A report released today reveals that mentions of crimes on newspaper front pages have increased by an average of 130% over the past 25 years, while reported crime rates have decreased by 1.3% during the same period.
The observatory stated that the Annual Internal Security Report (RASI) “is not sufficient to characterize objective and subjective insecurity because it does not exclusively account for reported crime” and emphasized that “the action of the justice system significantly influences citizens’ perceptions of insecurity.”
The report advocates against minimizing factors that contribute to feelings of insecurity, asserting that they are as significant as, if not more so, than crime statistics.
It proposes “several contributions to mitigate the paradox between the perception of insecurity and its relation to crime,” specifically recommending “the periodic conduct of victimization surveys, as legislated in the Internal Security Law, to better quantify criminal phenomena and incivilities,” and “the creation of communication strategies by security forces and judicial authorities to provide clear and objective information.”
The SEDES Observatory on Security and Defense also suggests that RASI should include comparative crime data spanning at least 10 years and improve coordination between judicial practices and the work conducted by security forces.
“With these contributions, SEDES aims to align public perception of insecurity with the actual crime reality, to enhance trust in institutions and develop better public policies, as progress and development are only possible within a secure citizen environment,” the document states.
The observatory analyzed the front pages of newspapers including Correio da Manhã, Diário de Notícias, Expresso, and Sol to assess changes in the number of crime-related headlines and the recurrence of such themes in subsequent editions.
The findings show that crime mentions on front pages have increased by 130% on average, more than doubling over the past 25 years.
Additionally, the observatory found that between 2000 and 2005, a typical high-profile crime would remain on the front page for about 2.5 weeks, with an average of six mentions. This duration increased to 4.5 weeks, with an average of 12 mentions, between 2021 and 2024.
