Florianópolis closed 2024 with 9.7 homicides per 100,000 residents, the lowest rate among Brazil's 27 state capitals, according to the Atlas da Violência 2026 (IPEA / Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública). That citywide figure answers a general question. It does not answer the one a family asks once it has already decided to relocate for safety: within a municipality with more than 40 neighborhoods, which one to choose? This article looks at the data that does exist at the neighborhood level — and is just as honest about the data that doesn't.
The city average, in context
The 9.7-per-100,000 figure puts Florianópolis ahead of the Federal District (10.9) and Curitiba (13.2), and well below the national average, close to 20. The rate dropped 33% in ten years: from 14.5 in 2014 to 9.7 in 2024. At the state level, Santa Catarina recorded 8.1 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2024, the second-lowest rate in Brazil, behind only São Paulo. These are the usual reference numbers, and we already covered them in more detail in our article on safety, health and education for foreign families. What that piece leaves out — and what this one addresses — is the neighborhood scale.
What the SSP-SC's neighborhood-level survey shows
In 2025, the Secretaria de Segurança Pública de Santa Catarina (SSP-SC) released, at the request of CBN Floripa via the Lei de Acesso à Informação, a survey of police incidents by neighborhood between January and July 2025. The total: 12,687 incidents across the capital in that period, including theft (9,859 cases), minor bodily injury (1,767), drug trafficking (540), robbery (444) and serious bodily injury (77).
The ten neighborhoods with the most incidents recorded in that six-month period were:
- Centro — 4,031
- Ingleses do Rio Vermelho — 698
- Canasvieiras — 597
- Capoeiras — 422
- Trindade — 392
- Campeche — 354
- São João do Rio Vermelho — 352
- Estreito — 347
- Agronômica — 257
- Jardim Atlântico — 242
One necessary clarification: these are absolute counts, not rates per resident. Centro alone accounts for nearly a third of the total (4,031 of 12,687) because it draws a floating population of workers and tourists far larger than its resident population. The same happens, to a lesser degree, in the beach neighborhoods of the island's north during high season. The SSP-SC does not publish a rate adjusted for population or tourist inflow by neighborhood: that is a real data gap, and we would rather say so than invent a rate that doesn't exist.
The four neighborhoods sought by families arriving from Russia
Ingleses. Second in the survey, with 698 incidents between January and July 2025. Historical SSP-SC data (also obtained via the Lei de Acesso à Informação) show a downward homicide trend in the neighborhood: 16 in 2019, 8 in 2020, 3 in 2021. At the same time, drug-trafficking reports rose from 37 to 61 cases between 2020 and 2021, a 64.9% increase, concentrated mainly in two specific spots within the neighborhood (Morro da Lajota and the Servidão Vicentina Custódia dos Santos), not across the whole area. Local press also reported two homicides in the area in December 2025 and March 2026, in sectors it describes as high-value for tourism. Taken together: it is the beach neighborhood with the most incidents in the north, with localized risk pockets, not evenly spread.
Canasvieiras. Third place, with 597 incidents in the same six-month period. We found no separate breakdown by crime type published for this neighborhood; the number folds into the same basket of theft, injury, trafficking and robbery as the citywide total.
Campeche. Sixth place, with 354 incidents. It ranks below the three neighborhoods above and below Trindade in the semester's absolute-count ranking.
Jurerê Internacional. It does not appear among the ten neighborhoods with the most incidents in the SSP-SC survey. That does not mean "zero crime" — the data simply does not place it among the highest absolute volumes — but it is consistent with a different structural factor: it is a peninsula with controlled access, a single gatehouse, private patrols and a perimeter fence, an urban design that limits outside traffic passing through the neighborhood. That is an infrastructure feature, not an official crime statistic, and the two should not be confused.
What the data doesn't say (and how to compensate before buying)
No public agency in Santa Catarina currently publishes a population-adjusted crime rate by neighborhood, nor a street-level heat map like the ones other capitals have. What exists are incident counts by neighborhood, over a specific time window, subject to the floating-population bias already explained. Any "safest neighborhoods ranking" found online without a citation to the SSP-SC or the Atlas da Violência should be treated as opinion, not data.
What is verifiable, neighborhood by neighborhood and building by building, before signing:
- 24-hour gatehouse with logged access control, not just a visible guard.
- Electric fence or continuous perimeter wall, with no open stretches toward neighboring lots.
- Street lighting on the stretch between the building and the main road, walked at night before deciding.
- Distance to the nearest delegacia de polícia or Guarda Municipal post.
As a reference for public investment, Florianópolis allocates around R$ 7 million a month to municipal public safety and has 183 Guarda Municipal officers citywide, according to data released in 2025. It is a citywide figure, useful as public-policy context, not a neighborhood indicator.
What this means for those arriving from Russia
If safety is the central reason for the move, "Brazil's safest capital" is the right starting point, but not the full decision. The four neighborhoods in this article — Jurerê Internacional, Canasvieiras, Ingleses, Campeche — are among the most sought after by the same buyer profile, and the available data doesn't say the same thing about each: Ingleses and Canasvieiras concentrate more absolute incidents than Campeche; Jurerê Internacional does not appear among the ten highest-volume neighborhoods in the 2025 survey. None of the four has a published per-capita crime rate, so the final due diligence — building security, the property's history, a night visit — still belongs to the buyer and their local broker, not to a citywide statistic.
Sources
- Atlas da Violência 2026 (IPEA / Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública) — homicide rate by capital and by state, 2024 data, via ND Mais and FloripaManhã (May 2026).
- Secretaria de Segurança Pública de Santa Catarina (SSP-SC), via the Lei de Acesso à Informação requested by CBN Floripa — incidents by neighborhood, January-July 2025, reported by NSC Total.
- SSP-SC via the Lei de Acesso à Informação — homicides and drug trafficking in Ingleses, 2019-2021, reported by NSC Total.
- SSP-SC, 2025-2026 — homicides in the beach neighborhoods of the island's north, reported by NSC Total.
- Boletim Mensal de Indicadores, SSP-SC (official primary source).
- Municipal public-safety investment and Guarda Municipal staffing, 2025 — MySide.