Police and Society in Brazil

This study represents research that sought to understand the formative process of public security professionals in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from the perspective of the military police officer. Training is the systematic process of orienting the comportment of people toward organisational directives. In the case of public security organisations, these objectives adhere to the objectives of the security policy promoted by the government. The relevance of this study resides in its academic consideration of the model of military police training and its influence on the implementation of public security policy and how it compromises its results. Thus, the research is predominantly qualitative in character. It is also an exploratory study that seeks to understand the police training process for the Military Police of the State of Rio de Janeiro from the perspective of the military police officer, a field in which there is little accumulated and systematic knowledge in Brazil. The research methodology consists of documentary and bibliographic fieldwork. Twenty-four semi-structured interviews with military police officers were conducted and processed using content analysis. The results were classified into five categories. The results reveal that, from the perspective of the interviewees, the training course for soldiers should join theory and practice, undergo investments in infrastructure, include trained teachers, and allow for the broaching of topics related to the complexity of police service, thereby reducing militarism. In this regard, this study opens up new questions: Why this type of training? What is the underlying logic of the security policy in Rio de Janeiro?