copied here). In some regions of Alagoas, the homicide rate reaches 1000 per 100K in the 15-24 age group. It is, as a police captain said, a “massacre.”  The young folks there are being cut down by a rampant war for drug territory. 

Source: www.mapadaviolencia.org

The main driver of homicides in the Northeast region is drug wars – gangs trying to mark territories. Traveling from São Paulo to Porto Seguro, Bahia, your chance of death by homicide go up 8 times. Sobering statistics.

Here are a few other interesting statistics:

¤ Age groups: ages 15-24 150% higher chance to die

¤ Race: 139% more blacks die violently than whites

¤ Gender: 91.4% male homicide victims

For more crime statistics, you can go to www.mapadaviolencia.org.br.  

Crime statistics in São Paulo

We are going to get to the good news. Right now. São Paulo state is now the third safest state in the nation. The homicide rate here is around 13.9 per 100K. The news is even better for São Paulo capital where we are the second least violent state capital in Brazil. How was this done? A focus on security over the last decade and a half. (source here)

1. Security budget increased from $2B to $11.5B
2. 395K illegal guns off the street
3. Emphasis on prevention rather than reaction
4. New police cars and equipment (tablets in each car for real-time help)
5. Use of crime concentrations – identifying regions/addresses with the most crime and concentrating police forces there.
6. Register of bad guys – the Policia Civil has a database of 500,000 criminals and 1.4 million photos of these criminals (extras are tattoos and other identifying characteristics)

Outside of homicide, there are the usual thefts and robberies. You can find updated statistics on a trimestral basis at the state’s security site. We have summarized the first trimester 2013 for some São Paulo crimes below:

¤ Crime Stats (trimestral, SP Capital only)

¤ Boletins de ocorrencia: 196,601

¤ Folks sent to jail: 7,500

¤ Robbery (cars): 11,700

¤ Robbery(Bank): 23

¤ Robbery (other): 29,000

¤ Theft: 49,000

¤ Theft of vehicles: 11,543

Crime by Neighborhood

We cannot emphasize enough that part of staying safe in São Paulo is knowing your neighbor. Go to your area’s Conseg meetings and meet your local police force (the head of Policia Militar, Policia Civil and Guarda Municipal as well as the submayor must attend these meetings.) Join Facebook groups that are active in your neighborhood – you can search for them by “Sociedade de Amigos XX (neighborhood)”.  Two of the most active communities are in Pinheiros and Morumbi where residents quickly relate any crime activity in the area.

Take a look at your neighborhood’s crime statistics. Datafolha periodically publishes them, and there is an interesting (though hardly scientific) site called Onde Fui Roubado where people are identifying where they were victims of crime. Take your concerns to your Conseg meeting or your local police station.

Tattoos

Now for some fun. Did you know that certain tattoos show what kind of crime that the person has committed before? No, we're not talking about beautiful tattoos (if you're into that kind of thing) of butterflies and hummingbirds and Chinese proverbs. No, we are talking about tattoos done the hard way, in prison, and probably pretty painfully.

A carp may mean a PCC member

As we have mentioned, the PCC is the state's largest crime organization. Numbers we have seen are that there are 13,000 members of whom 6,000 are in prison. These numbers may be low. As part of your membership, you may get tattooed with identifiers of which crime you have committed. 

For example:

Hands: Tattoos on the inside of the index finger/thumb (the meaty part). One droplet means robbery, two means something else.

Shoulder/bicep: A clown is a PCC symbol (the largest criminal gang in SP)

Back: A huge tattoo of Nossa Senhora Aparecida (the patron saint of Brazil) on your back means murder. Yep.  Which doesn’t mean that you make your pedreiro strip down and show his back. Just be aware.

1533 means PCC. P is the 15^th letter in the alphabet, C is the third. Think twice about hiring someone with this tattooed on their hand.

There is an enormous document that shows the details for each tattoo in Brazil. This is more for interest and not because you can memorize all of these. Not only that, but we have to emphasize that you should not discriminate against a person because of a tattoo--unless you are pretty sure that it symbolizes a dangerous style of life. We are not advocating profiling--we are suggesting that it is an additional piece of information in your hiring process.

If you do get held up, one of the best identifiers of a bad guy is to memorize a tattoo on his hand or arm—remember the database of 1.4 million images.  Do not try to memorize someone's facial features, but if you can notice a Chuckie doll tattoo on a forearm, you may have increased the chance of catching the bad guy.

If you are like us, you may find this interesting enough to spend a few minutes looking at all the tattoo types that the police have identified. Surprisingly, a pretty carp is not what it seems. 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/122764348/Tatuagem-Desvendando-Segredos

Final Words

Thanks for reading our series on staying safe in São Paulo. At no time did we mean to terrify anyone about living or visiting our city. We have both lived here for years and traveled back and forth for upwards of 25 years between us both. We simply provide advice and statistics and information we have ourselves received from the local police, neighborhood associations and other security people. São Paulo provides a rich cultural and gastronomical experience and we hope you will come to visit and stay a while!

Tomorrow Brazil in My Eyes returns to daily views of my life in São Paulo.

Security in São Paulo - A Partnership with Born Again Brazilian

Starting this week, Born Again Brazilian and Brazil in My Eyes are going to take a closer look at security and how to protect yourself from "unwanted attention." Follow along!

São Paulo is not for the faint of heart in terms of security issues. If visiting a safe big city is on your list, you might want to skip over to some of the European or American metro areas. On a recent visit, Anthony Bourdain, acid-tongued celebrity chef, said “Try to have a friend in Sao Paulo before you come here. I don’t know how you’re going to do that…You want someone looking after you here. If you’re at the mercy of a concierge, you’re in a bad place.”

Since most of us visitors and residents do not have the luxury of a concierge (although we would really seriously like one now), we can provide much advice about protecting yourself, your family and your stuff. This is not tourism advice—please see Insider Guide: Best of São Paulo for some of the best places to see around town.

Over the past year we have attended a number of security presentations, and befriended a military police captain and attended neighborhood security committee meetings. We have had visitors robbed on buses and experienced the frustration of trying to report the crime at the local police. This information is based on these learnings, and is not comprehensive nor is it going to keep you out of all possible criminal situations. The idea is to make you, the visitor or resident of São Paulo or other locations in Brazil, safer and less likely to have a bad experience.

The fact is that there are people for whom robbing and stealing are the only choices they believe they have to survive in Brazil. We don’t have enough time or space to go through the hopelessness and poverty of some of these people’s lives. Lack of access to education and libraries and public health are all factors.

For these criminals, theft is their job. Full-time, every day. As expert as you get in avoiding crime, you have to remember that these folks spend every waking moment figuring out how to get money. They live it. But here’s the good news: the vast majority of the bad guys want your money or your stuff (as a way to get money) for drugs. They do not want YOU as a person. They do not want your kids. They don’t want to hurt you. They want money. Most of the crimes against individuals are crimes of the moment—they haven’t targeted you because you are blonde, or speaking English or carrying Hilfiger, or your husband works for a major European company. They are targeting you because you are distracted looking on your ipad, chatting on your cell phone, driving with your purse on the front seat, or leaving a bank, where there is some kind of probability that you are withdrawing large sums of money.

Starting this week, we are starting a series of posts about personal security and what you can do to be safe here in Brazil. Some of the advice is even pertinent to traveling anywhere outside your home country.

We are going to split up the posts into the following major subject headings:

1. Street smarts
2. Car smarts
3. School smarts
4. Home smarts
5. Security in specific places–foreigners
   1. Soccer games
   2. Shopping centers
   3. Feiras
   4. Rodoviaria/airport
   5. Parking
   6. Restaurants –arrastoes
6. Cool and scary stuff (tattoos, stats)
7. Kid smarts
8. Internet smarts
9. Elsewhere in Brazil, and other information

Ten years ago, São Paulo was the fourth most violent city in Brazil. As of April this year, it was the second LEAST violent city (source: Policia Militar). There are many cities of the northeast and coast that are more dangerous, and the reasons for this will come in our summary.

This is important information. If you are moving to, visiting or have family or friends visiting the country, please pass on these tips. We both are married to Brazilians and we want everyone to have a wonderful and safe sojourn in Brazil. Next post, we’ll take a look at street smarts.

Until then…. stay safe.

The Homicide Resurgence - São Paulo

On Tuesday night this week, an American friend and I went to a seminar titled "The Resurgence of Homicides." If you have followed my blog for any period of time, you know that the whole security theme interests me. Violent death, crime of any kind, and I am there. We were told about the seminar by a friend who mentioned that her friend, a Wall Street Journal reporter, would be on the panel. So it was about violence, involved a friend of a friend AND it was in a neighborhood where we could get a drink afterwards without possibly becoming one of the statistics. Complete win.

I arrived by taxi at the location. In the flyer, it said the seminar would be held in the Instituto Braudel. The address shown on the flyer was on a dark corner of a street with no sign of the Institute. All I could really see was huge heavy steel doors with a sign saying Fundaçao Armando Alvares Penteado*.  Ringing the bell, a little door opened up (picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail) with just the face of the guard showing and he of course says "pois não?" which means yes. No, he did not say "we don't want any" like in the movie. The door unlocks and creaks back. Two other security men in black with bullet-proof vests ask me a few pertinent questions and tell me to follow the person who was already down the drive in front of an old mansion. I am wondering if I should have brought my bullet-proof vest.

Just at that moment, my friend Megan came in and so we had our moments of cheek-kissing and chattering in English to the bafflement of the boys in black (the Black Block? The Blackie Blockie?). Finally we head up the driveway where there is not a single sign to show us where to go next. Well, the door of the mansion is open--let's go in. We stand around the pretty entryway then look up the spiral stairs and decide we'd better ask before parading around. We go back outside to the bemused glance of a fourth security guard who says pretty much "dopies, the event is down there in that over-the-garage kind of place." Okay, he was nicer but I know what he was thinking.

Yep the Institute is over the garage at this old mansion. We squish our way into a small entryway--it is now 5:55 pm with the event starting at 6 pm. We have plenty of time, we think, to grab some water, sign a book with fake names (just kidding!)  and head up the stairs talking loudly in English about our exciting lives.

At the top of the stairs is a single room. White plastic chairs are gathered around a square area with couches. The couches in turn surround on three sides a giant wooden lion in repose and an iffy "oriental" rug. Facing us is a table of 7 older men (okay, our friend's friend is younger than us) and it was complete silence as 30 people look at us. Clearly the meeting had started on time. Ooops. We were asked (in English) by the executive director, Norman Gall, (an American who has been here many years) to take a seat on one of the couches. We were more than a bit embarrassed at our gringo-style entry.

Unfortunately, with our late and loud arrival, I could not sneakily take a photo of the place. My favorite part, besides the giant lion, was the wooden armadillo placed on the head table in front of the master of ceremonies.  Fortunately it seems that the armadillo appears at all events because here is a photo of it at a past event, and the man in the middle is in fact the executive director of the Institute, Norman Gall. I might add that this director took a somewhat long nap during part of the seminar. Or rested his eyes. A lot.

And so it began with some statistics (the event was about São Paulo and the north of Brazil as well).  Some key takeaways were that homicides increase when there is a territorial battle, or as the speaker said, a "disequilibrio territorial." And then they just don't stop as a cycle of  revenge and honor killings is kicked off until finally an equilibrium is achieved again. That equilibrium is usually reached when there is one main player in the territory--that would be the PCC gang in São Paulo. Oh, and this is all because of drugs, right, you got that implicitly? Of course.

Next up was a self-described urbanist-architect named Fausto. He presented us with some facts of the urban "dream" that bring on violence:

1. Cities will always be filled with crime because the places are built for industry, not to respect nature. So the natural places to have recreation and fun are covered with asphalt and with no natural space to be neighborly, everyone retreats behind walls.
2. The rich elites tend to be less neighborly than the poor.
3. São Paulo was built without planning and there is an "inaccessibility of opportunity" now--the rich put the good stuff closer to them (libraries, good hospitals, etc) so that would increase the value of their land. The poor had to make do further afield.
4. Streets with three or four continuous blocks of walls without access to any kind of public space are the mostly likely to have crime take place.

He was a very interesting speaker. The only part I didn't understand was when he kept saying "aquelas coisas Chicago". Or those Chicago things. What was he talking about? Capone? No idea. Maybe I misheard him. 5 times.

The Recife security guy was next up. He said that there is a "mundo de guerra" or war world in the northeast of Brazil, except the city of Recife. The success in Recife has come from developing a list of "crime concentrations"--45% of the homicides were concentrated in 13 neighborhoods. Knowing that, the police could concentrate on those areas.  As they reduced current crime, they also created a new type of neighborhood gathering place. Six "Compaz" ("With Peace") locations were built--each of around 7000 sq meters with access to justice, leisure areas, mediation, and a mixture of other activities.

His final point is that we have to stop building "obra pobre" for "gente pobre".  Poor people need to have as much or better access to community services and recreation in order to stop the cycle. And he ended by saying that it made him sad that in schools there are campaigns to save whales and the environment or whatever, but there is no campaign to save people. And we need campaigns for that.

Then came the numbers guy from Estadão newspaper.  The news is good for all of us living in the southeast of Brazil. In 1996, there were 40 violent deaths per 100,000 people. Now there are 20. The numbers are now almost exactly opposite in the northeast. In fact if you leave São Paulo to live in Porto Seguro, Bahia, your risk of violent death increases 8 times. Guess I'll skip that vacation. He provided a link to a map with the risk of death in various places in Brazil but I didn't get it down. I will: it's on their site.

One of the next speakers talked about the cost of violence. The cost in cutting down young people. There is one area of Alagoas state where there are 1,000 deaths per 100,000 people in the 15-25 year old age range. That's a massacre.

After opening up the floor for questions, there were a couple of interesting moments. One man in the audience (and I will mention that he was black for no particular reason except he was one of only about three) got wound up by comments from a woman in the audience. She commented about the recent protests and violence around the country and how things were getting worse. The man then broke in, introduced himself as a university professor, and proceeded to tell us that the only reason it seems worse is that the violence and crime are now starting to affect the elite. That violence and death was always a part of the poor people's lives--his point was pretty much "welcome to our world" to the elites. He even started pointing a finger (literally) at us all. It was uncomfortable and emotional, and you could have heard a pin drop.

When the attention waned a bit from this, Megan and I decided we needed a drink. Two hours had passed and not a cocktail hour in sight. Clearly academics can chat all evening, and without applauding the flag (see my Conseg posts). We snuck out as best we could and refrained from chatting about our exciting lives until all the way out of the building. Then got out of the Black Block and down the street to a bar. Based on all of this scary stuff, I felt the need  to drink two caipirinhas too quickly and had a hangover for two days. I did, however, take a taxi.


*Note: Fundaçao Armando Alvares Penteado is shortened to FAAP and is a 12,000 student private university.