The National Public Security Policy: background, dilemmas and perspectives

Abstract

This paper describes the successive attempts of formulating and mplementing public security policies through the elaboration of plans in Brazil. It seeks to understand their main movements: advances and retreats, pressures and reactions, as well as the induction and the negotiations that have characterized the recent experience of their several relevant agents. The analyzed period covers both terms of former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's administration, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's first government and the new proposals announced by the National Public Security and Citizenship Program (Pronasci) in the eighth month of his second term in office. In order to contextualize the assessment of the plans and of the political process involved, the paper analyzes the difficulties derived from the definition of criteria, methods and mechanisms of evaluation and monitoring of public security policies and police performance.