Police and experts emphasize that the escalation has two simultaneous causes: the emptying of the Center, which caused the migration of a vulnerable population involved in crimes of opportunity, such as theft and theft of cell phones, to Aterro do Flamengo and neighboring neighborhoods; and the intensification of policing in Copacabana from 2024, which brought down records there but resulted in the displacement of criminals who operated on the waterfront.
— The more intense police surveillance is in a region, the higher the cost of crime there. The criminal does not disappear, he migrates. And Botafogo is the adjacent neighborhood where this cost was the lowest, especially for crimes of opportunity, such as cell phone theft. Botafogo has become a more profitable alternative to crime — explains Pablo Nunes, director of the Center for Studies on Security and Citizenship (Cesec).
What is the crime map?
What are the most dangerous neighborhoods in Rio and Niterói? Where have the thefts progressed? When is the least safe time to walk in your neighborhood? To help answer these questions and understand the dynamics of violence in these cities, GLOBO developed the Crime Map, an interactive theft monitoring tool with unprecedented crime data by neighborhood.
After launching the first edition in the middle of this year, with data from 2024 referring to the city of Rio, we are now publishing the second edition of the platform, based on data referring to the first half of 2025, with information on four different crimes — cell phone thefts, thefts from passers-by, vehicle thefts and collective thefts — in 147 different neighborhoods of the capital of Rio de Janeiro, in addition to 51 neighborhoods of Niterói.
The tool was created using microdata obtained via the Access to Information Act from the Institute of Public Security (ISP). The body, responsible for compiling security statistics in the state, publishes monthly indicators divided by battalion and police station areas, which in most cases cover several neighborhoods. Seeking to understand hyperlocal criminal dynamics, GLOBO requested more precise data on the location of crimes and received information on the neighborhoods where each incident was recorded, the smallest territorial unit made available by the ISP. This is the first time crime indicators in Rio have been published with this level of detail.
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