The objective of this work was to investigate high school students' positioning towards the use of violence by the police in order to solve a crime. Our starting point is that this positioning is anchored on systems of social beliefs and attitudes which regulate our daily relationships. Thus, we used social beliefs and attitudes related to Human Rights, Democracy and Authoritarianism in order to investigate those anchorages. The participants were 140 students high school students from a public school located in the perifery of Goiânia (Brazil). The results showed the importance of social beliefs and attitudes related to Human Rights and Democracy in order to understand students positioning related to police violence. These results are discussed stressing the importance of a kind of educational system where those values are included.
Police violence; human rights; democracy and authoritarianism
