Behind health, security surpasses the economy and becomes the main problem in the country for 16% of the population, says Datafolha | Brazil

The sector is behind health, an area recognized as the biggest national bottleneck for 20% of the population, but ahead of the economy, the main problem for 11% of those surveyed.

It is a scenario that has reversed compared to the last Datafolha, from April this year, where the economy was the main problem for 22% of Brazilians and violence, for 11%. The confidence level is 95%.

But this is not an unprecedented level: security was also the biggest problem of the country’s population in September 2023, when Datafolha highlighted that the sector was linked to health, both at 17%.

The survey interviewed 2,002 people between December 2 and 4 in person in 113 municipalities. The margin of error for primary sampling is plus or minus two percentage points.

Violence is most cited among men – 18% of them consider it the country’s biggest problem – and health comes first among women, at 26%. Responses are spontaneous and everyone can choose only one option.

According to experts, this change in perception follows the assessment that Brazil is becoming a more violent country. According to them, reports of a person being the victim of a crime are increasingly common in circles of friendship or in workplaces.

But this is also due to the deeper debate on the subject led by recent major operations which demonstrated the military and economic power of criminal organizations.

Starting with Carbono Oculto, an action launched in August in São Paulo which aimed at the infiltration of the PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital) into gas stations and fintechs. The project generated 52 billion reais between 2020 and 2024, according to the survey.

Other developments followed, such as Operation Spare in late September, which targeted 267 gas stations and revealed CCP activities also in the motel sector.

Later, on October 28, a mega-operation against the Comando Vermelho in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro reinforced the fact that the criminal organization has rifles, grenades and even uses booby-trapped drones to contain the advance of the police. The operation resulted in 122 deaths, the deadliest in the country’s history.

These are events that showed “something that had not been said: the irradiation of organized crime throughout the country,” says retired colonel of the São Paulo military police and former national secretary of Public Security José Vicente da Silva Filho, member of the Brazilian Institute of Public Security.

“It was swept under the rug. All of a sudden you pull the rug out from under the rug and say ‘shit, there’s the Red Command, the CCP, they dominate crime in the country’. It ended up being scary,” Vicente says.

This perception provoked reactions. In Congress, for example, the House approved the anti-faction bill based on a report that speaks of a “society hostage to fear, in which ordinary citizens live trapped between the domination of delinquent groups and the operational limits of the state.”

The text establishes the so-called legal framework to combat organized crime and creates new types of criminal offenses punishable by sentences exceeding 40 years. The text was approved with modifications by the Senate and now returns to the House.

Other initiatives address the problem of violence at the federal level, such as the PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) for public safety, the latest version of which provides for a referendum on reducing the age of criminal responsibility.

But the attacks also occur at the local level, with the creation and strengthening of municipal guards and, in the case of São Paulo, with the Smart Sampa system – the flag of Mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB) that crosses the faces of people filmed in public places with the database of the judiciary to identify fugitives.

According to the Brazilian Sector Directory, the number of violent deaths reached a historic minimum in Brazil in 2024. At the same time, registrations of feminicides increased by 0.7% and attempted feminicides by 19%. Last year also saw the highest number of rapes and rapes of vulnerable people in history, with 87,545 victims in total.

“We see a decline in homicide rates, for example, but not crimes like violence against women, sexual violence or against children and adolescents, which are increasing,” says Renato Sérgio de Lima, professor at FGV (Fundação Getúlio Vargas) and president of the Brazilian Public Security Forum (which organizes the Yearbook).

There is also the explosion of digital scams, which have flooded the country in recent years. A Datafolha survey published in August in partnership with the Forum shows that one in three Brazilians have experienced some form of digital financial scam in the last 12 months.

In figures, this represents 56 million people affected and a loss of 111.9 billion reais.

In 2024, the country had 2,166,552 cases of fraud. This indicates an increase of 407% compared to 2018, when there were 426,799.

The region in which violence is most cited as the country’s main problem is the Southeast, where 19% of residents have this assessment. The lowest is in the South, with 10%. The Northeast region, which concentrates the most violent states in Brazil, is tied with the Center-West/North, with 14%.

Safety leads numerically as the country’s top issue, even among people over 60 (21%).

The subject is less important for the youngest, aged 16 to 24, for whom health (16%) and the economy (14%) are the main problems in Brazil — for them, violence is at 5%. In terms of age, the margin is six points for people aged 16 to 24 and five points for other groups.

The sector is also Brazil’s biggest problem among those who consider themselves Bolsonaristas (18%), surpassing health (17%). Among those who are declared members of the PT, the situation is reversed: 24% of them consider health to be the main bottleneck and 17% consider it to be security.

If the economy is the third problem in the country for Brazilians, according to a Datafolha survey, the sector is the least performing sector of the Lula 3 government according to most of those questioned: 14% think so. Safety and health appear equally, with 12%, followed by education (7%) and corruption (3%).

These are still sensitive points for the federal government, particularly in matters of security, an issue historically considered the Achilles heel of left-wing governments in Brazil. “They are completely lost,” Vicente says.

Added to this are the declarations of the president and his allies which have had a negative impact. Minister Ricardo Lewandowski has already declared, for example, that “the police arrest poorly and justice is obliged to release” – he claims that the sentence was taken out of context.

Lula, meanwhile, recanted after declaring that drug traffickers were the victims of users.

The assessment that the economy is the worst area of ​​government is highest among young people and adults up to age 44, an age group at which percentages drop to less than 10%.

With security, it’s the opposite: it goes from 7% in the first age group to 14% in the last — in a tie in the margin of error for 16-year-olds, six percentage points give or take.

In this case, the declared voters for Lula and Bolsonaro in 2022 are technically tied when they say that security is the worst area of ​​the PT administration: they are 14% and 12%, considering a margin of error of three points among those who voted for Lula and four among those who voted for Bolsonaro.