Technopolitics of failure: modes of critique and resistance to new punitive tools

Abstract

Brazilian police forces have been equipped with security technologies that include body cameras, biometric systems, and predictive algorithms. Public managers justify investments in this sector by claiming gains in efficiency, transparency, and accountability. However, social movements and public security researchers argue that many of the systems implemented fail to improve police activity. There is a growing number of complaints that errors in identifying suspects and biases in defining priority patrol areas amplify patterns of structural violence and automate exclusionary mechanisms. This article seeks to map the use of “failure” as a tool for criticism and resistance to new security technologies, reflecting on its analytical and political consequences. Despite the contributions to debates on algorithmic discrimination, the article points out that many of the criticisms have been incorporated by developers in processes to optimize their systems. In this way, complaints can paradoxically operate as an engine of innovation, legitimizing the spread of punitive tools. More than a demand for precision and the elimination of bias, criticism based on failure should function as a way of making explicit the multiple actors and interests inherent in the process of techno-scientific development. To do this, however, it is necessary to repoliticize failure.