Police officers more professionally satisfied are more willing to offer a better service to society?

Abstract

Nowadays, public safety is one of the most discussed issues in Brazil. Among the range of discussions and themes explored in this field, the health and quality of life of the public safety officers is still an unexplored topic. At the same time, the police career is constantly subject to risks and dangers. In addition to daily exposure to violent situations, these professionals are exposed to tensions, health disorders and other consequences, such as homicides and suicides (Silveira and Medeiros, 2016). The society instrumental view of the police as a producer of public security would be an explanation for the little attention given to this subject (Minayo and Adorno, 2013). But what would be the impacts of police officer's health and professional self-image for corporations and society? The perception of the lack of recognition by society of police work can jeopardize the image of these police officers about their work, which can influence behaviours and the experiences of these individuals (Gomes and Souza, 2012). Bezerra, Minayo, and Constantino (2007) suggest that negative public opinion about police work implies in suffering at work due to a lack of social recognition. The negative perceptions of society about the police are related to a violent control of the public order as a mechanism of containment of the crime (Adorno, 1998). Internally, these policies have not experienced structural changes since the military regime. Often, perpetrators of violent practices in society are also exposed to forms of violence within their institutions. Inequalities from the position of the subject in the career hierarchy, differentiated authority assignments and disciplinary regulations, and the lack of standardization of police practices would be some of the reflexes of the lack of modernization of police institutions (Azevedo, 2016).Aiming to understand the determinants of the use of the police force by the State Military Police of Rio de Janeiro, Magaloni and Cano (2016) applied 5,167 questionnaires to police officers. For the authors, police officers who feel more disrespected and who do not feel proud of their work, tend to support more the logic of war. The proposal of this project is to analyse the construction of the legitimacy from the perceptions of the police officers. The main question is whether these professionals experience in their daily work the dimensions under which police work needs to be structured in society. The project intends to test whether socioeconomical elements, professional characteristics and the perceptions that the police officers have of their work, can influence the perceptions that they have of the performance of their work and their contact with the society. It is expected to build models to analyse the impact of these factors on the perceptions that the police have of their work. It seeks to map the characteristics that have greater and lesser influence with the most combative perceptions, related to confrontation and ostensiveness and those that approach more insightful perceptions, such as community policing. Through an initial descriptive exploratory analysis of the CEPID database, from the questionnaire, applied to the Civil and Military Police of São Paulo, the variables that dialogue with the literature and the presented discussion will be selected. The variables will be tested from basic crosses aiming the composition of the models. Next, it is intended to develop a comparative study with the case of Rio de Janeiro. It seeks from compatible variables, to find similarities and differences between them. To do so, the database produced by Magaloni and Cano (2016) will be used in the scope of the force use survey applied to the Military Police of the State of Rio de Janeiro. (AU)