A espacialização da violência criminal na cidade de Santa Maria, RS

Violence and criminality are wide themes and, according to the approach used, can be explained in different ways. In this work the subject of criminal violence was prioritized, with attention to the mapping of information. Our intention in this analysis was to problematize the differentiated distribution of criminal occurrences in the urban space of a middle sized city in the South of Brazil - Santa Maria, focusing on how the different crime types are distributed around the neighborhoods of the city, considering socio-economic characteristics. Methodologically, we have used the mapping of data provided by IBGE and information about criminal occurrences obtained from the military brigade of Rio Grande do Sul State. We have also made use of reports from diverse participants in the city, as their positioning was important to help us understand the dynamics of criminal violence. Our results indicate that the criminal occurrences related to drug traffic concentrate in an area where the levels of income and education are low. However, many drug dealers and consumers are residents of other parts of the city and are characterized by belonging to different social classes, even if this information does not appear very frequently in the statistics. Moreover, we have observed that, departing from this type of crime, others also occur, such as robberies, thefts, and assaults. We have also verified that crimes against the person, in a general way, are distributed differentially from crimes against property; and that in many cases this differentiation may be related to social, economic and urban infrastructure factors of the neighborhood. It is important to add that the occurrence of some crime types has followed specific patterns. Thus, in this study, there was a need to question: the data sources researched, the reason for the differentiated occurrence of crimes in the neighborhoods, possible victims and aggressors, why some crimes had bigger visibility than others, what is the relationship with the social inequalities, what is the analysis about white-collar crimes, etc. Finally, with this article, we aimed at contributing to the study of the types of violence that cover the Brazilian middle cities, through one of the many ways in which it is possible to think about this subject in the urban space