Murder Risk Is 3 Times Higher for Blacks than for Non-Blacks in Brazil

Racial balance Index points to a disproportionate increase in the intentional violent death of blacks in Brazil between 2010 and 2020

São Paulo

The risk of black people being killed in Brazil is three times higher than among non-black people — and, for the first time in ten years, this racial disproportion in murders was recorded in all 27 federative units in the country.

For murders with firearms, the risk is 3.6 times higher for blacks. The information is from the Racial Balance Index (IER), which mapped intentional violent deaths in Brazil.

This racial imbalance among victims of lethal violence is lower in the South and higher in the Northeast, driven by the high rates in Alagoas, Sergipe, Ceará, and Paraíba.

Created by economists Sergio Firpo, Michael França, and Alysson Portella, the IER measures the exclusion of blacks and browns from privileged strata of society and was applied to racial inequality in Brazilian homicide rates.

Translated by Cassy Dias

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