Polícia Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The aim of this research is to follow the guidelines proposed by the University of Évora in order to obtain the degree of Master in Sociology, namely in the specialised area of Human Resources and Supportable Development. We live in a world in which the ability of the Organizations to adapt to the external signs of change is not only a challenge, but also a truly strategic need. In fact, “in a period of such a deep mutation, while the practices and the ways of thinking we live with, seem to be more and more maladjusted, our task can no longer be to maintain and improve, but to renew and even to invent.” (Crozier, 1994: 164). A security force like the Public Security Police, in spite of being a public service, cannot exclude itself from the process of adaptation to societal changes, mainly because it is formed by people who have a more and more critical, prospective and reflexive vision, which leads the organisation to have a vision of the future (Cunha et al., 2001), through the implementation of a course of action concerning the improvement of the quality of the service provided to the client/citizen and restructuring the list of social and professional representation. As Alain Duluc refers, “the continuous search of the client’s permanent satisfaction and of his new wishes lead the Enterprise to change its organization. What is important is no longer men’s management, but the management of the processes. Through evolution, the organization changes itself” (Duluc 2000: 33). But this strategy must settle above all – without loosing the principle of hierarchy, which must run an organization deeply settled in rules and codes – in a policy of motivation and appeal to the involvement of all internal performers. As an old chinese saying refers “rotten wood cannot be carved” (Lloyd and Lloyd, 1995: 31). The present research is based on this conceptual context, aiming to mobilise the agents and to improve the policy of Human Resources Management in Public Security Police, standing on the supremacy of the Sociology of the Professions, as a decision-making document . However, it is essential to understand how the various performers – internal and external – see and analyse the Institution, ending in the configuration of the social and professional representation of the Police, based on a reflection related to the ability of the organization to adapt and to the role of the Police in the new social framing. To pursue this reasoning, I decided to study the case of the Public Security Police in the district of Beja, standing on reasons which will be clarified during the research, but whose basis stand on my deep knowledge of this reality. The layout of this work was built in a logical sense, and it is the result of a connection among its parts: a brief introduction outlines the whole research, the changes that have been taking place in the Portuguese society, the strategies of the PSP to adapt to a new reality; and the relevance and the aims of the research. The second chapter presents an essential theoretical component about the emerging of Sociology of Professions, as a specific area of Sociology and essential concepts to the understanding of the subject, such as profession, socio-professional representation and professional identity. The third chapter refers to a brief, diachronic study of the history of the Portuguese police, followed by an approach to the paradigmatic trends in what the police intervention is concerned; to finish with the description of the profile of the professionals of the Police Force of Beja and the experiments carried out, related to the policing of community, in this particular case. Chapter four deals with the methodological issues in order to clarify my options, the epistemological obstacles which had to be overcome, the methodology used, the profile of the interviewees, the procedures to prepare the interviews and to interview, and the care of the processing and reduction of data. Next, the fifth chapter is about the analysis and data processing of the interviews, collected in two hundred and twenty pages, through which was possible to get the “hidden” meaning of inquirers’ words, based on a methodical placement of the data into organised tables. In the last chapter these tables made possible to present the main conclusion and to propose guiding recommendations. The main purpose of this research, as mentioned above, is to contribute to the improvement of Human Resources Management policies in the Public Security Police, through the changes that the guiding lines of this document may cause in the police organisation, mainly in the choice of new ways of dealing with human resources policy. Bearing this in mind I intend to achieve the following goals: to characterise the professionals of the police force in the district of Beja; to understand the socio-professional representation of the police in the internal point of view; and find out the present role of the police towards social changes. Key words: Public Security Police, social change, profession and socio-professional representation.