In 2024, the highest amount of crimes recorded in the state of São Paulo was for thievery, excluding vehicle thievery, with more than half a million cases. The second most common crime was robberies, with nearly 189,000 incidences.

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 ***** per 100,000 inhabitants. It was followed followed by Recife, with a homicide rate of more than ** per 100,000 inhabitants. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Feira da Santana was the **** most deadly city.

Although Brazil remains severely affected by civil violence, the state of São Paulo has made significant inroads into fighting criminality. In the last decade, São Paulo has witnessed a 70% decline in homicide rates, a result that policy-makers attribute to a series of crime-reducing measures implemented by the state government. While recent academic studies seem to confirm this downward trend, no estimation of the total impact of state policies on homicide rates currently exists. The present article fills this gap by employing the synthetic control method to compare these measures against an artificial São Paulo. The results indicate a large drop in homicide rates in actual São Paulo when contrasted with the synthetic counterfactual, with about 20,000 lives saved during the period. The theoretical usefulness of the synthetic control method for public policy analysis, the role of the Primeiro Comando da Capital as a causal mediator, and the practical implications of the security measures taken by the São Paulo state government are also discussed.

In the state of São Paulo, Brazil, the population in 2021 was composed by 63.7 percent of people who identified as white. However, this ethnic group only represented 31 percent of the civilians killed by security agents. Meanwhile, 69 percent of civilian deaths caused by the police were black people, who constituted a little more than a third of the state's population. Moreover, the share of people of black ethnicity killed by the police in the state's capital reached nearly 70 percent of the total that year.

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 2024, São Paulo was the Brazilian state that had the highest number of car thefts and break-ins, totaling approximately 125,690. It was followed by Rio de Janeiro state with 48,270 cases reported. Over 344,000 vehicle thefts and break-ins in the South American country during 2024 were recorded.

The number of femicides, murders committed against women because of their gender, in Brazil slightly increased in 2024 in comparison to the previous year. Throughout 2024, ***** femicides were registered in Brazil, up from ***** recorded one year before. That year, the Brazilian state with the highest number of femicides was São Paulo.

In 2023, São Paulo was the Brazilian state with the highest number of violent deaths of LGBT+ people. Out of the *** deaths reported that year, 27were registered in that state. Ceará ranked second, with ** deaths. Further, most cause of these deaths were homicides.