Evaluating the Effect of Homicide Prevention Strategies in Sao Paulo, Brazil: A Synthetic Control Approach

Although Brazil remains severely affected by civil violence, the state of Sao Paulo has made significant inroads into fighting criminality. In the last decade, Sao Paulo has witnessed a 70 percent decline in homicide rates, a result that policy-makers attribute to a series of crime-reducing measures implemented by the state government. While recent academic studies seem to confirm this downward trend, no estimation of the total impact of state policies on homicide rates currently exists. The present article fills this gap by employing the synthetic control method to compare these measures against an artificial Sao Paulo. The results indicate a large drop in homicide rates in actual Sao Paulo when contrasted with the synthetic counterfactual, with about 20,000 lives saved during the period. The theoretical usefulness of the synthetic control method for public policy analysis, the role of the Primeiro Comando da Capital as a moderating variable, and the practical implications of the security measures taken by the Sao Paulo State government are also discussed.