Non-Confrontational Public Security Policies

Abstract

This article analyzes public security policies based on non-confrontation as an alternative to the repressive paradigm historically dominant in Brazilian public security, with special attention to the State of Rio de Janeiro. Its central objective is to understand the extent to which experiences such as citizen security, harm reduction, restorative justice, community policing, police demilitarization, integrated social policies, and the urban upgrading of vulnerable territories may constitute a more democratic, preventive, and effective model for addressing violence. The research adopts a qualitative, bibliographic, and documentary methodology, drawing on specialized literature, institutional documents, constitutional norms, and studies on drug policy, police organization, state lethality, social prevention of violence, and experiences in Rio de Janeiro, such as Favela-Bairro, Morar Carioca, and the Pacifying Police Units. The article proceeds from the hypothesis that policies centered exclusively on repression tend to reproduce penal selectivity, militarization, violations of fundamental rights, high financial costs, and limited structural effectiveness. By contrast, it argues that non-confrontational policies shift public security away from the narrow field of coercion and toward citizenship, linking prevention, social protection, community participation, human dignity, and the reduction of inequalities. The conclusion is that the democratic reconstruction of public security requires overcoming the warlike logic of the “war on drugs” and the “internal enemy,” replacing it with intersectoral, territorially grounded strategies guided by human rights. Thus, non-confrontational security does not mean the absence of the State, but rather a qualified, preventive state presence committed to guaranteeing rights.