Pavilions of the First Command of the Capital

tensions and conflicts in a maximum security prison in Minas Gerais

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the changes in the prison sociability with the arrival of prisoners belonging to the First Command of the Capital (PCC) to the penitentiary system of the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte (RMBH) in the state of Minas Gerais. To that end, we reconstituted the arrival and routine of these prisoners at the Nelson Hungria Penitentiary, the state’s maximum security unit, describing the strategies to which this criminal organization has sought to establish its rule. In the end, we discussed the extent and limits of power that the PCC is facing under the dynamics’ specificities of the “crime world” in Minas Gerais.