In May this year, a 27-year-old student from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) was stabbed after a robbery in downtown Rio. He didn’t react but was stabbed anyway. Two months later a 30-year-old lawyer was killed in a location nearby, in Praça Tiradentes. Cases like these reflect the public security situation in Rio central area.
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In the Central do Brasil region, for example, added to the high flow of people, there is urban disorder. Inside the station and in the area surrounding it, drug trafficking, exploitation of minors and theft are frequent. Old issues that only get worse with time, despite having been the target, in the last two decades, of several projects that promised a solution to revitalize and modernize one of the most important places in the city.
A few years ago, the security condition in the central region was poor. The COVID-19 pandemic; brought bigger challenges for the authorities. The worsening post-pandemic economy and the abandonment of the central region, the traditional office and commercial area, made the situation deteriorate even more. This is not a problem exclusive to Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo also face similar issues.
IT WAS ALREADY BAD BEFORE
In 2019, a businessman, who was working in downtown Rio, became famous after filming a series of petty crimes from the windows of his office. The images showed the most recurrent crimes: thefts, and robberies. Usually in groups, young people stole jewelry and cell phones from anyone who passed by. Trying to alert people, the businessman even created a pamphlet in Portuguese and English talking about the thefts and what should be done to protect oneself.
According to the Instituto de Segurança Pública, in 2018, 4,921 street robberies were recorded. That means a 9,3% increase compared to the year before (2017). These numbers made the Center the neighborhood with the highest incidence of this type of crime. In a year where the state of Rio de Janeiro underwent a federal intervention in the area of public security.
350 meters from the Eastern Military Command, where the Brazilian Army’s federal intervention office was located, in downtown Rio, a building has been transformed into a drug house. Residents of the building were threatened to accept the drug dealers’ rules.
In February 2018, during Carnival, a large group of bate-bolas – a traditional carnival costume in the Rio’s suburb – were arrested while promoting a mass robbery on Presidente Wilson Avenue, in downtown Rio. According to police, there were 110 masked men among the arrested group, in addition to a grenade and a pistol. The group was taken to the Lapa police station, however as there was not enough infrastructure for so many people, three buses were needed to transport the entire group to the City of Police, North Zone.
IT GETS WORST WITH THE PANDEMIC
The pandemic placed almost the whole world in quarantine. The streets in downtown Rio have been deserted and the few people who passed through the region described it as a ghost town. The number of homeless people increased, and violent incidents were reported against pedestrians, some of them involving machetes and knives.
“Feeling of total insecurity. In addition to being practically deserted, there was no police. You can’t risk walking around”, was how described a woman who works in a commercial building near the Municipal Theater. A co-worker of hers said he lived about 10 minutes away and that the route he always took on foot has now become unfeasible, due to the huge possibility of robberies.
POST-PANDEMIC RETURN TO DOWNTOWN
With the end of the restriction measures, a few companies and stores located downtown started to reopen, but the central area has not yet returned to the pre-pandemic activity, especially during nighttime. Regarding office work, some companies definitively adopted working from home. This contributed to Rio central region being less lively, mainly along the Avenida Rio Branco axis and transversals.
The abandonment of downtown Rio de Janeiro leaves pedestrians vulnerable to theft when night falls or on early morning. One of the busiest spots in the Center – Praça da República, near the Faculdade Nacional de Direito (FND) – is one of the most dangerous. The street where the FND is located has even gained a nickname among university students: “Rua do Perdeu” or literally “Street of Lose”. The name is a reference to a phrase that robbers say to their victims when they attack: “You lost, give me everything!”.
The insecurity is evidenced by numbers from the Public Security Institute (ISP): according to the agency, the number of robberies grew 40% in the first seven months of this year compared to the same period of last year. The total number jumped from 1,828 to 2,555. Cell phone robberies has also grown considerably. According to the ISP 323 cell phone robberies were recorded from January to July 2021 and during the same period of this year, the total number reached 554, that is, i.e., an increase of 72%. A symbolic case of violence that describes the violence in the region took place on 18 July, when all accesses to Largo da Lapa – a well-known night life location – were closed due to a police incident. Residents protested and set burning barricades made with trash on the streets. A bus was attacked with stones by an angry mob, and police forces that appeared to control the situation were targeted too. According to the Civil Police, the unrest began after the death of a suspect by police officers that were in an operation to fulfill an arrest warrant against a thief. They would have been attacked by two armed men and reacted. However, witnesses claim that there was no shootout.
PUBLIC RESPONSE FROM THE CITY AND THE STATE
The new administration of Mayor Eduardo Paes (DEM) is trying to resolve the problem. On the first day of his mandate, in January 2021, a decree created the “Work Group for the Requalification of the Center of Rio de Janeiro”, with a period of 120 days to present a plan. The group involved, in all, 18 departments or administration bodies from the city.
One of the retained solutions is the program Reviver Centro that aims to promote the urban, social, and economic recovery of neighborhoods in the central region. The objective is to establish guidelines for the management, qualification and maintenance of public space and historical assets. The idea is to repopulate downtown Rio by converting abandoned commercial properties into residential developments.
Another attempt to minimize the center’s problems came from the state government’s “Centro Presente” project. The program, which aims to combat petty crimes in strategic locations and to occupy the ground, has the participation of active and reserve military police and agents off-duty from the Armed Forces. However, some problems generate criticism from the population.
One criticism is regarding the program’s opening hours. The Praça XV base closes its activities at 22:00. A 27-year-old young man, for example, was murdered at dawn in March this year in Praça XV. He had his neck cut by a minor with a glass bottle. The crime happened a few meters from the base of the Centro Presente program, which was closed at that time. While the first base of the program, in Lapa, starts working at 19:00 and continues during the dawn, but remains closed during the day, when there is a large circulation of people. It was during the day that an American tourist was shot after being robbed in April this year. He was approached by two armed men on a motorcycle. The criminals shot him and took about R$200 that were in his pockets.
MEANWHILE IN SÃO PAULO
São Paulo central region is experiencing something similar. Police stations in the region accounted for 10,545 robberies from January to June this year. On average, there were 58 per day. Despite being a smaller region than others in the city, downtown São Paulo concentrates 20% of the thefts registered in the capital. Between January and May of this year compared to the same period last year, the number of robberies in the region more than doubled, from 1,295 to 3,048.
Gangs operate in broad daylight, by bicycle or on foot. They choose a victim and attack as a group: they leave the person helpless, lost. Sometimes up to ten people act together against a single victim. After the robbery they flew away. A witness said that the gangs act freely, and no one can stop them. As a result, robberies are more violent.
One of the gang’s victims says that he was robbed and assaulted on his first day of employment. The man was just another victim of violence in São Paulo. In June, robberies increased 13%, compared to last year. Images captured by a local TV channel show a group of three men pretending to talk while they wait for their victims. When a couple gets close enough, they are surprised by the criminals. While one of them punches and kicks one of the targets in the head, three others take their cell phone and wallet. Then the trio flees.
The preferred target of thieves remains the cell phone, which represents most of items theft. The neighborhood with the most disastrous records is Campos Elíseos, where Cracolândia used to be located.
Cracolândia is another relevant challenge in the central region. Government actions seek to control trafficking and send addicts from the area for treatment, but this has generated undesired effects through the dispersion of addicts and traffickers. Many began to occupy the Princesa Isabel Square, which was later vacated by more public security actions. A study carried out by members of LabCidade (Public Space and Right to the City Laboratory, linked to Universidade de São Paulo) identified at least 16 points in downtown São Paulo occupied by drug users as a result of the migrations from Cracolândia. The constant displacement of addicts through the center also caused conflicts with residents.
On 11 July of this year, there was a confrontation between merchants in the Santa Ifigênia region and users who were in Gusmões Street. Videos recorded with cellphone cameras showed employees of the establishments celebrating the dispersion after some dependents were hit by sticks and stones. The next day, shopkeepers organized a protest asking for more security. Similar acts, however, without violence, were articulated by residents of the Campos Elíseos neighborhood.
The São Paulo State Tourism Guides Union recommended the suspension of tours in the historic center of the capital due to robberies and thefts. According to the union president, the lack of security has always been a problem, but it has worsened a lot in the last three months. She adds that the situation is even more complicated when groups of foreigners are guided by the center.
The São Paulo Public Security Secretariat (SSP) says that policing and investigative actions in the Largo da Concórdia region have been intensified to identify and arrest robbers in the region. The SSP and the Military Police emphasize the importance for the victims to register any criminal action at the police station.,
