O programa de proteção a vítimas e testemunhas ameaçadas: uma avaliação política da política

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the Witness and Victim Protection Program (PROVITA), a public policy grounded in Federal Law No. 9.807/1999. The central research question guiding this study is: What are the theoretical, ideological, and ethical-political frameworks that underpin the PROVITA protection model? As a general objective, the research seeks to evaluate PROVITA by identifying the processes of dispute and the actors that influenced its formulation, highlighting the ideological references and ethical-political principles that support it, as well as the dimensions that shape it as a human rights policy. Specifically, the study aims to: understand the socio-historical context and the conjunctural determinants that enabled the inclusion of the protection of threatened victims and witnesses on the public agenda; identify the disputes, interest groups, and actors involved in the institutionalization of PROVITA through Law No. 9.807/1999; evaluate the ideological references and ethical-political principles that underpin PROVITA’s conception, highlighting its dimensions as a human rights policy; and assess the program's institutional design, analyzing the internal coherence of its structural components and the adequacy of its intervention model to address the issue of threatened victims and witnesses. The adopted methodology is situated within the field of evaluative research, grounded in the theoretical framework of historical dialectical materialism. The investigation considered dimensions of political evaluation of public policy and assessment of the program's structure, using qualitative analysis procedures, along with bibliographic and documentary review. PROVITA was examined as a public policy formulated in the context of Brazil’s redemocratization and institutional pressure to respond to impunity, state violence, and the systematic violation of human rights. The analysis of its guiding principles reveals legal conceptions aligned with a critical approach to criminal justice, based on critical criminology and critiques of the penal system, as well as theoretical-practical references inspired by the teachings of Paulo Freire. The participation of civil society organizations in the formulation of PROVITA is also highlighted, reflecting a historical trajectory of struggle for the rights of marginalized groups. Thus, the program’s ethical political principles and its modes of action are intertwined with its structural design, conferring an emancipatory and counter-hegemonic character. The study concludes that PROVITA is a public policy resulting from the articulation between the State and civil society, particularly militant NGOs and social movements rooted in the traditions of popular education and popular legal advocacy, guided by an ethical-political perspective of confronting impunity and promoting social justice. The research represents an effort to reconstruct the formulation phase of PROVITA and hopes to contribute to its improvement, especially by strengthening its foundational principle: the development of protection practices committed to the defense of human rights.