Fundamental rights and police letality: opposed signs on same track

Abstract

This article aims to present a reflection on the relationship between fundamental rights, on one side, and police lethality in Brazil, on the other, as a result of our research. Our objective is to organize a theoretical framework about how police actions resulting in the citizen’s death, in addition to violating fundamental rights, can also limit its own promotion. In Brazil, police lethality, that is, the high frequency with which civilian deaths occur due to police actions has persisted in recent years. This fact is attributed, by researchers from different areas, to the impunity and lack of accountability of the public agents in the criminal sphere becoming the relevant topic from a political, academic and legal point of view. As far as methodological aspects are concerned, the present work is organized around the literature review on different topics such as: “autos de resistência”, police lethality, lethal violence, rule of law in Latin America, racial relations in Brazil and fundamental rights. This will allow an original formulation of the link between police lethality, on the one hand, and fundamental rights, on the other.