BETWEEN THE SWORD AND CITIZENSHIP: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE POLICE, MILITARIZATION OF CIVILIAN POLICING, AND PENAL SELECTIVITY IN BRAZIL

Abstract

This article examines the historical formation of Brazilian police institutions, emphasizing the relationship between the Civil Police and the Military Police, the incorporation of military rationalities into civilian policing, and the selectivity produced by the criminal justice system. It is a qualitative, theoretical study based on a critical and historical-documentary literature review with a narrative-interpretative orientation. The corpus draws on social history of policing, critical criminology, and the police-as-worker approach, engaging, among others, Bretas and Rosemberg, Foucault, Baratta, Zaffaroni, Mattos, Napolitano, Motta, and Rosemberg. The analysis argues that the militarization of Brazilian policing does not stem exclusively from the dictatorship established in 1964 or from an isolated constitutional provision, but from a long-term process connected to state formation, slavery, unequal protection of property, repression of workers, the governance of populations deemed dangerous, and the transnational circulation of security and counterinsurgency techniques. The findings indicate that the formal distinction between Civil and Military Police is insufficient to assess the democratic quality of police practices, since a war-oriented rationality may permeate formally civilian institutions, while militarized organizations may also incorporate mediation and protection practices. The article concludes that democratizing public security requires the material civilianization of the police mandate, stronger investigative capacities, clearer institutional competencies, accountability, and recognition of police officers as workers entitled to rights. Its scientific contribution lies in integrating three research agendas that are often treated separately in Brazilian scholarship: the social history of policing, penal selectivity, and the labor conditions and subjectivation of police agents.