Social programs have done far more to reduce violence in Brazil than any gun ownership program ever could.
What causes violence is the criminal.
What creates the criminal is misery.
Think of the average profile of a poor family in a favela. Imagine a child born into such a family. Let’s name this child José.
José was born and lives in the favela. His mother works as a cleaner for an outsourcing company, leaving home at 7am and returning at 8pm every day. She goes to church on Sundays and watches soap operas in her free time.
7 out of 10 Brazilians with an income below a thousand reais per month abuse alcohol [1], so let’s assume José’s father is an alcoholic. José doesn’t have a computer or internet, there’s nothing to do at home, so he hits the streets. All his friends gather there because their situation is somewhat similar. Anyone who’s been a kid knows: riding bicycles (if they have one), playing ball, flying kites, graffiti, and messing around.
Collectively, these friends influence each other’s cultures. The most listened-to music genre among teenagers is Funk [2].
Looking at the most popular Funk songs during the research, they’re all about obscenities. Not the good kind of Funk songs.
So there’s José, watching his mother work her fingers to the bone, telling him to study and straighten out his life to get a job.
“Get a job for what? – José says. To work at McDonald’s? Look at the rich kids showing off in BMWs, have you ever stopped to think how much a car costs? 150 thousand reais? I can’t even afford a snack. I’m at the bottom of a massive crap-storm where everything comes down and drowns me. What options do I have in life? Either I get a crappy job or I make my way.”
“Do you prefer to live briefly as a king or a long life as a nobody?”
Crazy Life – Racionais MC’s rap group
José is under pressure, at a highly impressionable phase of life, embedded in a culture that values many things he can’t have. The only path giving him autonomy in his life is crime. If he already has a friend in crime, the easier. And if he joins, it’s possible that other friends follow through him.
Now, see the difference with social programs like Bolsa Família, giving José’s mother money to keep him in school with over 75% attendance. Even José’s father will nag him to go to school.
In school, he knows he has a chance to enter college for free, it’s up to him. He can be anything he wants. He also has a quota system to level the playing field with middle/high class kids who have a comfortable life, computers, internet, English courses, and preparatory classes. The same kid who grows up and criticizes social programs and quotas, thinking the guy is lazy.
The key is: Keep people’s dreams and hopes alive. When you take that away from them, they become animals with nothing to lose, capable of stabbing you for 20 reais.
And then you have Bolsonaro, a president epitomizing the prejudices of the simple-minded racist, surrounded by like-minded folks, like Weintraub, former Minister of Education, saying he wouldn’t fund philosophers and sociologists with education money. My friend, you’re a danger to society.
[1] https://www.estadao.com.br/saude/entre-os-mais-pobres-71-abusam-do-alcool/
[2] http://www.culturanascapitais.com.br/musica/ (Select the age range from 12 to 15 years old. This site was created based on research conducted by JLeiva Culture & Sport consultancy, with participation from Datafolha, and surveyed 10,630 people aged 12 and older, between June 14 and July 27, 2017)
(From my Facebook excerpts, June 2020)