Rio Janeiro is often portrayed in film as a violent city. While there is a lot more to the city than just violence, levels of violence are quite high. In 2016 the city had a rate of 21 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.[1] The United Nations International Public Security Index considers a rate above 20 murders per 100,000 inhabitants a serious situation.

 

Security in the Olympic Games has two dimensions. On one hand, there is what is considered security during the Games and on the other hand what security implies for the city as a whole. Primarily security for the Olympic Games focused on preserving the safety of those who visited as spectators of the Games, largely forgetting the locals.

 

It is worth stressing that Rio 2016 was the first Olympic Games to be held in South America, and therefore all eyes were focused on guaranteeing the safety of heads of state, IOC members and royalty who would come to participate and/or observe.

Although the official news was that there were no incidents during Games, what was the impact of security public policies and how was this correlated to the Olympics?

 

In 2008, with the city, having won the bid to host the World Cup and the candidacy for the Olympic Games in progress, the UPP program - Pacifying Police Units - was imposed to ostensibly reduce drug related violent crime in the favelas.

One year after the end of the mega-events, the official number of dead, mostly poor and black youth, of the communities at the hands of the police comes to 6814 according to the Public Security Institute (ISP in Portuguese). This number corresponds to the category of “Homicide resulting from opposition to police intervention.”