Violence Workers: Police Torturers and Murderers Reconstruct Brazilian AtrocitiesOf the twenty-three Brazilian policemen interviewed in depth for this landmark study, fourteen were direct perpetrators of torture and murder during the three decades that included the 1964-1985 military regime. These "violence workers" and the other group of "atrocity facilitators" who had not, or claimed they had not, participated directly in the violence, help answer questions that haunt today's world: Why and how are ordinary men transformed into state torturers and murderers? How do atrocity perpetrators explain and justify their violence? What is the impact of their murderous deeds—on them, on their victims, and on society? What memories of their atrocities do they admit and which become public history? |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
1 Violent Lives | 6 |
2 Reconstructing Atrocity | 17 |
3 Locating Torturers and Murderers | 29 |
4 Deposing Atrocity and Managing Secrecy | 45 |
5 Biography Intersects History | 63 |
6 Personalistic Masculinity | 81 |
7 Bureaucratizing Masculinity | 101 |
8 Blended Masculinity | 118 |
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aggressive Amnesty International argues Armando arrest atrocity facilitators atrocity perpetrators atrocity system beat behavior Bernardo blended masculinity Brazil Brazil's military Brazilian police Brazilian violence workers Bruno bureaucratic burnout career carried Chapter cial Civil Police civil policeman committed criminals cultural death squad deindividuation diffusion of responsibility direct perpetrators DOI/CODI DOPS Eduardo elite emotional Ernesto explained feel Fernando formal Freikorps Haritos-Fatouros hazing human rights Ignácio institutional functionary internal security interrogation interview Jacob Jorge justify kill legitimate lence lice Márcio Militarized Police militarized policeman military period moral disengagement national security OBAN olence operations organizational Paulo personalistic physical Police atrocity police organization police violence political preservice training prison professional psychological rank-and-file repression responsibility Rio de Janeiro Roberto role São Paulo secrecy secret Sérgio shaped social control Stanford Prison Experiment state's structures subversives suspects tion torture and murder torture or murder units victims Vinnie