This paper investigates the effect of absolute deprivation (proxy unemployment)and relative deprivation (proxy income inequality) on homicide levels in Brazil. Adatabase from the Brazilian Information System about Mortality and Census of theyear 2000 and 2010 was used to estimate negative binomial models of homicidelevels controlling for socioeconomic, demographic, and geographic factors. Findingsshow that unemployment and income inequality affect homicides levels and that theeffect of the former is more pronounced compared to the latter. Moreover, thecombination of income inequality and unemployment exacerbates the overall effectof deprivation on homicide levels.