This article first discusses the model of pre-processual investigation procedure adopted in Brazil aimed at strengthening a bureaucratic and scholastic profile rather than the activities of police investigation. We discuss institutional relationships established between the civil police and other institutions of public security system and criminal justice, and concludes that lack of systemic integration between different areas of Criminal Justice has just to multiply the sources of tension between their agents, and undermines the efficiency of the system as a whole. Finally, we present excerpts from interviews with Police Officers working in the city of Porto Alegre - RS, in order to understand the perceptions of these operators in the criminal justice system about the dilemmas faced in the production of investigation, both in relation to other institutions and about the precariousness material and human evidences in the civil police in Rio Grande do Sul.
Police Inquiry; Criminal Investigation; Police Officers; Criminal Procedure