Brazil, picked to stage the 2014 World Cup, is playing down the criminal violence that stalks its cities but the problem is sure to cast a shadow over preparations for the event.
According to the Organization of Ibero-American States, Brazil has the world's fourth-highest murder rate with about 45,000 people killed each year, following Colombia, Russia and Venezuela.
Some cities, like Recife in the northeast, a possible World Cup venue, have homicide rates of around 80 per 100,000 people -- twice as high as the most violent cities in the United States.
Older Brazilians say that when their country last hosted the tournament in 1950, they could sleep with doors and windows open.
Nowadays, middle- and upper-class Brazilians live in barred, fenced condominiums and apartment blocks, usually with closed-circuit television as an added deterrent to intruders.
Common crimes include hold-ups of local and long-distance buses, carjackings, and one known as "saidinha do banco" (leaving the bank) where the victim is followed out of the bank after making a withdrawal and then robbed.
The victim of a "lightning kidnapping" is briefly abducted and forced to make cash withdrawals from ATMs.
Organized crime, revolving around lucrative drugs and arms trade, is an even bigger concern.
Earlier this month, at least 12 people including a 4-year-old boy were killed in clashes between security forces and drug traffickers in a Rio de Janeiro slum.
Drug traffickers control many of Rio's slums and battles with rival gangs or police often spill over to other parts of the city, sometimes closing main thoroughfares.
But a FIFA inspection committee said after a visit in August that a $3.3 billion (1.6 billion pounds) crime prevention plan launched earlier that month by the federal government would improve the situation.
"This impressive program will help to reduce the current difficulties in certain areas of Brazil," its report said.
When Rio de Janeiro staged the Pan American Games in July, blanket policing, with patrol cars on almost every street corner, prevented any major incidents.
BRAZIL NO WORSE THAN OTHER COUNTRIES?
Michel Misse, an urban violence expert at Rio de Janeiro Federal University, said it would be possible for Brazil to repeat the Pan American Games security scheme in 2014.
"Many people had been saying the Pan American Games were going to be a security Pan-demonium, but they ran quite smoothly, without any major security problems," he said.
About 18,000 police provided security during the games. A few weeks before the event, police staged a military-style raid in one of Rio's biggest slums in which 19 people were killed.
But repressive security does not solve the problem, said Julita Lemgruber, a security expert at Candido Mendes University.
"I'm sure it'll be calm. The problem is that this only brings a short-lived halt to crime."
"When criminals see that the city is well-policed and they know it's temporary, they do keep a low profile, but it doesn't last. It works for big events with lots of visitors, but not for citizens who live here all the time," she said.
Asked about the issue after FIFA's decision in Zurich on Tuesday, Brazilian Football Confederation president Ricardo Teixeira seemed unconcerned by the statistics.
"Our problem with violence is no bigger than, nor no less than, other parts of the world. Violence happens in all big cities," he said.
"If you go to major cities in the U.S., you see kids killing other kids in schools, at least we don't have that."
(Source: Reuters)
