Segurança pública como simulacro de democracia no Brasil

abstract This paper aims to understand the historical continuance of lethal violence as one of the most striking social characteristics of Brazil. The main argument suggests that preventing and tackling of homicides - understood in a broad sense that includes all intentional murders - are political and institutional operations ensuing from a symbolic simulacrum that causes incremental initiatives to fail to reach the architecture of institutions of criminal justice and public security. This simulacrum leads the police and other institutions of the criminal justice system to continue operating from a core of criminal policies that do not comply with the democratic public security project, i.e., with the protection of life and civil and human rights envisioned by the 1988 Constitution.