Punishment practices in prison routine

Abstract

The article discusses the practices of control and punishment within prisons. The reflection, anchored in historical sociology and the sociology of punishment, problematizes the changes that occurred in those practices, from the 20th century to the present. It analyzes the resources, formal and informal, mobilized by public agents for the management of prison daily life and discusses the changes that took place there from the emergence of new criminal dynamics and new patterns of relationship between these dynamics and repressive forces. It points to the decisive presence, at the end of the 20th century, of groups organized in prison as an instance of control of the prison mass, standardizing behaviors, applying punishments to individuals, competing, therefore, with other regulatory bodies and, at the same time, expanding the control and punishment loops on the prison mass. Studies of the area, official documentation, press material and a punishment registration document from a prison unit in São Paulo were used. A preliminary conclusion points to a significant reversal in the patterns of management of control and punishment in Brazilian daily life throughout the 20th century.