Daily life criminal police

learning to work and to coexist in prison

Abstract

This article seeks to analyze aspects of the construction of work as a prison officer, from professionals at different moments in their careers: from those in the training course prior to effectively starting as a criminal prison officer, to those with more than 20 years in the function. Data were collected between 2014 and 2018 in Salvador-BA, through semi-structured interviews, with terms of consent, and analyzed based on Grounded Theory, with considerations based on the concept of emotional performance proposed by Crawley (2004) and of the sociology of prisons. The results point to coexistence and interaction with those deprived of liberty as one of the main attributions of these professionals, which enables the development of knowledge that is typical of this professional category: the ability to live with and mediate situations of tension and daily deprivation in prison and recognize signs of changes in the yard. At the same time, it emphasizes that the characteristics of this interaction have to do with the experience and the meaning attributed to the occupation, the feelings of vulnerability and power that appear in the relationship with people in deprivation of liberty and with the strategies developed by each one, from its subjectivity, to deal with the prison context.