Information and public safety: The construction of social knowledge in a community environment

This work aimed to describe the processes of social knowledge construction that take place in community environments that seek to promote public safety. Brazilian military police forces are experiencing a crisis (of knowledge) in the face of escalating crime, and community policing appears to be a viable alternative. However, it is necessary to redefine the main role of the police and the shared construction of new knowledge, oriented towards the prevention of events, the exchange of information with the community, and the development of safety indicators. The informational phenomenon is discussed as a social construction, showing that it is the user of the information, limited by a political-historical-cultural context, who selects meanings and constructs knowledge. The analyses take as their reference the notion of 'third knowledge,' a construct of 'information anthropology' that allows for the study of 'information in motion.' The results show that information, as a form of communication of experience, is the object of symbolic disputes. The conflict between different poles establishes what has been called the 'information void.'