Police lethality and institutional support: Profiling and prosecution of cases of “resistance followed by death” in the city of São Paulo

Abstract

This article presents the main results of a study on lethal violence resulting from police actions in the city of São Paulo in 2012. The study was based on the reading and analysis of police records and then on the examination of a representative sample of lawsuits resulting from these cases. We describe the profile of the police actions and the treatment applied by the institutions responsible for their prosecution. The results of the survey show that the leniency of the Criminal Justice System’s practitioners in relation to the lethality resulting from police actions contributes to providing widespread institutional support for the violent action of law enforcement officers.