Brazil’s crime paradox: murders hit a 14-year low while police killings, child abuse, and digital fraud surge

Brazil’s security landscape is sending mixed signals in 2025–2026, with multiple O Globo reports drawing on the Brazilian Public Security Yearbook. The country is said to have more than four feminicides per day in 2025 and police lethality at its highest level in the last decade, with police killing about 18 people per day. At the same time, another report says assassinations have fallen to the lowest level since 2012, totaling 40,775 victims in 2023, suggesting a partial improvement in some categories of lethal violence. Separate coverage also highlights that child and adolescent mistreatment more than doubled over five years, while bullying remains high, and that digital fraud has become the leading property crime with more than 250 scams per hour. Geopolitically, these trends matter because they shape internal stability, legitimacy of state institutions, and the operating environment for organized crime—factors that can spill into economic confidence and governance capacity. The combination of declining overall assassinations alongside persistent racialized violence (with 8 in 10 victims reportedly Black) points to uneven progress and potential backlash in public policy, policing standards, and social cohesion. Meanwhile, the rise in digital fraud and the growth in trafficking cases after an STF decision on cannabis indicate that criminal markets are adapting to legal and technological shifts rather than shrinking. The net effect is a security governance challenge: authorities may be able to reduce certain street killings, but they are struggling to curb lethal police practices, protect children, and contain cyber-enabled predation. Market and economic implications are likely to concentrate in financial services, telecoms, and insurance, as digital fraud expands and drives higher fraud-prevention costs and potential credit-risk stress. If scams exceed 250 per hour, the operational burden on banks, payment processors, and e-commerce platforms can rise quickly, while consumer losses can feed into weaker spending and reputational risk for platforms. Persistent high rates of violent crime in specific municipalities—such as Maranguape in Ceará for a second consecutive year—can also increase local security expenditures and raise the cost of doing business, affecting retail, logistics, and property markets. Additionally, the reported concentration of cellphone theft declines with exceptions in Rio de Janeiro and Paraíba suggests that risk is becoming more geographically and demographically segmented, which can influence underwriting and pricing for insurers and security contractors. What to watch next is whether Brazil’s security policy pivots from headline homicide reductions toward measurable improvements in police conduct, child protection outcomes, and cybercrime enforcement. Key indicators include trends in feminicide counts, police lethality metrics, and the rate of child mistreatment and bullying reports, alongside the trajectory of digital fraud volumes and modalities. The STF-driven shift in cannabis-related trafficking cases also warrants monitoring for follow-on judicial or regulatory actions that could further reshape illicit supply chains. Finally, localized hotspots—like Maranguape—and exceptions where cellphone theft is not falling should be tracked for targeted operations, while law-enforcement actions such as the “Operação Backdoor” involving alleged diversion of computers from Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service signal continued pressure on corruption and procurement vulnerabilities.

Geopolitical Implications

• 01

  Internal security deterioration in specific dimensions (police lethality, feminicide, child abuse) can erode state legitimacy and increase social instability, affecting long-run investment sentiment.

• 02

  Criminal adaptation to legal and technological changes (post-STF cannabis shift; cyber-enabled fraud) suggests illicit networks are diversifying rather than shrinking.

• 03

  Racialized violence persistence (8 in 10 victims reportedly Black) raises the risk of policy backlash and intensified scrutiny of policing and justice systems.

• 04

  Localized hotspots can concentrate governance failures and create uneven regional economic performance, influencing migration, labor mobility, and insurance pricing.

Key Signals

• —Next quarterly/annual updates to police lethality and feminicide counts, and whether they move independently of homicide trends.
• —Digital fraud volume and modality changes (e.g., payment scams vs. account takeovers) and whether enforcement reduces scam frequency.
• —Post-STF cannabis-related case statistics: trafficking arrests, prosecution outcomes, and any further judicial/regulatory adjustments.
• —Municipal-level crime trajectories for Maranguape and the persistence of cellphone theft exceptions in Rio and Paraíba.
• —Progress and outcomes of Operação Backdoor and Operação Rota Segura Madureira (charges, convictions, and network dismantling).