Juliana Barbassa – The Washington Post/The Associated Press, 07/18/2012
RIO DE JANEIRO — The homicide rate for Brazilian young people under age 19 shot up 346 percent over the past three decades, according to research published Wednesday by the Latin American School of Social Sciences.
During that period, youths became a far higher percentage of Brazil’s murder victims — rising from 11 percent of the total in 1980 to 43 percent in 2010, the report said. The homicide rate for young people rose from 3.1 per 100,000 people younger than 19 years old to 13.8 per 100,000.
This means deadly violence against the most vulnerable members of Brazilian society has surpassed the 10 deaths per 100,000 that mark the accepted threshold of an epidemic, said Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz, a researcher also affiliated with the Brazilian Center for Latin American Studies.
