Institutional logics of community policing: an analytical framework and research agenda for the Brazilian context

Abstract

Community policing models have been disseminated in different countries in response to high levels of crime and violence. Despite the broad defense of such models, their effectiveness and concept are still unclear. The phenomenon of community policing is hybrid and multifaceted, with several contradictions between what is idealized and what happens in practice, making it difficult to understand. In this essay, we propose a metatheoretical analytical scheme based on the idea that community policing is based on four pure types of institutional logics - military, professional, managerial, and community - and the intersection of these logics helps to understand the phenomenon. We used this scheme to frame the studies on community policing considering societal and cultural, environmental, organizational, and practical and identity elements, seeking to outline a research agenda.

Keywords:
community policing; institutional logics; legitimacy; public safety

Resumo

Modelos de policiamento comunitário vêm sendo disseminados em diferentes países como resposta aos altos índices de criminalidade e violência. Apesar da ampla defesa da efetividade de tais modelos, há dúvidas acerca de sua efetividade e do que, de fato, se trata o policiamento comunitário. Olhando como fenômeno, o policiamento comunitário se mostra híbrido, multifacetado e com várias contradições entre o que é idealizado e o que é efetivamente posto em prática, dificultando sua compreensão. Neste ensaio, propomos um esquema analítico metateórico pautado na ideia de que o policiamento comunitário é regido por quatro tipos puros de lógicas institucionais - militar, profissional, gerencial e comunitário -, em que a interseção entre tais lógicas ajuda a compreendê-lo. Com base nesse esquema, enquadramos as pesquisas sobre o tema em elementos societários e culturais, ambientais, organizacionais, práticos e identitários, buscando delinear uma agenda de pesquisa acerca do policiamento comunitário.

Palavras-chave:
policiamento comunitário; lógicas institucionais; legitimidade; segurança pública

Resumen

Los modelos de policía comunitaria se han difundido en diferentes países en respuesta a los altos niveles de delincuencia y violencia. A pesar de la amplia defensa de la efectividad de tales modelos, existen dudas no solo sobre su efectividad, sino también sobre de qué se trata realmente la policía comunitaria. Mirándolo como un fenómeno, la policía comunitaria se ve como un híbrido, multifacético y con varias contradicciones entre lo que se idealiza y lo que efectivamente se implementa, lo que dificulta su comprensión. En este ensayo, proponemos un esquema analítico metateórico basado en la idea de que la policía comunitaria se rige por cuatro tipos puros de lógicas institucionales ‒militar, profesional, gerencial y comunitario‒ en el que la intersección entre tales lógicas ayuda a comprender cómo se manifiesta. Con base en este esquema, enmarcamos la investigación sobre el tema en elementos sociales y culturales; ambientales; organizativos; y, prácticos e identitarios, buscando esbozar una agenda de investigación sobre la policía comunitaria.

Palabras clave:
policía comunitaria; lógicas institucionales; legitimidad; seguridad pública

1. INTRODUCTION

Ensuring public security is one of the main challenges to the rule of law in Brazil. It has captured the attention of researchers and policymakers, constituting an intense debate among specialists, given the increase in crime rates and the population’s feeling of insecurity. In absolute numbers, Brazil recorded the highest number of homicides in the world in 2016, representing 13% of global murders (Goussinsky, 2018). In the same year, it also had the most cities listed in the ranking of the 50 most violent cities on the planet (Seguridad, Justicia y Paz [SJP], 2020).

Violence also affects law enforcement officials. A survey by the Military Police of the State of Rio de Janeiro (PMERJ) points out that, proportionally, there are more casualties of police officers in the state of Rio de Janeiro than of American soldiers in World War II. Thus, a soldier is more likely to be killed in Rio de Janeiro than serving in the United States Armed Forces in any war, including the most recent one in Syria (Aragão, 2017; Balanço Geral RJ, 2017; SFn Notícias, 2017). In 2017, on average, one police officer was murdered per day, and fourteen civilians lost their lives in police interventions daily in Brazil (Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública [FBSP], 2018).

Social pressures to reduce violence and promote greater effectiveness and quality in public services have led public institutions, including security agencies, to adopt new management models, with an emphasis on strategic planning and tools for analyzing performance and achieving results in new public management (Bresser-Pereira, 2002; Hood, 1991; Nikos, 2001; Paula, 2005a, 2005b; Vieira & Protásio, 2011). However, understanding public security in Brazil through these tools is not enough to understand and analyze how the reality of policing is constructed. For example, although the state of Minas Gerais has one of the lowest homicide rates in the country, along with São Paulo (FBSP, 2019), this does not mean that there is a greater sense of security in these states or that residents approve of police services. After all, considering only homicide rates, no city in southeastern Brazil, where the largest cities in the country are located, appears on the lists of the most dangerous (SJP, 2020).

In recent decades, the literature has also welcomed topics such as the feeling of security, fear of crime, and citizen well-being, in a subjective approach to policing, in which crime prevention is achieved through a citizen-oriented police force that is directly related to its public - a model of police practice and organization called community policing (Frühling, 2007; Rosenbaum, 2012; Skolnick & Bayley, 2006; Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 1994). This gave rise to proposals that assess the performance of the Brazilian police and the close relationship of the state police (which answers to the state’s governor but is a militarized police classed as reserve troops of the Brazilian army) with the local public, to whom they are accountable, to treat and evaluate the well-being of the citizen, the feeling of security, and the fear of crime (Araújo, 2010; Frühling, 2007).

Brazil’s recent democracy is still in the process of consolidation, and the numerous experiences of community policing are expected to help respond to society’s aspirations related to citizenship, participation, security, and quality of life through offering quality public services. At the same pace, these experiences lead to questioning whether community policing works in the Brazilian context and whether its practices are not just a shapeless replication of foreign practices in public security.

This essay considers the complex public security system in a geographically extensive, heterogeneous, diffuse, and complex country such as Brazil. The study proposes a metatheoretical analytical scheme, based on the idea that community policing has four ideal types of institutional logic - military, professional, managerial, and community - in which the intersection among them helps to understand it. The instances of policing logics were separated into four elementary categories - societal and cultural, environmental, organizational, and practical and identity - which were used to organize the reading of Brazilian studies and outline a research agenda.

In this essay, the discussions on community policing applied to the Brazilian context identify and challenge assumptions underlying the phenomenon, highlighting possible contradictions and alignments between preexisting logics and new policing models. As a contribution to the field, the study advances by linking the different logics - at the institutional level - related to the policing institutions currently in force (Schaap, 2021; Terpstra & Salet, 2019; Wathne, 2020), exploring, in an innovative way, how the multiplicity of logics and their orders refer to contestations and conflicts in the implementation of new models.

Based on a review of published studies on the Brazilian case, this essay offers suggestions to public managers for the complex and long task of reforming the Brazilian police. It also supports research in public security, especially theoretical propositions about community policing models and applicability. The essay is structured in six sections, including this introduction. Section two deals with community policing as an object of study. Sections three and four presents the institutional logic of community policing and the research on community policing in Brazil. The fifth section discusses the challenges and limitations of a research agenda, followed by the final considerations in section six.

2. COMMUNITY POLICING AS AN OBJECT OF STUDY

The assumption of community policing in Brazilian public security is not recent. One of the first publications admitted by the Brazilian police in terms of community policing was a book based on a thesis presented at Harvard University, entitled “Community policing: how to get started” (Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 1994), which was translated into Portuguese and used by the São Paulo police in the 1990s, and by other Brazilian states. The publication of the book collection Policia e Sociedade (Bayley, 2001; Reiner, 2003) (Police and Society) by the Center for the Study of Violence (NEV) at the University of São Paulo (USP), the University of São Paulo Press (Edusp), and the Ford Foundation, also contributed to the dissemination of issues related to public security in the Brazilian academia.

In the 1970s, criminologist Herman Goldstein was already discussing the basic problems of the state’s role in providing security in works such as “Policing a free society” (Goldstein, 1977). Since then, public security as a field of study has given rise to new practical and theoretical approaches to address profound social and political transformations. In this context, the term community policing emerges as a police organization model that aims to become the most advanced policing model - truly citizen-oriented police. For Skolnick and Bayley (2006, p. 15, our translation), the model represented “the progressive and advanced side of policing.”

This model as a police organization practice also represents a new ideology for public security, in which police work is carried out in partnership with the community to whom the security services are intended. From the various and heterogeneous regions of the city, the residents point out security problems and participate in the promotion of local public security in a decentralized way. The focus is on any local disorder that affects the citizens’ well-being (Rosenbaum, 2012; Skolnick & Bayley, 2006; Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 1994).

In the 1980s, Skolnick and Bayley (2006) studied community policing in several countries - Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Japan, Singapore, and the United States - and observed that more than proximity, the public should seek to be a co-producer of public policies. Police practices worldwide could reduce the concept by considering community policing as simply improving cooperation between the police and the community. The authors concluded that there was no consensus on the meaning of community policing for the interviewees, and the term was sometimes used to label traditional programs.

After going through the modernization of public security with the professionalization of its activities in the nineteenth century, the police forces around the world, since the second half of the twentieth century, have experienced legitimacy crises. These crises led them to recognize that it is impossible to produce an effective security service without the involvement of the local community and other sectors of society. Therefore, police forces sought to promote practices that bring officers closer to the community they work (Batitucci, 2010; Reiner, 2003; Skogan, 2008; Skolnick & Bayley, 2006).

These global experiences influenced the generation of public policies in Brazil. For Frühling (2007), some of these experiences are the United Nations interventions in El Salvador (1991) and Guatemala (1996), which introduced the assumptions of community policing as a key component of peace agreements to end the civil war in those countries. Both cases involved various international actors. Also, reforms and institutional changes were conducted simultaneously, creating new civil police forces to replace the old militarized ones that operated as part of the army. The cases in El Salvador and Guatemala influenced the policies in Brazil, showing the best path for public security in a globalized world, putting pressure on the complex Brazilian public security system to adapt. Marked by routine policing practices to combat crime (eminently repressive), public security policies in the country were reconfigured to meet such pressures and the multiple regional realities.

Community policing programs, very popular in Latin America, sought to rebuild the legitimacy of police institutions, which no longer wanted to be recognized as a police force serving an incumbent government, but as a police force serving the people. Driven by the re-democratization in the region between 1980 and 1990, the police resorted to imported models capable of enhancing citizens’ well-being and protecting rights. Thus, attempts to implement the community policing model took place shortly after this period of re-democratization, between the 1990s and 2000s. However, despite the discourse of democratic legitimacy, some policing practices were still not considered adequate means of approaching the community, making this change only rhetorical (Ribeiro & Vilarouca, 2018).

Batitucci (2019) analyzed police professionalization in Brazil, considering the restrictions and limits on police action in the face of constitutional guarantees of fundamental rights. In this context, police authority could be limited by the surveillance of a free society. However, the author observes that, as public security in Brazil has developed disconnected from the discussion of constitutional rights, police action often violates limits. Thus, the police force is perceived as an institution with no social commitment to democratic values.

For Batitucci (2019), the Brazilian police have strategies formalized by the organization’s high command toward democracy. However, the institution still suffers from poor social recognition. For the author, the institution focuses on two major legitimation strategies to address this issue: (a) investment in managerial knowledge and its application in organizational dynamics and formal regulation of policing practices; (b) investment in the process of social differentiation marked by the isomorphism of socially established, translated, or adapted practices. Batitucci (2019) also discussed problems in the operationalization of police forces, such as the devaluation of the police officer, low professionalization, deficit of legitimacy, and the police force’s low interest in the issue of citizenship. A misconception of criminality should be added, in which surveillance of good versus evil is valued and prioritized regarding crime and criminal prosecution. On this last point, when discussing the focus on the number of arrests and apprehensions, Soares (2015, p. 15, our translation) says: “How else would we measure military police productivity? Asking those who cannot see beyond the end of their nose”.

Thus, in the recent Brazilian democratic environment, Batitucci (2019) argues that the military model of policing was exhausted, leading the Brazilian police to pave the way for incremental changes toward a new ideal of police. On the one hand, it was believed that incorporating managerial knowledge would guarantee a change in the military management model, seeking police legitimacy without conflicts with military values through administrative reorganization. On the other hand, according to the author, there would still be contradictions between the police mission and military traditions.

Under the aegis of managerialism, the police would lack an adequate view of social dynamics, considering conflicts “not as inherent to societal life, but as its antithesis” (Batitucci, 2019, p. 10, our translation). As a counterpoint to this model, community policing could emerge as a transversal foundation to policing activity. Thus, the reforms of police practices toward community policing could emerge as a response to the effects of the crisis of legitimacy of the Brazilian police, even with incompatibilities with the managerial police and the militarized police force (Batitucci, 2019).

At the same time that the global influences of community policing arrived in Brazil (Frühling, 2007; Ribeiro & Vilarouca, 2018), the literature on administration and public management underwent a diligent influence of the so-called new public management (Bresser-Pereira, 2002). When trying to explain the reason for such acceptance, persuasion, and proliferation of the new public management (NPM) around the world, starting in the 1980s, Hood (1991) states that there was a clear claim that the NPM would offer a solution for all ends and a path to a better public service provision. NPM has become a true panacea, seen as one of the most striking international trends in public administration (Hood, 1991).

The rise of NPM in the world seems to be explained by state reforms (Paula, 2005a, 2005b) or by what Hood (1991) called administration megatrends, through the states attention to neoliberal agendas, such as control of public spending, privatization, use of technologies, and cooperation with intergovernmental entities. At this moment, Latin America was going through social and political restructuring, assuming a new management perspective with the practices of community policing. Despite the pressures for homogenization of police practices, reality demanded, in a contradictory way, a regional approach with decentralized organization, respecting local specificities.

The community involvement of police officers, based on local and decentralized management of their core activities, also sought to reduce crime rates, even though accountability to the community is still based on reports that are not very friendly and clear for this audience. The incorporation of this logic of evaluation based on managerial indicators by the police of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais is an example of this situation in a context of adherence to the NPM. The adhesion to the NPM by the Minas Gerais state police began in the late 1990s, with technical visits to New York to create indicators and adopt the so-called scientificity in police management, resulting, in 2005, in the so-called “scientific control of the police.” Consequently, arguments were incorporated around expressions that referred to indicators, management performance, results, and other terms specific to the market and business area (Vieira & Protásio, 2011).

The police concern over these numbers is not recent, as shown by initiatives that seek successful police practice models - one example is the visit of a group of police officers from Minas Gerais to the United States searching for a program of organizational modernization to implement new practices (Vieira & Protásio, 2011). Despite such concern, crime statistics were not considered the only managerial path for community policing decision-making (Rosenbaum, 2012; Skolnick & Bayley, 2006; Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 1994). For example, the community policing model is identified in the Brazilian national public security policy (Souza, 2015) in a new understanding of how to control crime and violence through a multidisciplinary treatment (Kruchin, 2013).

This multidisciplinary approach helped to demonstrate that regions with low crime rates do not necessarily present quality public security services. Likewise, the increase in such rates does not represent a decline in public safety in a given region. In other words, if communities that did not have a relationship with the government started to find in the police a legitimate representative of their rights, the increase in the number of crimes recorded (i.e., taken by citizens to the police for investigation) could be considered positive. In fact, the attempt to measure community policing is problematic, which is a challenge for the management of policing practices (Skolnick & Bayley, 2006).

In this diversity of realities in the world, particularly in Brazil, the community policing model proposes to solve public security problems of a different nature - referring to citizens’ well-being, fear of crime, and social disorders - not only crimes. The principles of community policing encompass actions in a decentralized and non-homogeneous way, considering multiple local realities. The term has become one of the most striking international trends in police administration, seen as a solution for all police forces (Frühling, 2007; Haubrich & Wehrhahn, 2015; Skolnick & Bayley, 2006), despite the literature warning that community policing “is not a quick magic formula or a panacea” (Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 1994, p. 19, our translation).

As a model of policing, several formulas were sought for the organization of community policing at the same time. Policing practices shaped by the social context were incorporated, even if in a contradictory way, in response to the crisis of legitimacy before the democratic regime, based on professional police processes and mixed with the NPM mechanism, without abandoning the militarization of the police force.

Community policing can also be seen as a philosophy, a professional practice, or an epistemology that emerged from experiences considered successful, disseminated around the world (Skolnick & Bayley, 2006). Therefore, these experiences present multiple facets, interpretations, and practices that are contradictory to a certain extent, which makes the conceptual framework of the phenomenon difficult. Empirical studies in Brazil, such as those presented in section 4, demonstrate a lack of consensus on how community policing should be operationalized, reinforcing the argument of multiple logics.

3. INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS OF COMMUNITY POLICING

Many of the analytical inaccuracies regarding how community policing manifests in specific realities, such as the Brazilian case, occur to frame the model as logically consistent. The problem is that there are several distinct political-ideological (Crank, 2003; Rahr & Rice, 2015; Terpstra & Salet, 2019) and practical (Rolandsson, 2015; Wathne, 2020) conceptions of community policing, making it impossible for the essence of this model to be deduced based on the investigation of how it is implemented. Even more problematic is that the context of the implementation of these models is very different from the context where the models were created, counting on a different organization of the police. Thus, democratic rules have different degrees of sedimentation, and the audience presents widely divergent socioeconomic characteristics.

Thus, predicting the results of such policing practices in a hypothetical-deductive way is an incoherent exercise. We categorized policing logics into four ideal types to facilitate analyzing the implementation of these models (Box 1). As ideal types, they do not manifest in these forms in the reality of policing. However, the categorization helps to understand the logics’ characteristics and identify conflicts, contradictions, and convergences in the implementation.

Supported by the idea of ​​institutional logic originally developed by Friedland and Alford (1991), Thornton and Ocasio (1999, p. 804) define institutional logics as “socially constructed, historical patterns of material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules by which individuals produce and reproduce their material subsistence, organize time and space, and provide meaning to their social reality.” Given this definition, we can say that community policing is configured as an institutional logic, as it presents all the characteristics exposed by Thornton and Ocasio (1999). However, institutional logics tend to manifest in a hybrid and even contradictory way since they are socially regionalized production orders composed of objects and meanings mediated by material practice, i.e., they are orders of practice.

This also occurs for the institutional logic of community policing. As Terpstra and Salet (2019) pointed out, attempts to characterize community policing as a model became a highly ambiguous and contradictory exercise, and demands from society and police organizations are often conflicting. Thus, understanding the complexity of this model through institutional logic is useful since it is set as a meta-theoretical model to analyze how individuals, organizations, and institutions are socially imbricated (Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012).

In our analytical scheme, instead of equating policing logics to societal levels - such as capitalist market, bureaucratic state, family, democracy, religion - as Thornton et al. (2012) initially did, we sought to organize the institutional logics inherently related to the policing institutions that prevail in the modern state (Herbert, 2000; Schaap, 2021). Thus, the literature dealing with community policing models (Batitucci, 2019; Cardoso, 2019; Crank, 2003; Rahr & Rice, 2015; Rautiainen, Urquía-Grande, & Muñoz-Colomina, 2017; Rolandsson, 2015; Santos, 2018; Schaap, 2021; Terpstra & Salet, 2019; Wathne, 2020), when looking at its institutional and cultural aspects, tends to emphasize the four domains of logic presented in Box 1: 1) military - with aspects that refer to the operation of the army and armed forces; 2) professional - where the organization of the police force refers to the bureaucratic operation of a state function; 3) managerial - strongly based on market and technological monitoring mechanisms that emerged from the ideals of the NPM; and 4) community - aligned with the preservation of constitutional guarantees of democratic regimes, referring to the approximation between the police and the community, including respecting the rights of minorities.

Institutional logics refer to mechanisms that seek to explain the practical and material implementation of daily activities, taking into account symbolic, cultural, and historical aspects. This shows that processes of organizing community policing gain a broader meaning since any exercise of power by authorities who have the legitimate right to use force must be socially and culturally justified. This refers to societal and cultural elements. These processes also must present practical and identity features for the agents, refering to practical and identity elements. As such practices and individuals act collectively in organizations with characteristics inherent to each of the logics - in which organizational elements stand out - it is possible to understand them as a phenomenon of police organization confronted with the audience, where environmental elements are considered.

Box 1shows the four groups or elementary categories. Thus, each element presents distinct instances between each of the logics - evidence about how they manifest in the field of policing (Thornton et al., 2012).

BOX 1
IDEAL TYPES OF INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS OF POLICING

Box 1
continuation

For example, regarding the military logic, societal and cultural instances use the army as a metaphor for a collective organization (Rahr & Rice, 2015), in which the state is the source of legitimacy. The conception of the state organization emerged in autocratic states, in which the figure of the representative is unquestionable. Having hierarchy as the basis of authority, often represented by differences in flags, coats of arms, and badges, the source of power is physical strength (Wathne, 2020). Under the military logic, criminality is rationalized as a problem of moral weakness, which justifies many practical and identity manifestations that describe the actions of the police under such an order (Herbert, 2000).

Using the reference of the myth of the conquering warrior, the archetype of the police officer is the field soldier, whose actions are based on honor (as when they say “honor the uniform”), in which glory arises from completing the missions successfully (Batitucci, 2019). The enemy is embodied in the image of the criminal, who needs to be fought, especially through tactical-operational knowledge and skills, as is often seen in the war against drug trafficking (Crank, 2003; Wathne, 2020).

The state militarized police do not act only under this logic in the Brazilian context. While it is undeniable that such corporations manifest many of the values, identity, and practices of military logic, it also embodies several elements of professional logic. When reflecting the many police agencies around the world, the societal and cultural instances of professional logic are based on the bureaucratic rule of law, whose source of legitimacy is the legislation, in which the police agent, through their position, can exercise power through the law and the expectation of order (Rautiainen et al., 2017). The badge symbolizes the officer’s status, whose myth is the cunning police officer, who deals with the various police bureaucracy demands and investigation processes to serve the state (Schaap, 2021). Their professional experience requires a generalist profile, as activities such as ensuring law and order and preventing and identifying crime need to be compromised (Wathne, 2020).

There are also different conceptions about professional logic, especially when they operate in contexts with a dominant neoliberal model that manifests an NPM belief system. The companies’ private management is a metaphor of such managerial logic of policing, in which legitimacy comes from this model’s probable instrumental rationality (Rautiainen et al., 2017). Through advanced technologies, data and reports are used by management experts to control crime, always focusing on process efficiency (Wathne, 2020). As there is an instrumental calculation weighing results, risks, and resources used, there is an attempt to pursue bigger targets, so this model seems to be obsessed with organized crime (Herbert, 2000; Rahr & Rice, 2015).

Finally, the community logic is based on the principle that democratic societies must be fair, guaranteeing human and constitutional rights in a trust-based relationship between police and citizens, giving legitimacy to the police organization (Crank, 2003; Schaap, 2021). It is assumed that much of the crime comes from situations of vulnerability and social inequality, which is why the police must use their social relations skills to try to contain crime and, at the same time, increase the feeling of security in communities (Wathne, 2020). There is a myth that the police, as a community vigilante, is an informed guardian whose role goes beyond policing, with demands falling especially on experiencing the communities in which they operate (Terpstra & Salet, 2019).

When looking across these policing logics, some instances have a relative affinity while others are contradictory, which substantially affects how they are framed when put into practice. Each logic has a different rationalization about crime in society, what legitimate means can be used to fight it, and how to justify combative actions, especially when they are unsuccessful (Crank, 2003).

In this last aspect, the reflection about institutional logic requires justifying how and why those responsible for implementing policing models do so (Rolandsson, 2015). Thus, when social actors face a different logic in the field, they seek to convince the audience about the reasons and the validity of what they do, appealing to one or more instances of the logic. By attributing to institutional logic something that refers to orders of value that permeate justifications, some elements of French pragmatism are resumed, specifically the work by Boltanski and Thévenot (2020).

As Cloutier and Langley (2013) pointed out, instead of perceiving the logics of the world as societal orders, Boltanski and Thévenot (2020) emphasized the plural character of logics since they can manifest in a hybrid way in the context of action. For the authors, logics reside in “orders of magnitude,” or in “worlds” where something is valuable when refers to specific justifications and grammars, used to evaluate the actions of others and oneself, which in turn, enable collective action (Cloutier & Langley, 2013).

Boltanski and Thévenot (2020) point to six worlds: inspiration, domestic, fame, civic, market, and industrial. Of these six, four are relevant to understanding community policing:

1. The domestic world is the realm of the “family” in its symbolic dimension, where honor, loyalty, altruism, and trust are valued. Hierarchy and tradition play central roles, and preserving group unity is the priority.

2. The industrial world is the realm of metrics and efficiency. This world values what is functional, productive, efficient, and useful. Scientific methods and technological objects are central, and perfection in the system operation is an ideal;

3. The civil world is the realm of duty and solidarity, valuing union, representation, law, and freedom. The common good comes before individual will.

4. The market world is the realm of money. Value is attributed to rare, expensive, and profitable elements. The market law prevails, and those who manage to take advantage of things are worthy. Wealth is an end, and objective assessment without emotion is a tool for that end.

The policing logics, in different ways, present the hybridity of these worlds (Rolandsson, 2015). In the military logic, the values refer prominently to the domestic world, partially supported by an industrial perspective. The professional logic values ​​the aspects of the industrial world in the process, also considering justifications of the civil world for such aspects. In the managerial logic, it is clear how management models are valued for the market, and industrial means are heavily employed and justified. In the community logic, the content of the civil world is mandatory, emphasizing the domestic world’s logic of action.

Finally, it should also be considered that the policing logics refer to different environmental and audience instances aligned to specific organizational instances. For example, in the military and managerial logics, which have a similar conception of the audience - government and public opinion, respectively - there is a simple environment with a more centralized decision. In the professional and community logic, as the audience is seen as multifaceted - society and community - the environment is complex, with relative decentralization.

While it is understood that the environment of military and professional logic is more stable because of the bureaucratization of activities, the environment of the managerial and community logics is considered dynamic, in which adhocracies are seen as more favorable organizational configurations. Thus, from a cultural, symbolic, and identity point of view, logics conceive reasons and justifications for the practice and which organizational configurations, as summarized by Mintzberg (1995), are hypothetically more aligned with the types of current logic. Consequently, as the practical reality of policing ends up evoking more than one logic, and conflicts in the attempt to compose these configurations may arise.

3.1 Contradictions and alignments between policing logics

The contrast of different logics presenting different instances, orders of value, and justifications, allows to understand how the contradictions and alignments among these logics generate conflicts and problems in the creation of community policing (Wathne, 2020). Thus, the first two ideal types presented in Box 1 are linked to the policing processes considered traditional in most police forces, especially professional, which was the target of several criticisms and reforms reported in the main works that advocate the use of community policing (Crank, 2003). When discussing new policing models, the idea of reform permeates elements of the ideal types of community or managerial policing - the latter has gained prominence due to the advancement of NPM as a management logic for police departments (Rautiainen et al., 2017; Wathne, 2020).

Agents embody the different ideal types with multiple ideas and interests about what community policing is. As logics of practice (Friedland, 2018), this situation results in enormous syncretism between beliefs, justifications, purposes, and how community policing materializes in everyday life. Because there are several contradictions between the new (which still lack legitimacy) and the institutionalized policing models, the new models tend to be strongly contested (Terpstra & Salet, 2019).

We do not question here whether these models are useful in the process of reducing crime or whether they can re-legitimize the authority of police organizations, which, for various reasons, have been put to the test. We point out that conflicts, contestations, divergences, and the ineffectiveness of applying such models of community policing in the Brazilian context present irreconcilable contradictions at their roots.

We highlight these contradictions and possible alignments in Box 2, illustrating how more ingrained policing logics interact with the new models. First, we consider the (di)vergence between orders of justification, particularly the principles of organization and how activities are organized. Then, we evaluate the interrelationships regarding the type of environment where the task is conducted, the locus of action, type of organization, and decision.

BOX 2
MULTIPLICITY OF POLICING LOGICS

In essence, the different policing models vary in the level of potential conflicts, especially when there is controversy both in principles and method, as is the case of trying to incorporate a community logic into a police force. When there is professional logic, conflicts tend to be smaller, as there is partial alignment. In the case of incorporating elements of a policing managerial logic, little conflict is expected when it emerges within a military logic. Even with controversy over the principles, there is an alignment regarding the means. Conflict tends to be greater when managerial models are incorporated in organizations with greater emphasis on professional logic, given that there is much controversy over method because, while the first values the centralization of power in the specialists, the second presses for decentralization of decision-making about policing (Terpstra & Salet, 2019).

As we are dealing with policing logics exercised by collective entities, there are also conflicts in organizing, especially when the types of organization (bureaucratic vs. adhocratic) and decision (centralized vs. decentralized) are different. Whether territorial or not, the sources of conflicts tend to be smaller regarding the locus of action. However, differences in locus can affect the relationship of police organizations with the audience (Terpstra & Salet, 2019). In summary, due to conflicts between different ways of organizing, police entities tend to decouple activities guided by different logics (Crank, 2003), which does not prevent conflicts and contradictions in the formation of community policing.

Finally, it is necessary to understand the political and ideological aspects that trigger the practical manifestation of multiple institutional logics (Delmestri, 2009). This indicates the relevant logic (Besharov & Smith, 2014) regarding how much this logic is supported by power structures and its justifications accepted in the political and social context. Historically, there is a tendency for new policing models (called “community”) to follow a managerial - even military - logic when under the aegis of conservative governments (Herbert, 2000; Rahr & Rice, 2015). On the other hand, in progressive governments, models seen as clearly more democratic and community-based are emphasized (Crank, 2003), except when the context is so brutal and challenging that military policing logics are mixed with such models, as is the case of many Brazilian experiences (Batitucci, 2019; Cardoso, 2019). The study of community policing in Brazil emerged as a field of research in this challenging context.

4. RESEARCH ON COMMUNITY POLICING IN BRAZIL

Research on community policing in Brazil goes far beyond the use of categories and concepts from institutional theory. However, several of the social, cultural, and practical aspects this research focuses on end up intertwining with the elements of the analytical scheme presented. This means that the usefulness of our scheme lies in its meta-analytic and meta-theoretical nature. Consequently, research with different epistemological, theoretical, and methodological perspectives can be conducted based on it. Thus, this section seeks to frame studies on community policing that do not necessarily fit into theories of institutional logic.

The literature shows empirical studies focused on Brazilian cases in which the state adopts community policing programs. In this sense, the experience in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro has received significant attention from researchers (Arias & Ungar, 2009; Dammert & Malone, 2006; Prouse, 2018; Ribeiro & Vilarouca, 2018; Riccio, Ruediger, Ross, & Skogan, 2013; Vargas, 2013; Wolff, 2019). Scholars were interested in the state’s unique problems, such as the strong presence of criminal organizations, high crime rates (which cannot be dissociated from other conjunctural problems) (Frey & Czajkowski, 2005), and the various social problems that Rio de Janeiro faces, with a direct impact on public security, especially in the favelas.

Studies pay special attention to the community policing program called the Pacifying Police Unit (Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora - UPP) (Ribeiro & Vilarouca, 2018; Riccio et al., 2013; Vargas, 2013; Wolff, 2019), as it was the most supported program so far. The purpose of the UPP was to reinstate legitimacy and the presence of the state in the favelas, promoting public policies, reducing fear of crime, and increasing citizens’ well-being. Despite having received strong encouragement from the state and the organizations involved, with the initial reach of the objectives, police practices returned to traditional policing, weakening the program and leading the units to a crisis, which was widely publicized in the Brazilian media and became a focus of academic research (Ribeiro & Vilarouca, 2018).

In the next subsections, we present the research on community policing in Brazil, under the following elements of analysis, framed in the four topics of Box 1: societal and cultural, environmental, organizational, and practical and Identity.

4.1 Societal and cultural elements

When studying the impact of international models of policing in Latin America, Frühling (2007) states similar obstacles to the implementation of community policing in different countries. Rising crime and fear of crime pressure the police, demanding short-term results, even in circumstances that require long-term efforts. There is a demand for crime control while the demand for the drastic reduction of police abuse grows (Frühling, 2007). According to the author, influential parts of public opinion consider this situation a contradiction, a perception that leads to an early conclusion of many initiatives of police reform. The police organization itself presents resistance to the institutional modernization necessary to adhere to community policing, given the large number of people involved, the severe financial challenges, and a centralized and historically high regulated administration.

The reality of favelas reflects the social inequality and violence in Brazil. Understanding the dynamics of favelas is challenging. These areas are sometimes territorially segregated and are low-income urban agglomerations similar to many others found worldwide. However, the favelas of Rio de Janeiro have unique characteristics that represent the Brazilian context regarding housing, urban planning, employment, income distribution, mobility, among many social issues that directly affect public security services.

Included in this picture are the almost intractable presence and consequent influence of criminal organizations in low-income urban settlements on the outskirts of Brazilian capitals, which propose to replace the state power (J. A. Alves, 2016; Prouse, 2018; Wolff, 2019). Brazilian problems are accentuated in favelas - social inequality, poverty, unemployment, hunger, the precariousness of public health and education policies, discrimination and intolerance, racism. The territorial segregation caused by crime and poverty seriously affects public security. Recurrent homicides, confrontations, and deaths of police (and by police) bring the favela into public debate. The literature on public security in Brasil addresses these issues, given that the reality of favelas challenges the assumptions about community policing and the complexity of the Brazilian case.

Policing in Brazilian favelas, such as those in large cities such as São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Recife, and Fortaleza - alone or compared to favelas in Rio de Janeiro - has been the subject of several studies (J. A. Alves, 2016; M. C. Alves & Arias, 2012; Arias & Ungar, 2009; Beato, Ribeiro, Oliveira, & Prado, 2017; Garmany, 2014; Prouse, 2018; Ribeiro & Vilarouca, 2018; Riccio et al., 2013; Vargas, 2013; Wolff, 2019). Although showing regional particularities, the studies dealt with similar problems related to low-income urban settlements in Brazil, and a large part of the literature focuses on the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Police legitimacy crises and conflicts between society and the state in low-income urban settlements worldwide are a reality for public security in many countries. However, the situation in favelas made the Brazilian case something special.

The close relationship with the citizen is a challenge for the police and the residents of certain favelas, where the community policing model is applied. In an attempt to combat the fear of crime and promote quality of life through a sense of security (Skolnick & Bayley, 2006; Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 1994), police officers strive to establish relationships with residents, although there are problems with the legitimacy of the police force in the local context. In these places, police practices are closer to military operations than to the exercise of citizenship with community interactions of proximity. Instead of feeling secure and combating the fear of crime, community meetings to establish preventive measures are transmuted into combat incursions. Criminal organizations and the police are preparing militarily for the confrontation, which occurs, at times, with high firepower and constant and imminent risk of life for police, criminals, and residents.

When the state’s objective becomes the retaking of the territory, previously dominated by drug trafficking (Ribeiro & Vilarouca, 2018; Wolff, 2019), even if in an ephemeral and fragile way, with the use of extreme force by militarized policing, unable to maintain its dominance, presence, or legitimacy, the community policing model becomes impracticable. When episodes similar to a civil war become increasingly present in the community’s daily life, the assumptions of community policing become untenable.

4.2 Environmental elements

During the nineteenth century, the police worldwide advanced in professionalization and legitimacy, primarily based on the characteristics of the British model already consolidated in the United States, obtaining the monopoly of security activity in the fight against crime and social disorder. Until that moment, the preventive policing model was meant to be distant from political maneuvers, based on the consensus that the police power should be minimally legitimate to validate its operation (Batitucci, 2010).

In the twentieth century, concerns did not revolve only around crime rates. An example of the variety of issues around police forces is the deep hostility between the US police and communities - especially minorities - during the 1960s (Skolnick & Bayley, 2006). These circumstances forged the most important changes in the history of the police, which were mainly focused on public relations. In the 1980s, crises of confidence in British policing considered a model for the world also forced the implementation of new security methods to bring the police closer to the public and increase institutional legitimacy (Bayley, 2001; Reiner, 2003).

Due to the geopolitical prominence of the United States, the academic production on Brazilian community policing was greatly inspired by experiences of that country (Garmany, 2014; Haubrich & Wehrhahn, 2015; Ribeiro & Vilarouca, 2018; Riccio et al., 2013; Wolff, 2019). In these cases, community policing programs sought to work with neighborhoods where it was necessary to rebuild the legitimacy of police practices, seen until then as violent, brutal, and inappropriate. The purpose was to build a new form of interaction between police and society, more committed to human rights and quality of life than to the use of violence. This new interaction between the police and society culminated in the greater legitimacy of the police institution. As Ribeiro and Vilarouca (2018) recall, community policing was the name given to different strategies implemented by US police forces for decades in order to rebuild their legitimacy in poor communities (Skogan, 2008). Thus, in Brazil, the discussion about community policing is not Brazilian. The challenges for the development of a theory of policing that is genuinely Brazilian must encompass challenges that are eminently Brazilian.

4.3 Organizational elements

Several Brazilian police forces adopted new practices to respond to social aspirations for public security. These practices were based on international models, such as the Japanese community policing (Koban) that, together with an adaptation of the model made in Singapore (Neighborhood Police Posts), was considered one of the most ambitious and extensive crime prevention programs. This method has been applied in many countries such as Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, and the United States. The experiences of these countries are considered examples of community policing (Skolnick & Bayley, 2006).

The experience of Koban was adopted by the police of the state of São Paulo in 2005, initially called Base Comuniária de Segurança (BCS) (community base of security), and supported by the Japanese Agency for International Cooperation through an international technical cooperation agreement (Ferragi, 2011). Minas Gerais and other Brazilian states also adopted the initiative, using different names.

In 2019, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP) launched the Diretriz Nacional de Polícia Comunitária (national community policing guidelines), which combines strategies and philosophies for bringing the police and the community together. This document, which had the participation of all Brazilian states and the Federal District, is the result of a cooperation agreement between Brazil and Japan to disseminate and multiply the foundations of the Japanese community policing by Brazilian public security institutions (Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública, 2019).

When researching the community policing programs adopted in Brazil, Wolff (2019) recalls David Bayley, who, in 1976, credited the low rates of violent crime in Japan to the Koban, in his book “Forces of Power: police behavior in Japan and the United States.” Two decades later, the Koban model, renamed Polícia Comunitária (community policing), was widely adopted across much of the wealthy post-industrial global North, including Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, soon spreading around much of the developing world, in particular Latin America (Wolff, 2019).

Another example of foreign adaptations made by the Brazilian police is the experience based on the American program of community policing called Drug Abuse Resistance Education (Dare). The American program has existed in the United States since 1983 and started in Brazil in 1992 with the name Programa Educacional de Resistência às Drogas e à Violência (Proerd) (education program to prevent violence and drug abuse), and assigns a police officer to work as a social educator in schools, offering periodical lessons to students. Developed in 58 countries and with some adaptations to the Brazilian reality, Proerd is present in all states, practically identical to the original model created in the US (Massardi & E. T. Silva, 2013; Shamblen et al., 2014; Tasca, Ensslin, & Ensslin, 2012).

Although inspired by international initiatives of community policing, Brazilian police forces have created their own programs, including the Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora (UPPs) (pacifying police units) and their predecessor, the Grupamento de Policiamento de Áreas Especiais (Gpae) (special areas policing group), in Rio de Janeiro; Ronda do Quarteirão (neighborhood block surveillance) in Ceará; Bases de Segurança Comunitária (BSC) (community bases of security), in Bahia; Conselhos Comunitários de Segurança (Conseg) (community council for security) and Vizinhança Soldária (solidary neighborhood) in São Paulo; Conselhos Comunitários de Segurança Pública (Consep) (community councils for public security), Rede de Proteção Preventiva (RPP) (preventive protection network), Rede de Vizinhos Protegidos (RVP) (protected neighbors network), Grupo Especializado de Policiamento em Áreas de Risco (Gepar) (policing groupspecialized in areas of risk), Programa Fica Vivo (staying alive program), among others, in Minas Gerais (Caruso, Muniz, & Blanco, 2007; Ferreira & Borges, 2020, 2021; Pinto, Murakami, Pimenta, & Nunes, 2012).

4.4 Practical and identity elements

Several studies on the subject did not use the specialized literature on community policing (J. A. Alves, 2016; M. C. Alves & Arias, 2012; Arias & Ungar, 2009; Beato et al., 2017; González, 2016, 2019; Prouse, 2018; Skogan, 2013; Vargas, 2013), treating it only as an empirical and not theoretical object. Given the characteristics of its application, it is considered a new paradigm in public security, not a topic for theoretical discussion. Prouse (2018) cites Brazilian research analyzing the UPPs in Rio de Janeiro and empirical evidence observed in the city’s favelas to argue that the police have not achieved the objectives of proximity to the local community.

Dammert and Malone (2006) also do not present the concept of community policing but approach its applicability by assessing fear of crime, a central theme for the literature on community policing. When discussing the measurement of fear of crime, the authors assume that the very definition of fear of crime is a topic of substantial academic debate.

J. A. Alves (2016) appropriates the concept of community policing as a state-sponsored approach, synonymous with “soft power” to crime, encouraging communities to participate in local community security councils, establishing community policing stations, and supporting programs for domestic violence and drug prevention in state schools. For the author, in addition to massacres and other brutal police tactics, the state also developed a soft power approach to crime (J. A. Alves, 2016, p. 80), even though the book by Trojanowicz and Bucqueroux (1994, pp. 16-17), first adopted by the São Paulo police, shows that community policing “is not ‘soft’ on crime […] [and it] is not cosmetic.”

The study by Wolff (2019) shows the crisis of legitimacy in the Brazilian police by investigating how it was possible to reduce violent crime without territorially extending the state’s authority. Based on evidence from UPPs in Rio de Janeiro and the community bases of security in Bahia, the author concluded that a common interest in limiting violence between police and organized crime led to tacit agreements on sharing local authority as a condition of peace. Thus, these tacit agreements resulted in a decrease in violent crimes.

Studies of this nature highlight the challenge of Brazilian public security institutions in conquering not only territory but legitimacy (J. A. Alves, 2016; Beato et al., 2017; Prouse, 2018; Wolff, 2019). The study by Wolff (2019) shows that confrontation between the police and criminal organizations in the favelas is characterized by armed clashes involving both sides’ firepower and war machines. It is a duel seeking legitimacy from the residents to validate their antagonistic speeches. This resulted in a tacit agreement between the parties - police and organized crime - with a considerable reduction in homicide rates. According to Sinhoretto, Schlittler, and Silvestre (2016), there was a significant downward trend in the number of homicides in the city of São Paulo. However, the same trend is not observed in deaths resulting from police action.

The legitimacy of the police with the audience can be analyzed considering practical and identity elements when policing actions are linked to legitimacy. Likewise, it can be framed as societal and cultural elements when considering the bases of legitimacy in their social structures.

The strong influence of the US literature on community policing in Brazilian literature and experiences can be observed, in particular, in the analyzes by Garmany (2014), Haubrich and Wehrhahn (2015), Ribeiro and Vilarouca (2018), Riccio et al. (2013) e Wolff (2019). Community policing has always been linked to a new model of policing, understood as a reform - compared to the traditional approach - that requires the legitimacy of communities with a greater degree of trust from residents. It has become the most promising and popular approach to public safety production worldwide. The police, from this perspective, is not limited to registering and repressing crime in a generalized way; the approach stimulates the proactivity and initiative of the police locally in an adequate rendering of accounts. The police forces then seek to understand the dynamics of sociability and how it contributes to criminal actions to improve the quality of life of all citizens. Community-oriented policing, in contrast to most forms of traditional policing, also seeks to empower citizens by building police-community partnerships.

5. CHALLENGES AND LIMITATIONS OF A BRAZILIAN RESEARCH AGENDA

As highlighted in the previous section, the research agenda that recognizes that community policing has multiple logics can be driven by different theoretical lenses. We intend to broaden the field research scope through a metatheoretical and meta-analytical framework.

The assumptions present in the literature on Brazilian community policing are limited in their application to the Brazilian case, mainly because the studies are intended for a reduced audience: few large cities (state capitals). An immense country with many heterogeneous specificities encourages the need for more studies that consider the application of community policing in its different regions, especially in the countryside, in contrast to the state capitals’ urban agglomerations.

Community policing as a model of police organization practice can also be understood as an object of study about the effects of the professional police’s legitimacy crisis, the militarization of the police force in a democratic context, and the incompatibilities of the managerial police. Thus, considering the elements pointed out in the previous section and the levels of analysis shown here, an agenda that equally considers the societal and cultural, environmental, organizational, and practical and identity levels in the empirical investigation of the subject emerges. Box 3summarizes these considerations, connecting the levels of analysis to possible studies and their main challenges.

In short, police practices are limited to four contexts that make the Brazilian case particular at a societal and cultural level: the militarization of the police force, recent democracy, violent culture, and the country’s social issues such as inequality, hunger, poor education, and poor mobility. The practices of the state militarized police in the country can be studied to understand community policing since this state police has become the largest police institution in the country. In addition, the same institution is responsible for police emergencies, preventive policing, persecution when a crime is underway, and patrolling activities and daily relationships with citizens. Military police officers deal with general prescriptions in the national context and local and regional aspects of policing, contextualized by conflicting logics.

BOX 3
MAIN CHALLENGES OF RESEARCH ON IDEAL TYPES OF POLICING

Considering the societal and cultural elements, some authors highlighted important issues about public security and racial relations, observed in deeper ways at the cultural and social level. To this end, the authors study police practices in the police selection of suspects considering racial filtering (Sinhoretto, 2014).

The context of favelas seems to attract more attention from researchers than others in applying the assumptions of community policing as a model of police organization practice. Research in the country was limited to the challenging context of favelas in the state-society relationship, bringing the police closer to the community where they provide the public security service, and to the promotion of police legitimacy, citizenship, and civic participation, in the treatment of fear of crime, violence, and quality of life. These assumptions are necessary to the practice of community policing and therefore unfeasible in the context of favelas.

Such assertions challenge the theory and raise doubts about the real applicability of community policing in Brazil. It would not be applicable in how it is presented, making evident the need for a research agenda to provide theoretical support and practical guidance for implementing public security policies in the country shaped by democratic principles.

Notwithstanding, this discussion concludes that community policing does not apply to the Brazilian case because of the current literature’s assumptions. This does not mean that there are valid statements for all contexts of the country, especially those not covered by the literature. In this direction, we encourage studies analyzing public security in the Brazilian regions, exploring the heterogeneity of Brazilian policing considering the structural differences in each region. It is important to keep in mind the hybridity of policing logics that, in turn, manifest according to how police officers identify with them. Thus, we suggest a research agenda that focuses on theoretical elaborations built around justifications and legitimation strategies underlying the policing logics.

In this process, it is important to look exclusively at previously discussed Brazilian problems, including Brazilian culture and history, bearing in mind that, just over 130 years ago, Brazil was a slave-holding country and an absolute monarchy. The current democracy is just over 30 years old.

Although favelas are a particular feature of Brazil and challenge community policing practice, studying this context is not enough to produce a theory of Brazilian policing; improving public security services is not exclusive to big capital cities. While these realities provide an excellent research laboratory, they do not represent the reality of most of the country (Silveira, 2018).

When studying the state reactions to crime, Sinhoretto (2014) says that, amidst what he calls complementary strategies of informalization of state conflict management and violence prevention programs, the police pursue two strategies to deal with crime, especially organized crime. The first, a militarized strategy, uses lethality and secret investigation as fundamental tactics. The second is based on judicialization and criminal law (Sinhoretto, 2014). Some authors also contribute to the investigation of the authoritarian narrative of the Brazilian police, its relationship with crime control, and democracy (Lima & Sinhoretto, 2011; Sinhoretto & Lima, 2015).

Seeking to understand the quality and configuration of democracy in Brazil, Sinhoretto and Lima (2015) state that the emphasis on criminal prosecution gives the justice system a leading role in the management of violence by the state militarized police, privileging the punishment of conflicts related to the circulation of wealth, in detriment of the institutional management of violent conflicts.

Considering the environmental level, Box 3 shows the challenges that are also highlighted in the study of Brazilian community policing: (a) the complex, rigid, and ineffective public security system; (b) the staggering numbers in public safety (although diverse and heterogeneous); (c) organized crime, which faces the state power in the monopolization of violence and the discourse of well-being, in the search for local legitimacy; and (d) deficiencies in public policies in a large and unequal country in terms of access to rights, quality public services, and survival.

Over the years, the state actions to address the “favela issue” have involved what Magalhães (2016) called an updating of the discourses and practices of ‘removal,’ with the moral reframing of urban disorder and risk. Although the attention of empirical studies in the country is directed to low-income urban agglomerations on the outskirts of Brazilian capitals, especially the Rio de Janeiro favelas, it is possible to question how this dynamic takes place in the multiple and heterogeneous cities (re)configured by the regionalities of an immense country such as Brazil.

Through an ethnographic description, Magalhães observes that, since 2009, what he calls the removal of favelas in Rio de Janeiro has been happening through a state agenda - especially from the local government - which uses threats, coercion, and physical violence, due to the works that prepared the city for mega sports events. Families were removed from their homes in the favela, scattered throughout the city, or relocated to distant places without infrastructure and in low-quality housing projects. There was no access to quality public policies in these places, jeopardizing the exercise of citizenship (Magalhães, 2019a, 2019b).

At the organizational level, Brazilian police organizations seek: (a) with community policing, to produce a sense of security, combating the fear of insecurity through the participation of the community, in a subjective, decentralized, preventive, participatory, and citizen-centered vision (Skolnick & Bayley, 2006; Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 1994); (b) with NPM (Bresser-Pereira, 2002; Paula, 2005a, 2005b), to combat crime following the law, objectively repressing such events. Combat must observe adequate and effective criminal prosecution, valuing statistics, reports, and numbers of arrests, the proper use of resources, and seek the best results (Vieira & Protásio, 2011).

At the same time, the preparation of the police officer adds value to ​​the traditional model of policing (Muniz, Caruso, & Freitas, 2018; Muniz, Larvie, Musumeci, & Freire, 1997; Poncioni, 2005; R. R. Silva, 2007, 2011). In the traditional model, the military culture transmitted over the decades is represented by war and confrontation, valuing traditional practices of crime combat and control, in a reactive approach of the police, prepared mainly for confrontation, in immediate and little contextual responses.

Some research shed light on the challenges that empirical studies about police forces may face. Not only the police organization but also the research practices applied when studying these institutions may face challenges and problems related to violence, crime, and the risk of the researcher’s involvement with everyday and routine occurrences. In the city of São Paulo, some studies show the complexity of police practices in the face of violence, youth, and police lethality (Sinhoretto et al., 2016) and the state’s attempt to sponsor the social control of organized crime (Sinhoretto, 2014).

More than just dealing with numbers and crime rates, public security agencies worldwide have understood that it is necessary, above all, to improve the image and performance of the police, offering local communities a quality public security service, thus evaluated in a decentralized and personal way. These practices called community policing have influenced the police worldwide and the literature on public safety (Skolnick & Bayley, 2006).

Community policing is considered a philosophy of community-oriented policing and presumes the organization of crime prevention with the participation of citizens in the planning, execution, monitoring, and evaluation of policing activities (Bayley, 2001; Skolnick & Bayley, 2006). Community policing should promote direct dialogue between society and the police, listening and creating new opportunities for approximation to incorporate police practices by contiguity.

The practical and identity level of community policing calls for further studies on the institutional configuration of public security in Brazil. The country’s organizations have ambivalent logic of adaptive prevention and punitive segregation in fighting crime (Haubrich & Wehrhahn, 2015). Also, the evaluation of police work uses quantitative logic (Paula, 2005b, 2005a; Vieira & Protásio, 2011) in a constitutional legislative context that challenges the conduction of nationwide reforms. In this sense, only occasional examples of sparse and fragile initiatives that depend on the will of individuals are put into practice (Arias & Ungar, 2009; Beato et al., 2017). The state militarized police, which has daily contact with the general public and everyday problems, is compelled to follow two different logics of actions: the police-like approach with subjective diagnoses, and the military detachment, with generalizing quantitative diagnoses, focused on criminal prosecution.

As for research practices, the limitations are the difficult access to the research field, in the case of police organizations (Alcadipani, 2015; Garmany, 2014), and in the difficulties inherent to the police practice when dealing with crime, which brings risks to the researcher in the field. It is crucial to be aware of the peculiarities of the Brazilian context when researching police and policing. First, the researcher must understand that the state militarized police and the so-called “civil police” (which is also a governmental institution in the area of public security, focusing on the criminal investigation, detective work, and forensics) are completely different organizations in their institutional purposes and cultural settings. It is important to comprehend what it is to be a military officer and a police officer in Brazil, which is a complex theme. There are differences not only between the police forces - in addition to cultural and historical differences, there are procedural differences, as one acts proactively and the other on demand - but also internal differences, between ‘soldiers’ and ‘officers,’ operational and administrative work, repressive and community approach, men and women, among others.

Special attention is given to the state militarized police, as it is the public security agency most present in the citizen’s daily life, responsible for the day-to-day community problems - generally the first to respond to security-related problems.

6. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

Revisiting research on the reforms of Brazilian police practices toward community policing demonstrated that this model of police organization - envisioned as the most advanced model of policing - has several contradictions between what is idealized and what is put into practice. Community policing is a policing model that is hybrid, multifaceted, and difficult to understand.

Research on the topic was arranged in societal and cultural, environmental, organizational, and practical and identity elements to help design a research agenda on community policing. The objective was achieved through the proposition of a metatheoretical analytical scheme, based on the idea that community policing is based on four ideal types of institutional logics - military, professional, managerial, and community - and that the intersection between such logics helps to understand the phenomenon.

The proposition of a research agenda that considers Brazilian police reforms toward the community policing model identifies and challenges assumptions underlying existing theory. By reviewing published studies on the reforms of Brazilian police practices toward community policing, this essay offered suggestions to public managers and subsidized future empirical studies on public security, especially those lacking theoretical propositions about community policing models, considering their applicability to the Brazilian case.

A reform of Brazilian police institutions that considers the promotion of quality of life and the legitimacy of the police force supported by elements such as citizenship and social participation is a complex task. Such reform has to address democracy, citizenship, and basic and essential issues for human dignity such as hunger and precarious health and education, problems still present in various regions of the country.

The proposal to improve public security services goes beyond reducing crime rates, linking it to fear of crime and local disorder, including situations not considered as a matter for the police when observing the current legislation. The advance of Brazilian literature on legitimacy, democracy, social participation, and institutional logic may lead to an understanding of the assumptions around a Brazilian model of community policing.

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• [Translated version] Note: All quotes in English translated by this article’s translator

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  21 Mar 2022
• Date of issue
  Jan-Feb 2022

History

• Received
  28 Mar 2021
• Accepted
  28 Oct 2021