Abstract
This chapter examines competition and collusion among criminal justice institutions and non-state actors in imprisonment in prisons in Brazil to analyse how both formal and informal dispositions and practices have created and sustain the mass incarceration that is a pre-condition for extensive prisoner self-governance. The chapter thus looks from the outside-in, examining how relationships between extra-mural institutions have created and sustained such an enormous prison population in Brazil. It also analyses these institutions and organisations as intra-mural actors that, through their action or inaction, exercise a key role in shaping the carceral experience for inmates. It highlights the competition between the different actors involved in the penal arena for control of the carceral space and of prisoners, driven by a variety of motives—rent-seeking, moral/philosophical, and territorial.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The court’s ruling in favour of ADPF 347 is available at http://redir.stf.jus.br/paginadorpub/paginador.jsp?docTP=TP&docID=10300665
- 2.
This legislation is tracked and analysed annually by NGO Instituto Sou da Paz.
- 3.
Most in flagrante arrests are made by the uniformed military police, who patrol the streets. Further evidence would be sought by the civil (investigative) police.
- 4.
Under the heinous crime law, those convicted of criminal conspiracy are not eligible for parole, early release or regime progression, thus filling up the maximum security prisons with small-time drug users/dealers.
- 5.
It was often applied in cases of ‘no fixed abode’ or the lack of a recognised address, as would be the case of those living in informal settlements.
- 6.
- 7.
The case was of Judge Roberto Luiz Corciolli Filho, who was rotated away from the criminal courts against his will.
- 8.
- 9.
This incident was followed by more violence in the prison, leaving 11 dead and scores injured over a three-month period. During a riot on 8 September 1997, 89 prisoners were stabbed and beaten by other inmates (Amnesty International 1999: 8).
- 10.
This was his real given name. Apparently his mother had named his two other brothers Gandhi and Luiz Gonzaga (after a very well-known north-eastern country singer).
- 11.
I managed to speak in English to one Caribbean inmate, and afterwards was handed a sheaf of handwritten letters from the prisoners, passed on by a local politician.
- 12.
Examples are Luis Carlos Valois in Amazonas and João Carlos Buch in Santa Catarina.
- 13.
- 14.
Interview with defensoria pública staff in São Paulo, September 2014.
- 15.
- 16.
- 17.
Over the years, the APAC acronym has stood for a number of very slightly different names, now most commonly Associação de Proteção e Assistência ao Condenado. Some confusion is caused by some of the NGOs working in the CRs in São Paulo state having adopted the APAC acronym.
References
Amnesty International. (1999). No one sleeps here safely. London: Amnesty International.
Biondi, K. (2016). Sharing this walk: An ethnography of prison life and the PCC in Brazil. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Boiteux, L. (2010). Drugs and prisons: The repression of drugs and the increase of the Brazilian penitentiary population. In WOLA (Ed.), Systems overload: Drug laws and prisons in Latin America. Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America.
Cardoso, L. Z. L. (2018). A politíca da justiça: Blindar as elites, criminalizar os pobres. São Paulo: Hucitec.
Carvalho, S. (2010). O papel dos atores do sistema penal na era de punitivismo (O exemplo privilegiado da aplicação da pena). Rio de Janeiro: Editora Lumen Juris.
Casara, R. R. R. (2015). Mitologia processual penal. Rio de Janeiro: Saraiva.
Christie, N. (2000). Crime control as industry: Towards gulags, western style. London: Routledge.
Darke, S. (2015). Recoverers helping recoverers: Discipline and peer-facilitated reform in Brazilian faith-based prisons. In V. Miller & J. Campbell (Eds.), Translating penal cultures: New perspectives on discipline, punishment and desistance. London: Routledge.
Darke, S. (2018). Conviviality and survival: Co-producing Brazilian prison order. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dias, C. C. N. (2013). PCC: Hegemonia nas prisões e monopólio da violência. São Paulo: Editora Saraiva.
Helmke, G., & Levitsky, S. (Eds.). (2006). Informal institutions and democracy: Lessons from Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Instituto Pro Bono. (2018). Audiências de custódia: Pensando estratégias de combate ao encarceramento provisório: Dossiê. São Paulo: Instituto Pro Bono.
ITTC & Pastoral Carcerária Nacional. (2012). Tecer justiça: Presas e presos provisórios da cidade de São Paulo. São Paulo: Instituto Terra, Trabalho e Cidadania.
Koerner, A. (2005). Judiciário, juizes e prisões em São Paulo nos anos noventa. In A.-J. Arnaud (Ed.), Globalização e direito I: Impactos nacionais, regionais e transnacionais. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Lumen Juris.
Lemgruber, J., Fernandes, M., Cano, I., & Musumeci, L. (2013). Usos e abusos da prisão provisória no Rio de Janeiro: Avaliacão do impacto da lei 12.403 2011. Rio de Janeiro: ARP/CESeC.
Lima, R. K. (2010). Sensibilidades jurídicas, saber e poder: Bases culturais de alguns aspectos do direito brasileiro em uma perspectiva comparada. Anuário Antropológico, II: 25–51.
Macaulay, F. (2015). “Whose prisoners are these anyway?” church, state and society partnerships and co-production of offender “resocialization” in Brazil. In V. Miller & J. Campbell (Eds.), Translating penal cultures: New perspectives on discipline, punishment and desistance. London: Routledge.
Macaulay, F. (2018). Non-governmental organisations and the rule of law: The experience of Latin America. In C. May & A. Winchester (Eds.), The Edward Elgar research handbook on the rule of law. New York: Edward Elgar.
Macaulay, F. (2019). Prisoner capture: Welfare, lawfare and warfare in Latin America’s overcrowded prisons. In R. Sieder & K. Ansolabehere (Eds.), Routledge handbook of law and society in Latin America. New York: Routledge.
Machado, M.R., de Souza Amaral, M.C., de Barros, M. & de Melo, A.C.K. (2019). Incarcerating at any cost: drug trafficking and imprisonment in Brazilian court reasoning. Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 1(2), 226–237.
Manso, B. P., & Dias, C. C. N. (2018). A guerra: A ascensão do PCC e o mundo do crime no Brasil. São Paulo: todavia.
Marques, G. (2009). A lei de execuções penais e os limites da interpretação jurídica. Revista de Sociologia Política, 17(33), 145–155.
Melo, F. A. L. (2020). A burocracia penitenciarista: Estudo sobre a configuração da gestão prisional no Brasil. Curitiba: Brazil Publishing.
Ministério da Justiça (Ed.). (2010). Fundamentos e análises sobre os conselhos da comunidade. Brasília: DEPEN/OSPEN.
Schwarz, R. (1992). Misplaced ideas: Essays on Brazilian culture. London: Verso.
Semer, M. (2019). Sentenciando tráfico: O papel dos juízes no grande encarceramento. São Paulo: Tirant Lo Blanch.
Teixeira, A., & Bordini, E. B. T. (2004). Decisões judiciais nas Varas de Execuções: punindo sempre mais. São Paulo em Perspectiva, 18(1), 66–71.
Valois, L. C. (2016). Direito penal da guerra às drogas. Belo Horizonte: Livraria D’Plácido.
Valois, L. C., & Macaulay, F. (2017). O judiciário e a crise do sistema penitenciário (entrevista). Revista Brasileira de Segurança Pública, 11(2), 78–87.
Zapater, M. (2015). Gargalos tampados. Boletim IBCCrim, 23(270), 9–11.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Macaulay, F. (2021). Competition and Collusion Among Criminal Justice and Non-State Actors in Brazil’s Prison System. In: Darke, S., Garces, C., Duno-Gottberg, L., Antillano, A. (eds) Carceral Communities in Latin America. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61499-7_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61499-7_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-61498-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-61499-7
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)