Resumo

RIBEIRO, Ludmila; NEIVA E OLIVEIRA, Victor  e  ALVES DINIZ, Alexandre Magno. The meanings of “community policing” for the Brazilian Military Police. Estud. sociol [online]. 2016, vol.34, n.102, pp.603-637. ISSN 2448-6442.

In recent years, Brazilian military police forces have adopted community policing programs in order to increase confidence in the institution and reduce crime rates. The objective of this study was to verify what the police frontline personnel understands by community policing and how they perceive the results of its implementation. A survey was conducted with 592 military policemen involved in operational activities in 32 military police companies of Belo Horizonte. The results point to a vast plasticity of the concept, which came to mean any type of activity carried out by police officers and by the community without the formal cooperation of the police, making the category “community policing” a new name for old police practices.

Palavras-chave : community policing; police reform; Belo Horizonte; PMMG.