VIOLENCE AND HOMICIDES IN RURAL AREAS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE HOMICIDE DIFFERENTIAL BETWEEN RURAL AND URBAN MUNICIPALITIES IN BRAZIL

Authors

  • Nathanael Andray Rebouças de Souza
  • Lauro Nogueira
  • Fábio Lúcio Rodrigues
  • Antônio Flávio de Souza Duarte

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.56238/revgeov17n4-190

Keywords:

Violence in Rural Areas, Homicide Rates, Crime Interiorization, Rural Municipalities

Abstract

This study investigated the impacts of water scarcity and/or periods of extreme drought on homicide rates in Brazilian municipalities, particularly rural ones. Using a survey of 769,774 data points that combined climate information, socioeconomic data of victims, homicide rates, and municipal socioeconomic variables as controls, between 2002 and 2020. The study also outlined a profile of homicide victims in rural municipalities for a deeper understanding of the issue. The results show that water scarcity and/or periods of extreme drought increase firearm homicide rates in rural municipalities of Brazil, with higher homicide rates in the region leading to greater observed effects. In summary, there are indications of a phenomenon of crime interiorization, especially in predominantly rural municipalities.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Andrade, L. T., & Diniz, A. M. A. (2013). The spatial reorganization of homicides in Brazil and the thesis of interiorization. Brazilian Journal of Population Studies, 30, S171–S191.

ABSP. (2023). Brazilian yearbook of public security 2023. Retrieved February 25, 2024, from https://forumseguranca.org.br

Bayas, A., & Grau, N. (2023). Inequality of opportunity in juvenile crime and education. International Journal of Educational Development, 103, 102901.

Becker, G. S. (1968). Crime and punishment: An economic approach. Journal of Political Economy, 76(2), 169–217.

Burke, M., Hsiang, S. M., & Miguel, E. (2015). Climate and conflict. Annual Review of Economics, 7(1), 577–617.

Carneiro, F. G., Loureiro, P. R. A., & Sachsida, A. (2005). Crime and social interactions: A developing country case study. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 34(3), 311–318.

Chernozhukov, V., Fernández-Val, I., & Melly, B. (2013). Inference on counterfactual distributions. Econometrica, 81(6), 2205–2268.

Couttenier, M., & Soubeyran, R. (2014). Drought and civil war in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Economic Journal, 124(575), 201–244.

Ferreira, H. R. S., & Marcial, E. C. (2015). Violence and public security in 2023: Exploratory scenarios and prospective planning. Institute for Applied Economic Research – IPEA.

Ferretti, F., Pozza, A., & Coluccia, A. (2019). Urban safety: A re-reading of the sense of unsafety through individual and ecological dimensions. European Journal of Criminology, 16(2), 188–209.

Hainmueller, J. (2012). Entropy balancing for causal effects: A multivariate reweighting method to produce balanced samples in observational studies. Political Analysis, 20(1), 25–46.

Hainmueller, J., & Xu, Y. (2013). Ebalance: A Stata package for entropy balancing. Journal of Statistical Software, 54(7).

Khan, N., Ahmed, J., Nawaz, M., & Zaman, K. (2015). The socio-economic determinants of crime in Pakistan: New evidence on an old debate. Arab Economic and Business Journal, 10(2), 73–81.

IPEA. (2023). Violence and public security in 2023. Retrieved March 1, 2024, from https://www.ipea.gov.br/atlasviolencia/

Ishak, P. W. (2022). Murder nature: Weather and violent crime in rural Brazil. World Development, 157, 105933.

Lefranc, A., Pistolesi, N., & Trannoy, A. (2008). Inequality of opportunities vs. inequality of outcomes: Are Western societies all alike? Review of Income and Wealth, 54(4), 513–546.

Levitt, S. D. (1997). Using electoral cycles in police hiring to estimate the effect of police on crime. American Economic Review, 87(3).

Lochner, L. (2004). Education, work, and crime: A human capital approach. International Economic Review, 45(3), 811–843.

Lochner, L. (2011). Non-production benefits of education: Crime, health, and good citizenship. National Bureau of Economic Research.

Lochner, L., & Moretti, E. (2004). The effect of education on crime: Evidence from prison inmates, arrests, and self-reports. American Economic Review, 94(1), 155–189.

Machin, S., & Meghir, C. (2004). Crime and economic incentives. Journal of Human Resources, 39(4), 958–979.

Nordqvist, P., & Krampe, F. (2018). Climate change and violent conflict: Sparse evidence from South Asia and South East Asia. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Harvard University Press.

Rawls, J. (2017). A theory of justice. In Applied ethics (pp. 21–29). Routledge.

Rocha, R., & Soares, R. R. (2015). Water scarcity and birth outcomes in the Brazilian semiarid. Journal of Development Economics, 112, 72–91.

Roemer, J. E. (1998). Equality of opportunity.

Soares Filho, A. M., Merchan-Hamann, E., & Vasconcelos, C. H. (2020). Expansion, displacement, and interiorization of homicide in Brazil between 2000 and 2015: A spatial analysis. Ciência & Saúde Coletiva, 25(8), 3097–3105.

Steeves, G. M., Petterini, F. C., & Moura, G. V. (2015). The interiorization of Brazilian violence, policing, and economic growth. Economia, 16(3), 359–375.

Downloads

Published

2026-04-29

How to Cite

de Souza, N. A. R., Nogueira, L., Rodrigues, F. L., & Duarte, A. F. de S. (2026). VIOLENCE AND HOMICIDES IN RURAL AREAS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE HOMICIDE DIFFERENTIAL BETWEEN RURAL AND URBAN MUNICIPALITIES IN BRAZIL. Revista De Geopolítica, 17(4), e2278. https://doi.org/10.56238/revgeov17n4-190