THE POLICIMEN WORK: RESULTS FROM A SURVEY AT A SPECIALIZED DELEGACY OF PROTECTION OF THE ELDER

Abstract

The Specialized Police Station of Protection for lhe Elder - DEPI/MG - was created in 1997 with lhe purpose of taking care of lhe elder victim of mistreatment. In Brazil, there are only three other Police Units that, like lhe DEPI/MG, focus on lhe elder as victims: one is located in São Paulo, another one in Rio de Janeiro, and lhe third one in Rio Grande do Sul. However, their objectives are different from those of lhe Police Station of Belo Horizonte, capital of lhe State of Minas Gerais. This one is a specialized police unit, due to its character of providing assistance for a specific public - the elder. Unfortunately, although in the vanguard - it was the second unit of this nature created in Brazil -, the policemen assigned to act in this Police Station have not attended any type of qualification course, and have not received any kind of training. Since the middle of 2000, a data collection work was initiated in this DEPI/MG, aiming to analyze the internal dynamics and to indicate, in the future, possible organizational changes and interventions. Due to this, the team of researchers, concerned about the external and internal publics, demanded the mental health survey of the workers of the civil police in the DEPI/MG. This article presents the outcomes of this data collection, which was carried out, at first, in an initial period of internal changes in the DEPI/MG and, one year later, in a phase of transational management.