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Violence Workers: Police Torturers and Murderers Reconstruct Brazilian Atrocities (review)

Based on interviews with 23 policemen who tortured and murdered "subversive" suspects, Violence Workers studies police violence in Brazil during its military period (1964-1985). While it makes for difficult reading because of its topic and the content of the interviews, its value lies in the way that the authors point out the similarities and differences with other countries based upon the case studies in Brazil. Huggins (a Brazilianist), Fatouros (a researcher on police violence in Greece), and Zimbardo (well-known for his experiments on obedience and authority) emphasize the theoretical systems, particularly the organizational and ideological mechanisms or situational forces involved in police violence. How are ordinary men and women transformed into torturers and murderers? And how do they explain their involvement in their careers of violence? No evidence shows that torturers in Brazil and Greece were sadists or had serious personality disorders; they were very "ordinary" men before their training and involvement in atrocities. As revealed by previous studies of violence workers such as Nazi executioners, the most effective were those who were "rational" and cool-headed because they were the ones who could follow orders and be molded according to their superiors' plans.