Between Two Abusers
Violence and Masculinity in Brazilian Law Enforcement
Celebration of 190 years of PM, São Paulo, 2021
On a mid-July evening, three policemen arrived at Santo António, a county in the Brazilian coastal state of Rio Grande do Norte. A woman stood outside her home, waiting, with her toddler in her arms, for their arrival. She’d called help after her brother lost control and become aggressive. The officers from the local PM—Military Police—responding to this complaint of domestic abuse headed inside the house. However, their intentions must have been clear to the woman, who following them, urged them not to beat her brother. The policemen were angered by her intervention, and a row broke out, the situation quickly deteriorating. A video that neighbours filmed caught the quarrel: the officers threatening to hit her, while throwing out pejoratives; the woman trying to defend herself, protesting back, and only enraging them further. One of the officers shoved her, the child still in her arms, and proceeded to repeatedly beat her.
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For some years now, violence against women in Brazil has seen the development of a peculiar trend. The overall number of accounted murders has declined, but the number of femicides has risen, as have formal reports of domestic violence, of which the majority of the victims are women as well.
There seem to be two possibilities for why crimes of hate against women are apparently growing. Firstly, of course, the very real increase in occurrences, not just cases that were reported to authorities. Particularly since Bolsonaro entered the public eye, circa 2017, exposure to his unabashed misogyny, and the social and economic turmoil that have marked his term as president, are likely to have encouraged harmful behaviours and worsened already bad situations.
Yet, there is a second possible justification. That this increase also reflects the slow uncovering of a reality that was already there, kept hidden within the home.
In 2015, Juliana Martins, a member of the FBSP (Brazilian Forum for Public Safety) teamed up with a Professor from England, Fiona Macauley, to introduce domestic violence to the education of Brazilian police officers. The initiative was meant to help them recognise and comprehend these cases of targeted violence, thus classifying them correctly, and bringing visibility to the taboo issue. Yet, progress remains underwhelming, the situation essentially stagnant. Of the 16500 reports of domestic violence in 2019, only 6% of the assaulters are apprehended. Further still, seeing as the way in which abusers are approached by police remains unchanged, the violence that exists at the core of the issue is not challenged.
Take for example the case above of Rio Grande. The officers were prepared to use the same mechanism of brutality as the abuser himself, to instil their own authority. And amidst the backlash, their only reprimand was a demotion to administrative functions. If the institution can’t meaningfully respond to three of its own officers abusing their power, it can’t be trusted to address other abusers. Yet, does this surprise us, when the forces meant to tackle them are simultaneously plagued by the same faults?
Violence, masculinity, and the police never seem to stray too far from one another. They deeply mark law enforcement’s culture, representing the pillars of the ideal its members are taught to aspire to.
Fábio França, Captain of Paraíba’s PM, has described police training as a ‘pedagogy of suffering.’ It claims to teach recruits the value of ‘masculinity’ through cruelty. But does so through cruelty. As one recruit described, during their instruction they were ‘deprived of sleep, beaten, made to train in rooms filled with tear gas, […] made to eat their food with filthy, unwashed hands, and commonly subjected to humiliation and assault from their superiors.’ It is a dehumanising process for the trainees, through which violence becomes banal.
The Captain of Bahía’s PM, Thaís Trindade, suggests that the numbness towards violence is, to a degree, a mechanism of self-defence. As she says: ‘we, professionals of public safety, deal with violence all the time, 24 hours per day […]. We create armour to protect ourselves and, sometimes, we get lost in that armour and we forget our own humanity.’ Violence, to officers, may lose its shock, but they still learn to use it as an instrument through which to instil authority over one’s perceived inferiors. Disregarding skills such as problem-solving, conflict resolution, and communication, the institution purposefully leaves recruits with violence as their sole tool to function professionally.
In the clash in Rio Grande, for instance, when the woman attempted to steer their operation, asking them not to use force against her brother, they perceived this as a slight on their authority and capacity to resolve the situation. Their response was to physically assault her, restoring a ‘natural’ dynamic: policeman over victim, and man over woman.
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Since women were integrated into the PM around the 1980s, they have been relegated to the lowest positions of the organisation’s hierarchy. Even today, the highest position occupied by women is only that of Captain. The institution’s greatest advantage in allowing women to become officers, perhaps the motivation for their inclusion, was rather how they would benefit the public’s perception of law enforcement. Reportedly, there was an expectation that women would ‘humanise the [police’s] masculine universe […].’ As one specialist on the issue described: ‘what you will see […] is women policing public places: fairs, events… but if there is an actual problem, it’s not them that would be sent to address it. […] Their function is another, it’s of public-relations'. Yet, what is this ‘masculine’ universe? One that both repudiates femininity, but also requires its facade to continue to exist.
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Paranás’ PM released in 2018 a recruitment ad in which, among its requirements, ‘masculinity’ was specified. Defined as ‘the capacity for an individual to not be affected by scenes of violence, to be capable of dealing with vulgarity, without becoming emotional, nor showing interest in romantic and love stories.’ It echos the absurdity that officers are motivated to aspire to, not only as policemen, but as men. But what is the purpose of encouraging this performative detachment from one’s humanity?
‘Policemen that don’t kill are not policemen,’ said Bolsonaro, commenting on the high fatality that results from police violence in Rio de Janeiro. Statements such as these are meant to justify the idea that the police’s actions must necessarily lead to brutality, otherwise implying that to act empathetically, or without resorting to force, is the sign of a weak and unqualified officer. It validates brutality to serve a greater purpose.
Bolsonaro’s unquestioning support of law enforcement, and the myth of virility that envelopes the police are purposeful. Their collaboration ensures the maintenance of a mutually beneficial social order. For instance, the police provide Bolsonaro with a large and loyal electoral base. Bolsonaro, who has gained the power to forward his interests, rewards them with a series of benefits, such as tax exemptions, and real estate credit. It is a relationship to mutual advantage, but which nonetheless requires those it leaves on the margins, outside, to sustain itself. Narratives like ‘the criminal poor’ and the ‘hero cop’ have often been employed by Bolsonaro to defend and glorify the police, and promote his own agenda; the policewoman is used to make the organisation appear more humane, and more modern, despite her presence having null effects.
Bolsonaro posing with Federal District’s Military Police, 2018
Law enforcement has been reluctant to respond to criticisms, and more still to significantly challenge itself. But while it is antiquated, the police is, nonetheless, as consequential as ever. The political power being preserved is similarly invested in maintaining the police’s authority, aware, however, that to survive it may require an aesthetic update. There may be a more demographically diverse corps of officers nowadays, but we can’t assume this necessarily implies a positive development. When individual members uphold—consciously or structurally—the organization’s repressive ideology, any wind of change falls flat against an unmovable culture. This superficial evolution is exemplary of the institution’s new cunning. As the state of Brazil’s democracy continues to degenerate, this camouflage shows a capacity to navigate contemporary optical expectations, and it falls to us not to allow these to be so shallowly met. As it stands, those in need of help continue to be forced to choose between two abusers.