Ser policial militar: construindo o bem e o mal na atividade diária policial

Abstract

This research explores how the police officers of Polícia Militar do Estado de São Paulo (PMESP) see themselves and how this cultural self-definition by officers shapes their daily policing activities. By analyzing legal texts and data from fieldwork, the research shows that the cultural meaning of "being military police" crystallized in legal texts and officers' daily actions, is understood and organized in terms of cultural codes of "good" and "evil." The meaning of "being military police" has as its core values ("goods") professionalism, efficiency, legality, hierarchy, and equality. While many people outside the police organization think that the military police has a culture radically different from their civil sphere (ALEXANDER, 2008) culture, the cultural values this self-definition upholds are generally shared with the wider society. By presenting themselves as adhering to these moral values, officers always need to put themselves within the moral boundary in order to affirm their moral membership as police officers. This moral boundary of self-definition is, for many officers, more important than the formal boundary of organizational affiliation and officers see the violator of these "sacred" values as an "evil"who is no longer a military police officer, even if the violator maintains his/her formal affiliation. In the social performance (ALEXANDER, 2004) as members of the military police, officers has as a goal to adhere to these "goods" to present themselves as "good." To this purpose, officers in performance must deal with the conceptually ambiguous space, which exists between "good" and "evil". The presentation of the self is an interactive process by which the officers in interaction "coordinate" each others to deal with the ambiguous space and to determine which of the two types of interpersonal relationship will be constructed. What I call "visibilization" of hierarchy is used in the interaction process as a method to construct the relation of "superior and subordinate" while "invisibilization" of hierarchy is employed for creating the relation of "colleagues". The research conclusion suggests that the organizational tendency of upholding values of the civil sphere to present itself as legitimate, symbolized by the introduction of community policing, expands the ambiguous space between traditional "good" and "evil"of the PMESP and may alter them. It further suggests that the cultural change may happen through social performance.