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Police Work and the Antifascism Police Movement in Brazil

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Police and State Crime in the Americas

Part of the book series: Palgrave's Critical Policing Studies ((PCPS))

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Abstract

This chapter examines the ways in which members of the Antifascism Police Movement recognize the notion of working police as a political and utopian struggle in the context of public security policies in Brazil. Considering policing as a profession and the police officer as a worker becomes a political claim and a futuristic sociological construction. Based on ethnographic interviews, document, and media analysis, this chapter argues that the affirmation of the working conditions by police officers positions them in a reformist approach that challenges the authoritarian and militaristic hegemonic approaches inside security forces in Brazil.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This research considers results from broader projects, “Policemen on the Move: Unionism, Democratization and Religion”, coordinated by Susana Durão, with support from FAEPEX, UNICAMP, and “Police Unions, Democratic Transformation, and Social Justice”, coordinated by Beatrice Jauregui, University of Toronto, Center for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We would like to thank the editors and the reviewers of this collective volume for their pertinent and wise suggestions to the present text.

  2. 2.

    According to Art. 142, §3, item IV of the Federal Constitution.

  3. 3.

    The extraordinary appeal 654,432 presented to the FSC by the Union of Civil Policemen of the State of Goiás contesting for the legality of the strike.

  4. 4.

    According to the speech of Minister Alexandre de Moraes, who had the leading vote in the process: “The police career is the armed wing of the State, responsible for guaranteeing internal security, public order, and social peace […]. It is not the balance between the right to strike and the continuity of public service, but between the right to strike and the right of the whole society to public security and the maintenance of public order and social peace, whose reflexes and consequences are so important that they deal with the “constitutional system of crises”. I have no doubt that, in this case, the public interest and the social interest prevail over the individual interest of a category” (Supremo Tribunal Federal, 2017: 50–54).

  5. 5.

    https://www.fundacaoastrojildo.org.br/o-que-defendem-os-policiais-antifascistas/ (Accessed in July 2023).

  6. 6.

    Although the MPAF has several important members among the military police, precisely because of their status and forms of punishment, persecution, and unpredictable threats, there is more fear among them when they assert themselves in political militancy.

  7. 7.

    Statistics indicate that 79.1% of the victims of police interventions that resulted in death were black or brown, which points to an overrepresentation of blacks among the total number of victims of police lethality (Bueno et al., 2020).

  8. 8.

    Check the Public Manifesto here: http://policiaisantifascismo.blogspot.com/ (Accessed in July 2023).

  9. 9.

    This led to conflicts and internal fights during the third national congress in March 2022, which took place in the city of Natal, RN.

  10. 10.

    Check the ASSPM’s website page: http://asspm.org.br/politica/ (Accessed in July 2023).

  11. 11.

    In Brazil, it is increasingly common for police officers to become involved in electoral politics, despite being under a limited legal framework. Military police, military firefighters, and members of the Armed Forces on active duty with more than ten years of service can run for public office as long as they ask to leave the corporation if elected—after the end of their political mandate they can return to force. In the case of military police officers with less than ten years of service, the higher echelons must resign from the police, while the lower echelons may request leave. Those who are doing compulsory military service, they cannot run for office. For civil police officers, there are no limits to participating in institutionalized political systems (Berlatto et al., 2016).

  12. 12.

    In 2018, police officers’political ambitions grew: 77.7% of them belonged to right-wing parties, compared to 2.9% to the left (Lima & Sinhoretto, 2012: 163). In 2022, there was a 28.5% increase in police candidates compared to 2018—68.6% of them were on the right side of the political-ideological spectrum (Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública, 2022).

  13. 13.

    It is worth mentioning the opening of academic programs and postgraduate courses in security, but also the opening of the Brazilian Public Security Forum to the participation of police corporations in the debate, bringing together academics, professionals, public servants, police officers, and many others in an organized platform that would house them.

  14. 14.

    It is also important to mention that a tradition of police dissent takes us back to the period of the 1964–1985 military dictatorship, in which there was some opposition to the regime and some officers were victims of persecution (Vasconcelos, 2006).

  15. 15.

    Check the Public Manifesto here: http://policiaisantifascismo.blogspot.com/ (Accessed in July 2023).

  16. 16.

    The amendment presented to Congress in 2013 and authored by former senator Lindbergh Farias (PT-RJ) but involved a number of renowned experts on public security in Brazil.

  17. 17.

    Since democratization, state monopoly over security is constantly under discussion. Each day different assembled forms of policing and private protection markets increase (Adorno, 2002; Durão & Argentin, 2023; Durão & Paes, 2021).

  18. 18.

    Check the manifesto here: http://policiaisantifascismo.blogspot.com/2020/06/500-policiais-assinam-manifesto-contra.html.

  19. 19.

    Available in: https://noticias.uol.com.br/colunas/rubens-valente/2020/07/24/ministerio-justica-governo-bolsonaro-antifascistas.htm (Accessed in July, 2023).

  20. 20.

    The process received the atention of Brazilian political scientists (Berlatto et al., 2016; Carvalho, 2022; Cruz et al., 2015; Faganello, 2015; Obregão & Almeida, 2021; Quadros & Madeira, 2018; Santos & Almeida, 2021).

  21. 21.

    Marielle Franco was a well-known politician who served as a city councillor of the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro for the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) and was brutually killed in 2018, which make of her a global Human Rights victim. Due to successive delays in finding out what happened, a movement was generated in Brazil until 2023 on “Who killed Marielle Franco?”.

  22. 22.

    Check out Bray and Radde's tweets, published on June 5th and 6th, respectively, at the following links: https://twitter.com/Mark__Bray/status/1268901798502424576; https://twitter.com/LeonelRadde/status/1269121061137907713?s=20

  23. 23.

    I follow here Karl Marx’s notion of a double dynamic of social class-consciousness, “in itself”, the conscious of sharing common grievances against capitalists, and class “for itself”, the awareness of a political class conscious opposed to the bourgeoisie.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UNICAMP/State University of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil

    Susana Durão & Paola Argentin

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  1. Susana Durão
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  2. Paola Argentin
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Correspondence to Susana Durão .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA

    Daniel Gascón

  2. California State University, Stanislaus, Turlock, CA, USA

    Sebastián Sclofsky

  3. Criminology Department, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Xavier Perez

  4. Institute of Public Safety, Ana G. Mendez University System, San Juan, Puerto Rico

    Jhon Sanabria

  5. Department of Criminal Justice, Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA, USA

    Analicia Mejia Mesinas

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Durão, S., Argentin, P. (2024). Police Work and the Antifascism Police Movement in Brazil. In: Gascón, D., Sclofsky, S., Perez, X., Sanabria, J., Mejia Mesinas, A. (eds) Police and State Crime in the Americas. Palgrave's Critical Policing Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45812-5_9

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