Vá e vença: repressão às drogas no estado do Rio de Janeiro (2007–2020)

Abstract

This thesis analyzes how the public policy of drug repression was implemented by Rio de Janeiro State’s Millitary Police(PMERJ) from 2007 to 2020. My argument is that this public policy was the result of an unplanned social process, in what a network of actors made part with non-consensual interests. This network is made up of police officers from different ranks or positions, public servants in the management area, elected politicians, representatives of civil organizations, activists, and academics. Likewise, there are laws, decrees, regulations, documents, statistics, money, drugs and other objects. Because of this, public policy is not seen as the cause that determines the actions of Rio de Janeiro police officers. On the contrary, it is the fragile result of the effort of this network of actors to make their activities coherent and understandable. There are two opposing and concomitant movements, one centrifugal and the other centripetal, which produce harmonious images and dissonant practices related to drug repression. On one hand, there is a loosely articulated criminal justice and public safety system, institutional disputes, an organized culture of the PMERJ that values discretion, and different centers of power within the state government resulting in government programs that compete for resources and follow different logics. On the other hand, prohibitionism, the war on drugs and new public management policies mainly aimed at goals and results. Still, the published numbers of occurrences and drug volume seized by the police constitute an image of public policy as coherent and without gaps or redundancies. Faced with the pressure of the large numbers policy, a police culture focused on drug-related incidents is created. The numbers also serve as evidence of this public policy’s success. In this way, they fulfill a double role: they press for certain more quantifying solutions and hide the dissent of actions in an understandable public policy image. The case of Rio de Janeiro is better understood as a public policy constituted from distinct and uncoordinated programs, which are implemented by operators who respond to stimuli from the new public administration’s policy of large numbers, the principle of war on drugs and the institutional culture of high discretion of the military police.