The high crime ratio in Brazil depends to a great extent on poverty, or large differences between rich and poor people, which origins from the old days of colonization with a few large land owners and a large amount of slaves. The privileged land owners succeeded to stop a land reform shortly after the slaves became free, thus establishing the uneven division of wealth for a long time. And when the Brazilian economy grew with a high pace between the 50ths and the 70ths, in a corporative environment where the military, politicians and industrial leaders looked after each other, the income gap between rich and poor became even larger.

The crime ratio is highest where the poverty is worst, that is, in the ghettos of the large cities and on the country side where land owners frequently commit crime against the inhabitants. The latest crime wave is based on drug smuggling and large gangs establish themselves in the ghettos (favelas) where they even get support form the people since they to some extent replace a social structure that the government is not supplying. Kidnapping of richer industrial leaders or people with money in general is a crime many foreigners fear, but in the most cases these crimes occur on the basis that the criminals know that the kidnapped has money in one way or another. But this type of crime is most common in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

The situation in Santa Catarina is completely different and it is difficult to compare with the situation in the big cities in Brazil. It is like Santa Catarina was a different country, where it is possible to walk around, day and night, without having to be frightened, and one could actually feel less secure in a center of a larger city in USA or Europe.

But Santa Catarina is not free from crime and there are some poor people living here as well even if the wealth is more evenly divided. One thing to watch out for is burglars who enter homes to steal anything of value. Occasionally it has happened that the house owner surprises the burglars during their work, and then it is not recommended to play hero.

There are plenty of statistics indicating that the crime picture in Santa Catarina is more similar to the situation in the western world than to the third world. But crime statistics are different to compare, and depends on a lot of uncertain factors.