Police Practices and Social Identity: The Case of the Polices in the Federal District

The research that has originated this paper has as a priority the reflexion about the relationship between professional identities and policeman practices. They were thougt considering their possible deployments in relation to police violence. The paper took into account some theorical contents, however, the main goal is the analysis of the empirical context of the police practice.

A particular importance has been given to the social representation of the police officers about questions such as occupation; the meaning of their practices in the streets; their reference patterns; their ethos and identity as a policeman, the distinction between the policeman and the non- policeman (that is the commom citzen) and also the distinction between the civil and the military policemen, the pride of the profession and the motives for the choice of the profession.

The results pointed out to: a ) the context of tension between civil and military officers. b) the tension between policemen and citizens which means; c) the differences about the social representations that policemen create about themselves and the ones they believe society creates about them ; d) the deployment issue from the negative representations that the policemen create concerning a lack of recognition by society, as well as its consequences in the way they construct their own identities and organise their practices; e) the constant complaints they make about the difficulty in the communication between the comand and the troops, due mainly to the hierarchic and rigid structure (specifically in the military force) concerning the bureaucratic and behavioral aspects of daily life and performance in the police forces; f); the meaning they give to their activity as a policeman; g) the pride (or the lack of pride) related to the profession; h) the intention to stimulate (or not) their sons and daugthers to follow their profession;