Social and environmental issues

Main articles: Crime in Brazil, Social issues in Brazil, and Social apartheid in Brazil Historic buildings in Old Recife. The neighborhood of Boa Vista.

Violence

In 2011, Recife had the 32nd highest homicide rate in America, after Detroit, New Orleans, Caracas, Salvador da Bahia and others cities.

PESP plan

The State Governor Eduardo Campos introduced the PESP plan (Security state Plan - Plano Estadual de Seguranca Publica) on second of May 2009, which will try to reduce homicides by 12% each year until they reach half of the previous rate. The plan is based on the fact that 60% of the murders are committed by people related to criminal activities and reaches from the prevention stage until the correctional stage.

Carnival security plan

ISS servers managed 50 Pelco Spectra PTZ cameras to capture all activity within the city's celebratory areas. Continued deployment of this project at Recife, will continue towards a short term goal of over 1000 cameras blanketing the city. Immediate statistics during the Carnival period indicate a reduction in violent crime of over 30%.

Sex tourism

There has been a growing number of foreign tourists who come to Brazil looking for sex, mostly Germans, Italians, and other Europeans.

These tourists come to Recife not for the culture and beaches, but for sex, often with minors. Brazil has a supply of young girls desperate to escape poverty, and the demand from foreign men is rising all the time. In Recife, where a growing population of children sleep on park benches or fall drugged or drunk on the curbs outside bars catering to a brisk trade in sex tourism, many girls who live on the streets have begun slashing themselves with razor blades, often on their forearms.

The neighborhood of Ilha do Leite. The neighborhood of Jaqueira.

Recife's secretary for tourism, Romeo Batista, says the long-term antidote to the sex trade lies in better social policies so that Brazilian girls have less need for foreign men and money. Several countries worldwide have their own legislation that prosecutes tourists in their homeland if they engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country with children.

Recuperation program

UNICEF is an international development agency, which supports locally initiated projects with an emphasis on children. Recife offered an environment to utilize its rich cultural heritage to develop programs aimed at its most serious issues. One of the most hands-on projects was a radio program named "Jovens Comunicadores" (Communicating Youth). It trained a group of eighteen adolescents to produce a weekly radio program focusing on child labour. The program is recorded and sent to community radio stations, most of which are broadcast in the sugar cane area where many children work. Jovens Comunicadores advocates and lobbies against exploitation, all produced and edited by teens. As a radio program, it also plays regional music, giving a boost to local culture.

"Criança Feliz" (Happy Child) had the same objective, eliminating child exploitation, but used a different approach. It was begun by a women's organization and offered after-school activities with the goal of discouraging children and adolescents from working in sex tourism. Besides giving classes and training in computers, English, art, and karate, it also offered psychological services and group therapy. These combined services sought to equip children not only with skills but also a positive self-image and respect to not fall into prostitution. As all the kids came from very poor backgrounds, the financial pull of prostitution is very high. Criança Feliz worked at educating them about the high costs in the long term. This was a very interesting project, since it was actually a house with groups of kids divided into participating in different activities.

Shark attacks The neighborhood of Pina. Boa Viagem Beach.

This was addressed on the National Geographic Channel series Hunter Hunted in the episode "Shark Invasion." Surfing has been outlawed since 1995 on the urban beaches (Pina, Boa Viagem, Piedade, and Candeias) because of the risk the sport poses to its practitioners due to shark attacks. It's strongly recommended you do not climb over and swim behind the reefs because of strong, unpredictable currents and the possible presence of bull sharks. Several beaches have messages alerting people of the danger of finding sharks, although this is very rare as in most parts of Brazil.

Before the 1990s, there were virtually no attacks reported here. But since 1992, there have been 47 shark attacks along a 20 km (12 mi) stretch of coast. Sixteen of them were fatal. In 2004, there were seven reported attacks. Two of the victims died. However, in absolute terms, there are more shark attacks in the U.S. State of Florida and Australia than in Brazil. Since mid-1992, 50 encounters involving humans and sharks, 19 of them fatal, have been recorded along the short strip of coast. By comparison, a relatively modest 18 unprovoked shark attacks were reported along the 1,926 kilometers (1,197 mi) of Florida coast in 2005, according to the International Shark Attack File compiled by the American Elasmobranch Society and the Florida Museum of Natural History. At the same rate per kilometer per year as Recife, Florida would suffer nearly 350 attacks a year.

A state-funded investigation has focused on the long-term ecological effects of a new port, to the south of Recife. Port of Suape opened for business in 1984, and today handles more than four million tonnes of cargo per year. To facilitate its initial construction, two freshwater estuaries, which had discharged into the Atlantic Ocean, were sealed off. Based on that finding, local human rights lawyers are considering a symbolic legal challenge to the State of Pernambuco, with the aim of securing compensation for the victims of attacks.

Via CEMIT, Pernambuco state officials have attempted to reduce the risk of shark attacks through educational campaigns, oversight and research. A CEMIT patrol boat has captured 14 sharks found too close to the coast for comfort over two years. Other public policies include the posting of warning signs every 350 meters (1,150 ft) along the beach and the prohibition of surfing in threatened areas. Nevertheless, when the beach has low waves, natives and tourists protected by the natural reefs do go swimming.