The aim of this article is to present and problematize perceptions of Justice System operators about police torture. The empirical material that underlies this paper was collected from thirty-seven semi-structured interviews conducted with judges, prosecutors and public defenders who work in the criminal area in Pernambuco. The data indicate that, for the interviewees, the Military Police, particularly its specialized battalions, is the organization that leads the practice of torture, which would happen during or as an offshoot of the policing activity on the street. The connection between trafficking arrests and the impacts of the transfer of investigative functions from the Civil Police to the Military Police for the dynamics of torture are discussed. It will also be presented the hypotheses that, for part of the bachelors heard in this research, torture would be a crime of opportunity and there would be a relationship between social class and the act of torturing. The study of the perceptions of legal professionals allows us to understand how those who decide the legal implications of police violence understand the phenomenon, drawing the attention of social scientists to the possibility of updating the organizational dynamics of police torture.