Victimization, Legal Cynicism and Race relations in Brazil

• In Event: Community Contexts of Race, Ethnicity, Victimization, and Offending

Abstract

Since the end of the military dictatorship in 1988, Brazil has developed democratic institutions. Some positive results demonstrated reduction in social inequalities, with less poverty, lower unemployment, and higher educational attainment. However, criminal indicators have increased for the last decades, especially for blacks in Brazil. In 2014, homicides rate for blacks was 35.7, which represents almost 2,5 more chances of being killed than a white person. In this paper, we analyze the relationship between race and police cynicism (Kirk & Papachristos, 2011) in communities of Distrito Federal and its consequences using data from 2015. Specifically, we study the effects of potentially heightened levels of police mistrust in communities of color in two different outcomes: victimization and fear of crime. We test the hypothesis that legal cynicism has a mediating effect on the relationship between race and victimization in Brazil. Moreover, we also hypothesize that fear of crime is higher in communities of color, and that legal cynicism has a positive mediating effect that partially explains differential levels of fear of crime in minority and non-minority communities. Our modeling considered hierarchical relations (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002), in which previous victimization, residential stability, SES, age, and gender are considered as control variables.

Authors

• Marcio Mattos, University of Brasilia/ University of Massachusetts Boston

• Cecilia Chouhy, Florida State University