Blog 9 - How Bad is Brazil's Crime?

Summary:

This article gives some insight on what is going on in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There was a video clip included in the article showing just how serious mugging has gotten. This clip was of a live television show where a lady was being interviewed and upon being asked if she was afraid of the crime in Rio a mugger came up behind her in attempt to steal her necklace. He managed to break it, but ran off before he could grasp it. The increasing crime rates have become a big deal with the World Cup coming up in only two months. Brazil officials are trying to get this under control before the tourists start coming in for this major event. Despite the attempts to control the street crime, it is still going up. There has been recent reports that tourists credit cards are being duplicated at ATMs in Rio's main international airport. Other crimes include cell phone robberies which have gone up 121%, robberies on the bus which have gone up 118%, and murders have went up 18%. An aggressive police program, pacification, has been enforced to create peace. Rio has ordered the police to be stationed in bad neighborhoods or shantytowns. 

Analysis:

This article shows how corrupt different places of the world are becoming. Even those these events are happening on the other side of the world, they still affect us as U.S. citizens. I mentioned in my summery that the World Cup is rapidly approaching and people from all over the world will be in attendance. It is really important for Brazil to get this crime under control, because if they don't the amount of people that will show up for this event will be affected. That will happen because no one is going to want to go to a supposedly "fun" event and have to worry about being robbed in broad daylight. Crimes such as this aren't high in Brazil only. The United States and Russia also have very high crime rates. This is an issue that we should get under control as one. 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/04/10/301414958/live-on-brazilian-tv-woman-talking-about-crime-gets-attacked