Word: paulo
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...Brazil is notorious as one of the most violent societies in the world, and Sao Paulo, an unforgiving urban sprawl that is home to more than 20 million people, had long been a prime example of how lawlessness tormented the lives of law-abiding Brazilians. Today, though, Sao Paulo is a changed place. The annual murder tally for Sao Paulo state has plummeted from 12,800 in 1999 to 4,800 last year, a turnaround comparable to that of New York and Bogota, two cities famous for their successful policing programs...
...while Sao Paulo is the best example, it is not the only one: All across Brazil, homicide rates are tumbling. "For the first time in Brazilian history we have had three years in which the measures of fatal violence have fallen," says Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz, author of the Violence Map, a nationwide study of homicide rates. "There is light at the end of the tunnel...
...More palpable are the after-effects of a nationwide weapons ban between 2003 and 2005. Some 88% of Sao Paulo's homicides are committed with guns, and the federal restriction on arms sales - short-lived though it was, after having been voted down in a referendum - meant less weapons were being sold openly. The effects were especially acute in Sao Paulo, where the state government had already stopped automatically renewing gun permits and seen the number of legally owned firearms fall from 80,000 to around...
...Another measure that has helped keep the peace in Sao Paulo is a ban on late-night alcohol sales, especially at weekends. Police say almost two-thirds of homicides take place near or in illegal or unlicensed bars and clubs, and more than half take place between Friday night and Sunday morning. Nineteen municipalities in the state have limited the sale of alcohol at night and small towns across the country have followed suit...
...perhaps the most crucial factor both in Sao Paulo and elsewhere has been a move toward more high-profile and intelligent policing. Sao Paulo has 10,000 more officers on the street than it did in 2000, and their movements are now governed largely by the same kind of computer programs pioneered by the New York Police Department during the 1990s. By cataloguing past events, police have a clearer idea of where and when future crimes might take place and can utilise their resources accordingly. "Police today don't go on patrol," says Ronaldo Marzagao, Sao Paulo's Secretary...