Police and Self-legitimacy in Sao Paulo - Brazil

• In Event: Contemplating the Meaning and Basis of Procedural Justice and Legitimacy

Abstract

International researches show that the debate over the legitimacy of the police has broadened the perspective of citizens and have been focused on the perspectives of ‘self-legitimacy’ or ‘internal legitimacy’, defined as the level of confidence that an officer has about his or her own legitimacy—feeling worthy or not worthy of his or her authority. The self-legitimacy is an ongoing process of dialogue between police and the population as well as within the police organization itself. This approach may help to identify the reasons why authorities mobilize their political power, as well as their internal beliefs in their moral right to exercise such authority. The current paper presents the process of development of a survey of self-legitimacy conducted with the two police forces responsible for public security in Sao Paulo – the Civil Police, responsible for investigating crimes and the Military Police, responsible for patrolling the streets. It also discusses the preliminary results of this survey and the challenges to study self-legitimacy in a militarized police force which little changed since the Brazilian democratization in the 1980's.

Author

• Viviane de Oliveira Cubas, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil