Concentration of Urban Violence in Fortaleza and Strategies for Crime Prevention

• DOI: 10.1177/07340168211038043
• Date: 01 December 2021
• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Concentration of Urban Violence

in Fortaleza and Strategies for

Crime Prevention

R´

egis Fac¸anha Dantas

1

and Serena Favarin

2

Abstract

Despite the continued prevalence of violence in Latin America, there is a relative dearth of research

investigating both spatial patterns of violent crimes and the effectiveness of evidence-based crime

prevention policies in Brazil. This study aims to address this gap in extant knowledge by creating a

Spatial Violence Index and a Restrictive Ambient Index to investigate the spatial dynamics of violent

crimes and urban vulnerabilities in Fortaleza. Both exploratory spatial data analysis and spatial

regression models were employed to visualize the associative patterns and measure the correlation

between the two indexes. The results demonstrate how locations characterized by high levels of

violence are spatially correlated with more vulnerable locations in terms of both socio-economic-

demographics and urban disorder. Overall, the study identified 124 vulnerable micro-territories that

would benefit from the allocation of resources in an effort to reduce violence in the city by

enhancing the efficiency of policing and prevention strategies.

Keywords

urban violence, spatial analysis, local vulnerabilities, concentration of violence, Latin America,

Fortaleza

Introduction

In 2018, Brazil registered the highest number of homicides in the world, along with ranking among

the seven countries with the highest homicide rate at the global level (UNODC, 2021). According to

prior studies and a recent systematic review, both an evidence-based approach to crime prevention

and targeted strategies of predictive policing at micro-places can help to reduce crime as well as

allocate resources more effectively and efficiently (Braga et al., 2019; Braga et al., 1999; Meijer &

Wessels, 2019; Ratcliffe et al., 2011). Research has also demonstrated how this approach could also

be expedient for tackling violent crimes in Latin America (de Oliveira et al., 2019; Muggah &

1

Department of Public Security of the State of Cear´

a, Fortaleza, Cear´

a, Brazil

2

Universit`

a Cattolica del Sacro Cuore & Transcrime, Milano, Italy

Corresponding Author:

R´

egis Fac¸anha Dantas, Department of Public Security of the State of Cear´

a, Av. Bezerra de Menezes, 581, Fortaleza, Cear´

a

60325, Brazil.

Email: regis.dantas@uol.com.br

Criminal Justice Review

ª2021 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/07340168211038043

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2021, Vol. 46(4) 466–483

Tob´on, 2019). Nevertheless, despite the widespread violence in Latin America’s urban contexts,

there is a scarcity of studies that have analyzed spatial patterns of violent crime in this region and/or

delineated potentially effective and efficient crime prevention strategies.

This study aims to address this gap in ex tant knowledge and literature by in vestigating the

micro-dynamics of violent crimes in the city of Fortaleza. In 2018, Fortaleza registered around

70 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, which ranked it among the 10 most violent cities in the world.

The city is the state capital of Cear`a and is located in the Northeastern region of Brazil. With a

population of more than 2.5 million people, it is the fifth largest city in Brazil. According to the most

recent crime trends, although the homicide rate there decreased in in 2019, Fortaleza nevertheless

remains one of the most violent cities in the country (Seguridad, Justicia y Paz, 2021). Both drug

trafficking offenses and lethal and intentional violen t crimes appear to be largely concentrated

within specific areas of the city where precarious settlements (e.g., tenements, slums, and irregular

subdivisions of low-income residents) are located, thus pointing toward a potential spatial associ-

ation between these crime types and places characterized by social disorganization and urban

vulnerability. This study constructs two indexes using Principal Component Ana lysis (PCA) to

measure the level of violence at micro-places (Spatial Violence Index [SVI]) as well as the level

of vulnerability of those micro-places in terms of socio-economic-demographics and disorder point

of view (Restrictive Ambience Index [RAI]). The spatial and statistical relationship between these

indexes are then measured through an exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and a set of statis-

tical models (i.e., ordinary least square [OLS], spatial auto regressive model, and spatial error model

[SEM]). The concentration of violence largely occurs in vulnerable areas, and there is a spatial

association between the concentration of violent crimes and highly vulnerable places in Fortaleza.

The study identified 124 vulnerable micro-territories which would benefit from the allocation of

resources in order to reduce violence in the city. Given that those areas are characterized by high

levels of socio-economic-demographic vulnerability and disorder that, in turn, make them fertile

ground for violence, as part of the process of carrying out a cost-benefit analysis balance, crime

prevention policies should seek to prioritize those areas to maximize the results in terms of violence

reduction.

In the first section, this article provides an overview of previous relevant analyses of crime

concentration at the microlevel within different urban settings. The second section delineates both

the empirical strategy and methodologies that were adopted to investigate the relationship between

violence and place-based vulnerabilities. The third section presents the results of the spatial and

statistical analysis that was performed to test this relationship. The fourth sect ion puts forward

suggestions for crime prevention and the allocation of resources, while the fifth section concludes

the article.

Literature Review

From the early 1980s up until the present historical juncture, there has been an emergent theoretical

interest in the micro-dynamics of crime, with a substantial number of studies delineating the ways in

which crime tends to cluster within specific places. In particular, studies on the spatial concentration

of criminal events have proliferated over the last two decades. Indeed, understanding the

micro-dynamics of crime has become a predominant area of scientific inquiry within the field of

criminology in light of the emergence of strong evidence supporting the fact that crime concentrates

within micro-spaces of urban settings. The findings of these studies have substantial implications for

crime forecasting and police resource allocation models, which ultimately aim to develop successful

crime prevention programs within specific places (Braga & Weisburd, 2010; Braga et al., 1999;

Johnson, 2010; Sherman & Weisburd, 1995). Indeed, according to extant literature, the places in

which crime concentrates are invariably characterized by specific features that make them

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Dantas and Favarin