In 2024, there were a total of 2,532 shootings registered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. March was the month with the most shootings in each of the given years, except for 2024 - in that year, there were 254 occurrences, or about 10 percent of the year's total. The lowest number of shootings in the given period occurred in August 2023 when 153 cases were recorded. Police violence in Rio In 2022, the Supreme Court ordered the state government of Rio de Janeiro to come up with a plan to reduce police lethality, as the level of violence in police actions was deemed unacceptable, due to high numbers of casualties and human rights violations. The number of civilians killed as a result of police intervention more than quadrupled between 2013 and 2019, reaching a record number of 1,814 that year. Despite the decrease in comparison to 2019, every year from 2020 to 2022 saw more than 1,200 civilians being killed. Furthermore, it is deemed that there is structural racism in the actions of security forces. For instance, 80 percent of the deaths caused by police interventions in the state during 2023 were of people of color. Shootings and massacres in Rio Civil society and public institutions have made proposals to alleviate this situation. One of them is the ADPF 635 (Allegation of Violation of a Fundamental Precept), also known as ADPF Favelas Case, presented by the Brazilian Socialist Party, and whose preliminary approval took place in June 2020. The measure restricted unplanned police operations in the favelas during the pandemic. Despite its frequent violations, it showed evident results. Shootings fell from 7,368 in 2019 to less than 3,000 in 2024. Over one third of documented shootings in 2024 were due to police operations, while 288 were motivated by murder or attempted murder, the second most common reason. In March 2022, the government of Rio de Janeiro published a plan to reduce deaths during police operations. That year, the State of Rio de Janeiro recorded 92 fewer deaths than the previous year, and the number has fallen every year since.

The annual robbery rate in the city of Rio de Janeiro has stabilized since 2020, after it more than doubled from roughly 850 robberies per 100,000 inhabitants in 2012 to almost 1,900 in 2017. The sharpest decline in the robbery rate occurred between 2019 and 2020 when it fell from 1,500 to below 1,000 thefts, reflecting a decrease of approximately 38 percent. In 2024, the annual robbery rate was 973 thefts per 100,000 inhabitants, however this still equates to almost one percent of the population being robbed each year.

In 2023, approximately 50,000 cases of violence against women were reported in the city of Rio de Janeiro. With over 18,000 cases, psychological violence, such as threatening behavior, harassment, and humiliation, was the category with the most reported cases, while property damage was the least reported category with fewer than 2,200 cases.

In 2024, six of the eight Brazilian cities with the highest homicide rates were in the Northeast. Feira da Santana led the ranking of the most violent city in Brazil, with a murder rate of 55.63 per 100,000 inhabitants. It was followed followed by Recife, with a homicide rate of more than 41 per 100,000 inhabitants. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Feira da Santana was the 22nd most deadly city.

In 2022, the state of Bahia reported the largest number of homicides in Brazil. That year, 6,776 homicides were recorded in this northeastern state. Bahia was followed by the state of Rio de Janeiro, with 3,762 murders reported. Despite that, the number of homicides in Brazil reached the lowest figure that year since at least 2006, totaling 40,464. Homicide targets Data shows that homicides affected men disproportionaly more than women in this South American country. Considering the over 46,340 homicides registered in Brazil in 2022, nearly 92 percent had men as victims. Again, it is important to remember the deterioration of data quality, specially in the case of femicides: there was a woman victim of violent death with no clear cause for every woman victim of homicide in Brazil. In that regard, the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Rondônia had the highest femicide rates. At least three of every 100,000 women who lived in those territories were murdered on account of their gender in 2023. Not only women, but the number of black and brown people murdered in Brazil had been growing throughout the years up until 2017, revealing that minorities are increasingly becoming the targets of violence. In 2022, nearly 35,500 people of color were killed in Brazil, over three times the number of non-black or non-brown people. Police Violence Police brutality has been gaining attention from the media, especially after George Floyd violent death in 2020. In Brazil, police violence, particularly in poor areas, such as favelas, is an old and well-known problem that affects society as a whole. Figures have shown that the number of civilians killed by police officers in Brazil surpassed 6,350 in both 2021 and 2022. Coincidentally, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, the Brazilian states with the highest number of homicides, are also the ones with the highest number of people killed by the police. In Rio, the state with the second-highest figure, people of color were the main victims of deadly police interventions.

There were 758 fatalities due to shootings recorded in 2024 in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This represents a decrease of 21 percent in comparison to the deaths caused by firearms in the previous year. An overall 2.532, shootings were registered in the region that year.

In 2023, the homicide rate in Brazil reached 22.8 incidents per 100,000 inhabitants. The lowest number in the country since 2012 was recorded in 2021, when a homicide rate of 22.3 was recorded.

The number of civilians killed as a result of police intervention in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil has more than quadrupled between 2013 and 2019. In the latter year, more than 1,800 people were killed in circumstances related to police operations in the state of Rio de Janeiro, up from 1,500 deaths a year earlier. In 2023, more than 870 deaths by state agents were reported.

This statistic shows the results of a survey carried out in August 2017 to find out the opinions of tourists visiting the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. As of August 2017, up to 76.8 percent of respondents stated they had not witnessed any crime or delinquent activity while visiting Rio de Janeiro.

In 2023, over 48,000 mobile phones were stolen in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro. The number of mobile phones that were robbed by use of force was slightly lower than the previous year. However the number of petty thefts, which are defined by the lack of use of force, increased drastically in this time, increased from around 30,000 to 32,000 incidents.

In 2024, there were 910 shootings due to police operations or actions recorded in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Although there has been a reduction of 90 shootings compared to the previous year, the number of shootings in which the police were involved represented 35 percent of the total of shootings registered. Murder and robbery (or attempt to) ranked as the second and third main contexts for shooting, with 288 and 242 respectively. In total, there were 2,532 shootings in the region that year.

In the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2023, 42 percent of the population identified as white and 57.8 percent as black, including Pardo Brazilians. However, the number of white civilians killed as a result of police intervention reached nearly 13 percent that year, while black victims made up the remaining 87 percent.

In 2023, São Paulo was the Brazilian state which had the highest number of car thefts and break-ins in, totaling approximately 131,730. It was followed by Rio de Janeiro state with 38,825 cases reported. Over 354,000 vehicle thefts and break-ins in the South American country during 2023 were recorded.

The share of people of black ethnicity killed by the police in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, reached nearly 25 percent of the total killings in 2023. In comparison, only 12 percent of the people killed during the same period due to police interventions were white.

In 2023, 50 robberies of financial institutions were reported in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro. It is followed by Espírito Santo with 25 cases registered, and by the state of Minas Gerais with 11 episodes.Overall, the number of robberies of financial institutions in Brazil has slightly increased lately.

During the Brazilian Carnival season of 2020, more than 2.4 thousand were arrested throughout the state of São Paulo. Nearly one quarter of those arrests corresponded to people who had already been convicted but were fleeing from justice.

In 2023, the reported number of rape cases in Brazil almost doubled from the year 2011 to 2022. In that year, 83,988 incidents were reported, which equates to an average of 230 rape cases per day.

As of February 2024, half of Brazilian women who celebrated Carnival said they were victims of some type of sexual harassment during the celebrations, according to a survey conducted in the country.

As of September 2020, almost 56 percent of cyber-attacks in the Latin American countries included in the study had targeted users or infrastructures located in Brazil, while approximately 28 percent were directed at users in Mexico. Colombia comes in third, with over 10 percent of cyber-attacks.

Greater connectivity, greater vulnerability As internet access and use continues to expand across Latin America, so are the challenges and vulnerabilities regarding cybersecurity. In the first half of 2020, the region recorded the world’s highest cyber-attack rates, with nearly three times more attacks via mobile browsers than the global average. While the rapid growth and complexity of network attacks represent a major challenge for the sector, the shortage of trained IT professionals adds a layer of difficulty for organizations in Latin America to tackle these security gaps.

Brazil as ground zero for cyber-attacks Among the most emblematic cyber-attacks in recent years are those carried out by hacktivist movement 'Anonymous Brazil' against government sites of the county during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Although this case drew particular attention given the magnitude of both the event and the attacks delivered, this is far from being an isolated incident in the history of digital strikes to public institutions in Brazil. In fact, in 2019, the Latin American country recorded the highest number of attacks in the region against web apps in the sector. To ensure a safe, reliable, and resilient cyberspace, in February 2020, the Brazilian government implemented its first National Cybersecurity Strategy.