Abstract
This article discusses the main elements about the relation between police and society, especially about the police treatment with socially marginalized groups, in the Colonial and Imperial period (1500–1889), Old Republic (1889–1930), Vargas Era (1930–1945) and Democratic period (1946–1964). With this social history study, we seek to understand the poverty criminalization to contribute to the discussion about the relation between State and society in Brazil. The method was developed through bibliographical review of studies about police history in Brazil, specially using articles, dissertations, theses and books. With this study, we verify the participation of police at the relation between State and socially marginalized and repressed groups at our country. This implies the public order maintenance necessary to the auto-reproduction of the capitalist mode of production. We conclude that there is a need to deepen the studies on the function of police in society, and that studies on public security in Psychology are important, pointing to the necessary interdisciplinarity for the study of the modes of subjectivation in capitalism.
Police; Police violence; Public Security; Critical Social Psychology; Critical Criminology