INFORMAÇÃO E SEGURANÇA PÚBLICA: A ... - Crisp - UFMG

Abstract
This research’s objective was to describe the processes of construction of social
knowledge that take place in the community’s environments that aim to promote public safety.
It was considered that the military policies are in crisis (of knowledge) facing the escalation of
criminality and that the adoption of a community model of police action, more compatible
with the values of a democratic society, is a viable alternative. The new model presupposes the
redefinition of the police’s roles and demands the construction of new knowledge, oriented to
preventive strategies, intense exchange of information with the community and the
development of public safety indexes using technologies of information systems.
The informational phenomena was discussed as a social construction, showing that is
the individual information user, limited by the political-historical-cultural context, who selects
the meanings, builds knowledge and generates new information.
Starting from an exploratory study, it was defined as the focus of the investigation
would be the informational practices that take place in a Consep (Community Counsels of
Public Safety) in Belo Horizonte, community organization that is important for the
establishment of community policing. To analyze these questions, the theoreticalmethodological
notion of “third knowledge”, and the construct of “anthropology of
information”, that allows for the study of the “information in movement”, were used as a
reference. The field work was guided by the “hermeneutic-dialectic method”, as described by
Minayo (2002); by an ethnographic attitude, as necessary to elaborate a “thick description”, as
described by Geertz (1978) and by the theory of the “social camp” developed by Bourdieu
(1991, 2002).
The results evidenced that there are different manners to experience and conceive
violence, and that the information, as a way to communicate the experience, is the object of
symbolic disputes within the Consep studied. The informational poles go on conflict and
difficulties to share information take place, characterizing what is called an “informational
emptiness”.
Key-words: Social construction of the information; social knowledge; public safety;
policiamento comunitário; Conselhos Comunitários de Segurança Pública (Consep).