XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Political repression and police forces: on the legacy of military rule on public safety

• In Event: 1964 in Perspective, 60 Years After the Coup Part III: Afterlife of Authoritarianism

Abstract

Among the recommendations of the numerous truth commissions Brazil had in the 2010’s, one of the most frequent concerned the demilitarization of the police. Indeed, it is often said that the effects military rule produced on public safety, in terms of lethality and the impunity of states agents, is a lasting and important legacy. Yet, it is also known that the military forces learned, in great measure, how to conduct the war against the “internal enemy” from the accumulated know how of police forces. This presentation aims at discussing the relationship between police forces and political repression trying to understand how the interactions between police and military forces in the course of the military dictatorship helped to forge the high rates of police violence Brazilian society faces in the present.

Author

• Mariana Joffily, UDESC