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Comment by hu3 | Hacker News Reader

edit: didn't know people downvoted statistics in HN.

Conversely homicides in Brazil registered the sharpest decline in its history.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/22/brazils-murder-rate-fin...

> One of the world’s most homicidal countries just registered the sharpest overall decline of lethal violence in its history. Brazil’s murder rate dropped by a whopping 13 percent between 2017 and 2018, from more than 59,000 people killed to just over 51,000. And homicides fell by 25 percent in the first two months of 2019 compared with the same period last year.

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Yes, but this _nothing to do_ with the issue of military police preemptively sniping people in slums.

The drop in death rates is associated with 'peace treaties' between large criminal factions in peripheral states such as Rio Grande do Sul and, most importantly, Ceará. These factions have recently spread across Brazil (last decade and a half or so) and most recently, concurrently with the economical crisis of 2014~onwards, have been waging open war.

The article you linked even says:

> The drop in lethal violence started well before the election of the self-styled crime-fighter-in-chief, President Jair Bolsonaro, who was elected in October 2018.

Rio's governor (who enacted the sniping) was elected along with Bolsonaro.

Homicide rate more than halved in a trend that was already bearish. Reduction went from 13% in Jan 2018 to 25% in Jan 2019. I find this outstanding enough to be considered a new trend in itself.

"the sharpest decline in history" out of coming from the most violent year in history (2017), mainly due to gang wars. Also, this particular story is about police killings only, that are up almost 18% from the same period from the previous year.

That was before the record number of killings, which leads the question, will increased brutality of the police force improve or worsen overall security?

This might not be a coincidence. Police shooting people without due process isn't an ethical system of justice, but it could be an effective way to decrease the homicide rate. In many places, the most powerful gang can only be matched or beaten by the government. And if the most powerful gang is too difficult to deter from murdering people by using due process, having cops kill them would probably reduce the overall homicide rate (even if you tally the police killings as homicides).

When the police shoots people without process on purpose, then they are just the most powerful gang.

Police are supposed to be the most powerful gang, the one which is paid by your taxes to protect you from any criminal activity and eliminate any competition.

I don't disagree with this. But sometimes one gang is better than another when it comes to minimizing homicides.

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