So, I cant speak about Rio because I'm from the South part of Brazil. What I see there is a lot of pickpockets you know, around touristic areas, the sneaky bastards go there and take your camera or something if you are not careful enough.

The favelas are a complete different beast, generally the drug lords there don't let people rob in the community, so mostly the violence is police vs drugs dealers.

Then we have robbery on traffic lights for example, happens on big cities. However, what I see is that the violence scene is all abour drug cartels and consequently by people to rob to pay their addictions.

Just as irony, yesterday a guy was stabbed at night trying to avoid a robbery, my brother saw it happen. So I think common sense applies all over Brazil; avoid some areas and pay attention to what is happening arround you.

I've never been robbed, my brother was 4-5 times. But he doesn't pay attention when he's outside.