Crime, Violence On Increase In S America Cities

by Mario Osava

The ban is just one indication of the extent to which violent crime has soared in urban areas of several South American countries, like Brazil and civil war-torn Colombia.

The increase in violent crime has also given rise to a "medievalization" of urban architecture, with residences surrounded by ramparts, trenches, double steel gates, palisades, walls with lances sticking out on top, armed guards, checkpoints and watch towers, Sonia Ferraz, a professor of architecture at Brazil's Fluminense de Niteroi Federal University, near Rio de Janeiro, told IPS.

Some of these modern-day fortresses have a prison-like look, with bars and grilles with pointed ends facing outwards in "an aggressive attitude, one of attack, rather than just defense," she said, based on research carried out over the past few years in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil's leading cities.

Ferraz said the phenomenon "is impoverishing social relations and eliminating coexistence in public spaces," while communication increasingly lacks personal contact and is carried out in the same manner "with the next-door neighbor as with someone on the other side of the world," thanks to the latest technology.

The security measures affect passersby as the fortresses take over the sidewalks, streets are cut off to traffic by groups of families in neighborhoods that organize their own protection systems, and public spaces are thus privatized, she added.

The desperate attempts by city residents to feel safe has fuelled the growth of a "market" that profits from fear, and a booming business in electronic security and surveillance equipment, private security guards, electric fences, and bullet- proof, polarized windows for homes.

Two of the biggest box office hits today in Brazil, national productions that have been showing to packed theatres since last year, both deal with the question of violence.

"Cidade de Deus" (City of God) uses a largely non- professional cast recruited from the streets to follow the story of two boys who grow up in a low-income housing project in Rio de Janeiro, while "Carandiru" tackles the real-life mass killing of 111 inmates in a Sao Paulo prison in 1992.

Violence has also had an impact on the Latin American economy, as demonstrated by a large body of research on the losses caused by the rise in crime, which is seen as a curb on regional growth.

The most comprehensive study, conducted by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in 1998, estimated the cost of violence in Latin America at 14.2 percent of the region's combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP), equivalent to $168 billion at that time.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has always considered violence a public health problem in this region, but has now made it a priority issue, since it is one of the leading causes of death, especially among teenage boys and young men.

The homicide rates in large cities in Brazil and Colombia, which are among the highest in the world, have led local authorities to adopt alcohol curfews.

A ban on serving alcohol after a certain hour has helped bring down the murder rate in several cities. In Diadema, near Sao Paulo, the city government decided a year ago to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages after 11PM, and the homicide rate has declined by 30 percent.

After Diadema lost the dubious distinction of being the most violent city in the southern state of Sao Paulo, several other Brazilian cities followed suit and adopted their own curfews.

Manaos, the capital of the northern state of Amazonas, adopted an alcohol curfew in the poorer neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city only on weekends, when violent crime tends to surge.

In Colombia, a night-time limit on alcohol sales was implemented in Bogota, in conjunction with a disarmament campaign and other anti-violence measures.

The success of the measures and the resultant drop in crime has allowed city officials in the Colombian capital to ease the restriction. Instead of closing at midnight, nightclubs are now allowed to remain open a few hours more.

Dr. Drauzio Varella, the author of the book that inspired the film "Carandiru," argued that family planning is an indispensable factor in fighting crime.

If millions of people continue to be born into a life in which they are condemned to extreme poverty, "there will be no lack of 'soldiers' to swell the ranks of organized crime," he stated in an article published in the local press.

But Gilberta Acselrad, a researcher on drugs and human rights at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, said "the problem is not that there are so many, but that the wealth is concentrated in the hands of so few."

If the wealth were better distributed, decent living standards would no longer be limited to only a portion of the population, she said in an interview with IPS.

Inequality, more than poverty, is the big factor fuelling the rise in crime, said Acselrad.

But researchers and analysts also point to factors like the small proportion of perpetrators who are brought to justice, police corruption, the enormous numbers of young people with no prospects, the ease with which firearms can be obtained, and drug trafficking.

Cracking down harder on crime seems to be a popular approach in countries like Brazil.

The Brazilian Congress is now debating whether to increase the maximum prison sentence from 30 to 40 years. Other ongoing debates are the possibility of adopting life sentences and capital punishment, and of lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16 years.

Meanwhile, residents in large South American cities continue to come up with their own individual and private "solutions" to protect their lives and those of their families, as well as their property, altering the face of their cities with new gated communities, and creating a flourishing private security industry, said Ferraz.