Brazil's Murder Rate

The Economist has an interesting piece on the falling murder rate in Brazil. It is still the 4th highest among larger countries, but there is a declining trend especially in Sao Paulo.

I still have the desire to move to Brazil, at least temporarily, but the high murder rate and the shady policing has scared me out of it, especially considering taking a wife and kids there.

I only lived in Sao Paulo for a couple of months and my experience was in a remarkably small geographical area. But I did get a sense of how astonishingly huge the city is and the mass of people that live there. Given the institutional structure there, I imagine it is very difficult to prevent, investigate and solve crimes. However, the murder rate has decreased by half in the last five years. Surprisingly, I read in another article from the same magazine a few weeks ago that the number of murders per 100,000 people is actually lower in Sao Paulo than in Washington, D.C.

As for the possible reasons this article offers, I don't believe the bit on tighter gun control. Black markets are alive and well I believe. I'd like to know what has happened, and if I were to start looking into it I'd begin looking at policing tactics. As the article mentions, a high number of killings involve police.