‘’Penal populism’’, or the call for a vigilante politician to wage war on street crime, hence justifying a police state, is a kind of politics all too common in Latin America-- in no way original to Bolsonaro’s Brazil. Such policies often gain support from a swathe of the urban middle classes who experienced childhood under the dictatorships that came to rule most of the region - except Venezuela - during the 1970s.
The typical supporter of ‘’penal populism’’ believes that military rule guarantees safety, despite the unbearable bloodshed that went on back then. The faith expressed by many civilians in the gendarmerie, despite undeniably widespread police corruption in Latin America, proves how the propaganda of that time yielded results so pervasive as to resonate 30 or 40 years later.
Bolsonaro, who accessed power due to a void in leadership and the crack in democratic legitimacy produced by the Workers’ Party’s leader Lula da Silva’s imprisonment, has promised to end all investigations into police misconduct – which is responsible for an estimated 5.000 homicides in 2017 alone.
