Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America (Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology) 3030986012, 9783030986018

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN PRISONS AND PENOLOGY

Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America Edited by Máximo Sozzo

Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology

Series Editors Ben Crewe, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Yvonne Jewkes, Social & Policy Sciences, University of Bath, Bath, UK Thomas Ugelvik, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

This is a unique and innovative series, the first of its kind dedicated entirely to prison scholarship. At a historical point in which the prison population has reached an all-time high, the series seeks to analyse the form, nature and consequences of incarceration and related forms of punishment. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology provides an important forum for burgeoning prison research across the world. Series Advisory Board: Anna Eriksson (Monash University), Andrew M. Jefferson (DIGNITY - Danish Institute Against Torture), Shadd Maruna (Rutgers University), Jonathon Simon (Berkeley Law, University of California) and Michael Welch (Rutgers University).

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14596

Máximo Sozzo Editor

Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America

Editor Máximo Sozzo Faculty of Social and Juridical Sciences National University of Litoral Santa Fe, Argentina

ISSN 2753-0604 ISSN 2753-0612 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology ISBN 978-3-030-98601-8 ISBN 978-3-030-98602-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: Sutad Watthanakul/EyeEm This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Introduction: Inmate Governance in Latin America. Context, Trends and Conditions Máximo Sozzo

1

Emergence and Transformations Governance and Legitimacy in Brazilian Prison: From Solidarity Committees to the Primeiro Comando Da Capital (PCC) in São Paulo Camila Nunes Dias, Fernando Salla, and Marcos César Alvarez Tales from La Catedral : The Narco and the Reconfiguration of Prison Social Order in Colombia Libardo Ariza and Manuel Iturralde Provós, Representantes, Agentes: The Evolution of Prison Governance Arrangements in the Dominican Republic’s Prison Reform Process Jennifer Peirce

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Contents

Dynamics and variations The Carceral Reproduction of Neoliberal Order: Power, Ideology and Economy in Venezuelan Prison Andrés Antillano

129

Enduring Lock-Up: Co-Governance and Exception in Nicaragua’s Hybrid Carceral System Julienne Weegels

155

Co-Governance of Dialogue: Hegemony in a Brazilian Prison Vitor Stegemann Dieter

187

A Decolonial and Depatriarchal Approach to Women’s Imprisonment: Co-governance, Legal Pluralism and Gender at Santa Mónica Prison, Perú Lucia Bracco Bruce Evangelical Wings and Prison Governance in Argentina Lorena Navarro and Máximo Sozzo

233 259

Alternatives? The “Prisoner-Entrepreneur”: Responsibilization and Co-governance at Punta de Rieles Prison in Uruguay Fernando Avila and Máximo Sozzo Radical Alternatives to Punitive Detention Sacha Darke

297 329

Epilogue Inmate Governance in Latin America: Comparative and Theoretical Notes Máximo Sozzo

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Index

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Contributors

Marcos César Alvarez University of Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil Andrés Antillano Central University of Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela Libardo Ariza University of Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia Fernando Avila University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Lucia Bracco Bruce Research Group in Forensic and Penitentiary Psychology, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Lima, Peru Sacha Darke University of Westminster, London, UK Camila Nunes Dias Federal University ABC, Santo André, Brazil Manuel Iturralde University of Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia Lorena Navarro National Council of Scientific and Technological Research, Santa Fe, Argentina Jennifer Peirce John Jay College & CUNY Graduate Center, New York, USA

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Contributors

Fernando Salla University of Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil Máximo Sozzo Faculty of Social and Juridical Sciences, National University of Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina; National University of Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina Vitor Stegemann Dieter ICPC, Curitiba, Brasil Julienne Weegels Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

List of Figures

Introduction: Inmate Governance in Latin America. Context, Trends and Conditions Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Evolution of incarceration rates per 100,000 inhabitants—Latin America—1990/2020 (Source World Prison Brief, International Center for Prison Studies, Birbeck University of London. Data are for 1990 and 2020 or the nearest year available) Percentage of growth of incarceration rates—Latin America—1990/2020

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Introduction: Inmate Governance in Latin America. Context, Trends and Conditions Máximo Sozzo

This collection addresses the specific issue of inmate governance in Latin American prisons, within the framework of the more general question of the power relations that structure life in the contexts of confinement in this region of the Global South today. These are governance schemes that have a strong level of variation, both in their forms and scope and with respect to the relationships they entail with state actors (authorities and guards), acquiring particular characteristics in different settings. In fact, in the recent literature in the social studies on the prison in the region—as well as in the contributions in this book—different ways of conceptualizing these governance roles of the prisoners have been produced, which in part reflect the different variants that have been M. Sozzo (B) Faculty of Social and Juridical Sciences, National University of Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Sozzo (ed.), Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America, Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5_1

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emerging through time and space—such as the differentiation between “self-governance” and “co-governance”, to which we will return in the Epilogue of this book. Rescuing the notion raised by Darke (2013, this volume), we can initially define this diverse group of schemes as “inmate governance”, as a broad and basic notion that identifies mechanisms in which some prisoners assume governance roles of other prisoners, “conducting their conduct”, acting on the possibilities of their action and ordering their possible results (Foucault, 1982, 221, 1994, 125, 1998, 284). We could argue—amplifying the scope of an assertion in Darke’s pioneering text in this regard, referring to Brazil—that currently “inmate governance is as much a defining feature of Latin American prison life as is inhumane living conditions” (Darke, 2013, 278).1 In this Introduction, we seek to draw a regional contextualization in which to inscribe the operation of these inmate governance schemes addressed by the authors of this book specifically in relation to some countries. In this panorama, we dwell on two fundamental components: on the one hand, the “punitive turn” experienced since the 1990s and, on the other, the resulting paroxysmal deterioration and precariousness of life in prison. Within this general framework, there has been a strong multiplication and expansion of inmate governance in Latin America’s prisons. Here also some keys to understanding this process are presented, pointing to factors that operate both “from inside” and “from outside”, both “from above” and “from below”. Finally, the structure and contents of the volume are briefly described.

Punitive Turn Over the last 30 years there has been an impressive punitive turn in Latin America. In the early 1990s incarceration rates in the region were relatively low in comparison with other regions. Some of the countries covered in this book had incarcerated population levels similar to those 1 Similar inmate governance schemes are also present in other regions of the Global South. There have been only incipient advances in comparative work across Southern contexts. Interesting indications in this regard can be seen in Garces, Martin and Darke (2013), Martin, Jefferson and Bandyopadhyay (2014) and Darke (2018, 294–296).

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of the Scandinavian countries. For example, the incarceration rate in Argentina at that time was 62 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants and 70/100,000 in Brazil, while in Finland and Denmark it was 69/100,000 and 67/100,000, respectively.2 Certainly, this did not imply that the levels of pain or suffering produced by these institutions of legal punishment in Latin America at that time were equivalent to those experienced in the confinement contexts of that region of Northern Europe, if the respective living conditions and levels of violence experienced by inmates are taken into account (Sozzo, 2017a, 135–136, 2017c, 1–9).3 But this significantly marked difference in terms of “intensity” of the pain or suffering produced through imprisonment, does not mean that, in terms of its “extent”, the scope was similar. (Sozzo, 2018a, 49–50).4 2 But within Latin America it was also possible to identify countries with much higher incarceration rates, such as Chile (171/100,000), the Dominican Republic (143/100,000) or Venezuela (133/100,000). In the early 1990s, incarceration levels varied widely across Latin American national borders. 3 It is also important to underline the extraordinary diffusion at that time—and also at present—in Latin American countries of other penal practices that generated—and continue to generate—high levels of pain or suffering, beyond incarceration, that did not seem—nor do they seem—to have an equivalent presence in those Northern European countries. In this sense, the use of force by police institutions stands out, which generates not only very high levels of harassment but also injuries and deaths among economically and socially marginalized groups. It is necessary to remember here that the pioneering comparative investigations produced by critical criminology in Latin America and developed from the beginning of the 1980s were dedicated to describing and explaining the massive nature of “human rights violations” and “announced deaths” generated by the penal systems of the region (Zaffaroni, 1984; Zaffaroni et al., 1993). These practices of police use of force had at that time—and also today—a strong degree of official concealment, which in most Latin American contexts prevents building reliable data in this regard that would allow observing its evolution over time through statistical indicators similar to the incarceration rate (Aimar, et al., 2005). 4 Also, the reasons for these relatively contained levels of the incarceration rate were very different in these two regions of the world at that time. It would be difficult to interpret these levels as the product of similar penal policies, related to a horizon of penal moderation (see in this regard on the Scandinavian countries, Lappi-Seppala, 2007; Pratt, 2008a; 2008b; Pratt and Ericson, 2013). However, it should be noted that in the 1980s, hand in hand with the processes of transition to democracy in some Latin American contexts, this orientation in penal policy had a certain presence, generating in some cases effects on the levels of punitiveness. For an exploration of Argentina, see Sozzo (2011; 2013; 2016). On the Brazilian case, see Salla (2007); Teixeira (2009); Paiva (2009; 2014); Barros (2012); Alvarez, Salla & Dias (2013); Higa (2017) and Dias, Salla & Alvarez (in this volume). In any case, for Latin America, the levels of incarceration that were registered before the 1990s continues to be a topic to be explored in depth. A great difficulty is the absence in many contexts of reliable official data in this regard. To what extent were the relatively contained levels of the incarceration rate in many Latin American settings at the beginning of the 1990s the product of a decrease that had been

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700 572

600 500

416 357

400 300

332

290 224

209 171

200 100

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224 164

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237 193 178 133 135 96

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243 166 143 139 110 71

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c. 2020

Fig. 1 Evolution of incarceration rates per 100,000 inhabitants—Latin America—1990/2020 (Source World Prison Brief, International Center for Prison Studies, Birbeck University of London. Data are for 1990 and 2020 or the nearest year available)

This has radically changed in three decades. Currently, all Latin American countries5 have an incarceration rate of more than 150 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, with the sole exception of Guatemala. And there are six jurisdictions that exceeded the 300/100,000 threshold—among those addressed in this book, Brazil and Nicaragua. The Scandinavian countries, on the other hand, maintain their relatively low levels, even experiencing a decrease in the incarceration rate in some cases like Finland, which currently has 50 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, almost a third of Guatemala, the Latin American country with the lowest level (Fig. 1). The growth in incarceration rates in the region over this period has been truly extraordinary. Within the countries specifically explored in this book, in only three decades, Brazil has had a growth greater operating in previous years (for example, the result of democratization)? Or was it instead, a continuity with the past? 5 There are no official data on incarceration in this period about Cuba and Haiti.

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Introduction: Inmate Governance in Latin America …

El Salvador Brasil Paraguay Costa Rica Nicaragua ArgenƟna Uruguay Perú Panama Bolivia Ecuador Honduras Colombia Guatemala República Dominicana México Venezuela Chile

511% 510% 473% 456% 405% 361% 355% 354% 308% 304% 295% 217% 201% 96% 70% 51% 34% 22% 0%

100%

200%

300%

400%

500%

600%

Fig. 2 Percentage of growth of incarceration rates—Latin America—1990/2020

than 500%, Nicaragua greater than 400%, Argentina, Uruguay and Perú greater than 300% and Colombia greater than 200%. Only the Dominican Republic and Venezuela6 register a level of growth below 100%, but in the second case it is linked to the fact that the extraordinary volume of prisoners in police headquarters is not currently counted in the official incarceration data. Apparently now in Venezuela this number is equivalent to that housed in prisons and if included it would take the incarceration rate to much higher levels and, therefore, to a much higher level of increase in the last 30 years (Antillano, 2016; Antillano, in this volume) (Fig. 2). The USA, the archetypal example of a national context that experienced an impressive punitive turn used in studies on punishment and society, had between 1970 and 2000—the period in which said dynamics was most marked—a growth of 424% in its rate of incarceration, which went from 161/100,000 to 683/100,000. In comparison with the last 6 In addition to Mexico, Guatemala and Chile, which are not addressed in this volume. Except for the case of Guatemala, in all the other cases these are countries that had the highest incarceration rates in the region at the beginning of the 1990s, above 100/100,000. However, that did not prevent others, such as Honduras, El Salvador and Panama, which had the same starting point, from experiencing much more important growth levels.

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available year (2019 against 2000), there has been, on the other hand, a decrease of 8%. If we use the same period that we are analyzing for Latin America, 1990/2020, the growth in the incarceration rate in the USA was 38% in the last three decades—only Chile (if we discard Venezuela for the reason indicated above) had a lower level of growth in Latin America.7 In any case, it is necessary to recognize that this common trend toward the growth of incarceration in Latin America over these last three decades has had a high level of variation: from 22% in Chile to 511% in El Salvador. And, as was the case in the early 1990s, the resulting incarceration levels in the region are also very different: from the rate of 572/100,000 in El Salvador to that of 139/100,000 in Guatemala.8

Paroxysmal Deterioration and Precarization of Prison Life In general terms, in this context of strong growth in incarceration, certain long-term problematic features of life in prisons in Latin America underwent a process of accentuation, reaching paroxysmal levels in some scenarios—for descriptions in this regard, at a regional level, see Darke & Karam (2016, 464–465), Darke & Garces (2017, 3–4); Ariza & Tamayo Arboleda (2020, 90–91); Macaulay (2019, 253); Skarbek (2020, 23– 28); Bergman & Fondevilla (2021, 140–142). As with the increase in incarceration itself, there is also a high level of variation with respect to the magnification of these problematic traits across jurisdictions and within jurisdictions—among regions and even, among prisons. In any 7 If we take the same period (1990–2020) for other English-speaking countries, the picture is similar (44% growth in England and Wales, 49% in Scotland and 25% in Ireland). In Australia (90%) and New Zealand (62%), the growth is more significant, but it is still lower than that experienced by most Latin American countries. In turn, some English-speaking countries have experienced a decrease in the last three decades such as Canada (−14%), South Africa (−21%) and Northern Ireland (−35%). Source: World Prison Brief, International Center for Prison Studies, Birbeck University of London. 8 On the punitive turn in Latin America there are a handful of studies that have tried to advance explanatory keys. See: Chevigny (2003); Beckett & Godoy (2008); Dammert & Salazar (2009); Iturralde (2010; 2019; 2021); Muller (2011); Hathazy & Muller (2016); Sozzo (2017a, 2017b, 2018b, 2021); Bergman & Fondevilla (2021, 28–86).

Introduction: Inmate Governance in Latin America …

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case, these features have been repeatedly evidenced by critical voices in the academic field, as well as from activism and human rights organizations and from state and international bodies that control detention conditions.9 First, the increase in overcrowding. The statistical indicators in this regard have many problems, as they are based on the officially determined accommodation capacity for the different prisons, which is usually much higher than what international standards would advise in this matter, and open to various manipulation exercises. Even in this way—only taking into account the countries addressed in this book—Peru recognizes officially an occupancy level of 212.2% (2021), the Dominican Republic of 183.2% (2018), Nicaragua of 177.6% (2018), Brazil of 146.8% (2020) and Venezuela of 143% (2020)— always without counting prisoners in police headquarters—Uruguay of 130.9% (2021), Argentina of 122.9% (2019) and Colombia of 118.6% (2021). Second, this has frequently resulted in the intensification of state abandonment and the deepening of unworthy and precarious living conditions for inmates. This implies, in many cases, difficulties in accessing drinking water and hot water, living environments that are not even minimally hygienic (for example, lack of bathrooms, poor functioning of the sewers, etc.), scarce food and of poor quality, little and inadequate health care and spread of different types of diseases (tuberculosis, HIV, etc.). It has also been repeatedly pointed out as a problematic feature of Latin American prisons that has experienced an intensification in the recent period, the widespread violence by state agents against prisoners, as well as violence among prisoners—for a recent example of this type of assertion, at the regional level, see Macaulay (2019, 253). However, it seems necessary to be cautious about the production of generalizations in this regard, among other things, due to the lack of reliable statistical data relevant to this matter, such as deaths and injuries in 9

For example, in the case of Argentina, see: Daroqui et al. (2006), Sozzo (2007, 2009), Daroqui, Lopez & Cipriano (2012), Daroqui (2014); Gual (2015); Rodriguez & Viegas (2015); Ferreccio (2017); Guala (2021); annual reports of the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales since 1995, of the Comisión Provincial por la Memoria de la Provincia de Buenos Aires since 2004 and the Procuración Penitenciaria de la Nación since 2006.

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confinement contexts over time (Skarbek, 2020, 25). In some jurisdictions, the increase in incarceration seems to have been plausibly accompanied initially by growth of these different types of violence— for the Argentine context, see Sozzo (2007, 107–108). But in certain cases, despite the continuity of the growth of incarceration over time, a reverse process of decrease in violence in prisons has subsequently been registered. This seems to have happened in the important case of São Paulo—accounting for a third of the prison population in Brazil—which in the 1990s and early 2000s experienced remarkable degrees of violence inside prisons—with its maximum expression in the 2006 revolt. After the consolidation of the Primeiro Comando da Capital as the dominant organization in the world of São Paulo prisoners—and different types of informal negotiations and agreements with state authorities—there seems to have been, in recent times, a significant reduction in the levels of violence of different types, despite the continuity of the growing trend of incarceration (Adorno & Salla, 2014; Alvarez, 2013; Biondi, 2010, 2018; Darke, 2018, 161–162; Dias, 2013; Dias & Darke, 2016; Dias & Manso, 2017; Dias & Salla, 2013, 2017; Macaulay, 2019, 254–255; Salla, 2006).10 Of course, this does not imply questioning that, beyond the potential upward or downward trends in the recent period, prisons in Latin America present a very high level and frequency of different forms of violence (Ariza & Tamayo Arboleda, 2020; Ariza & Iturralde, this volume; Bergman & Fondevilla, 2021, 163).

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Recently, using responses to surveys by inmates in different Latin American countries (including the state of Sao Paulo), Bergman and Fondevilla have found that there is no correlation between levels of overpopulation—although as it is recognized by state authorities—and the self-reported levels of violence, perceived and suffered, by prisoners—although the questions in these surveys do not include those forms exercised by state agents (Bergman & Fondevilla, 2021, 162). This evidence would seem to suggest that there is no automatic and direct relationship between the growth of the incarcerated population—and, therefore, a frequent worsening of overcrowding—and violence in prisons in the region.

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Multiplication and Expansion of Inmate Governance Within this general context, over the last decades there has been a process of multiplication and expansion of schemes for inmates’ participation in prison governance tasks in Latin American prisons (Dake & Garces, 2017, 3; Darke & Karam, 2016, 465; Hathazy & Muller, 2016, 121; Macaulay, 2017, 51; 2019, 253; Skarbek, 2020, 27–28). Like the other aforementioned features of the contemporary landscape of prisons in Latin America, these forms of inmate governance do not necessarily constitute a radical innovation of our present.11 It is possible to find descriptions of the existence of some of these schemes at various times in the past in different national contexts—at different times in the history of the prison in Brazil since the late nineteenth century (Darke, 2014, 57; 2018, 140, 144–145; this volume; Macaulay, 2017, 55); in the 1960s in Argentina (Navarro and Sozzo, this volume); in the 1970s in Venezuela and Colombia (Birkbeck, 2011, 315) or in the 1980s in Peru (Perez Guadalupe, 2000, 173). However, this is still a theme that has not been specifically explored by the history of the prison in Latin America and, therefore, there is a whole series of questions about its forms and scope in the past that still need to be adequately addressed.12 Despite this, it is plausible that in recent decades these schemes of inmate governance have multiplied in their forms and have expanded in scope in the region, becoming “endemic” (Skarbek, 2020, 28). A forceful piece of evidence has been the consolidation of organizations of prisoners—many times defined, importing the term used in the prison studies of the Global North, as “prison gangs”—that have acquired an 11

On the continuities in relation to overcrowding, state abandonment and the unworthy and precarious living conditions of inmates and the different forms of violence, during the period 1800–1940 in Latin American prisons, see the important essay by Aguire (2007), based on a detailed review of the historiographic production in the last decades on these contexts of confinement in the region. See also, the preceding compilations by Salvatore and Aguirre (1996) and Salvatore, Aguirre and Gilbert (2001). 12 Aguirre, in his review of the historical literature on prisons in the region, does not make specific reference to this type of schemes, although when referring to the “prisoner’s agency” he points out that in some circumstances they “negotiated” with “weak prison administrations”, seeking higher levels of “autonomy” (Aguirre, 2007, 36, 40).

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extraordinary power, not only within a sector of a prison or a prison as a whole but through different prisons of the same jurisdiction or even across different jurisdictions. In turn, some of these inmate organizations have a great impact outside prison walls, particularly in economically and socially marginalized urban areas, through their dominant positions in certain illegal markets and activities. The examples in this regard that have attracted more attention from social researchers working on prisons in the region have been those developed in the Brazilian context such as the Comando Vermelho and, especially, the Primerio Comando da Capital (Adorno & Salla, 2014; Alvarez, Salla & Dias, 2013; Biondi, 2010, 2018; Castro e Silva, 2008; Darke, 2018, 101–137, 235–277; this volume; Denyer Willis, 2009; Dias, 2013; Dias & Darke, 2016; Dias & Manso, 2017; Dias & Salla, 2013, 2017; Dias, this volume; Lessing & Denyer Willis, 2019; Salla, 2006; Siqueira & Paiva, 2019; Setegemann Dieter, this volume). Now, beyond these extreme examples due to their scope, there is also in Latin America a vast variety of forms of governance of the imprisoned population that have inmates as agents, many of which have also arisen in the last decades—from those deployed in the “evangelical wings” of the Argentine provincial prisons (Navarro and Sozzo, this volume) to the “community-run prisons” organized and developed in Brazil by various non-state and state actors (Macaulay, 2013, 376–377, 384–385, 2015; Darke, 2015; this volume). This multiplication and expansion of various forms of inmate governance have clearly taken place hand in hand with the growth of incarceration and its various effects. It has also been associated with a consequent marked decline in the state’s capacity to effectively control incarcerated life, preferentially evidenced in the decline in the proportion of prison officers in relation to the number of prisoners over the last 30 years— in the framework of a broader limitation of state resources dedicated to confinement contexts—as has been repeatedly pointed out by social researchers who have addressed this phenomenon (Antillano, 2015, 32– 34; 2017, 29–30, this volume; Antillano et al., 2016, 209; Bergman & Fondevilla, 2021, 141–143; Birkbeck, 2011, 312; Darke, 2013, 274– 275, 2014, 56–57, 2018, 140–149; Dias & Darke, 2016, 214–215; Darke & Garces, 2017, 3; Darke & Karam, 2016, 465–466; Dias, Salla & Alvarez, this volume; Hathazy & Muller, 2016, 121; Macaulay,

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2017, 51, 2019, 243–245; Skarbek, 2020, 25–27). Surely this is a factor that plays a crucial role in a large part of Latin American scenarios. In some countries the ratio of prisoners to prison officers is extremely high, such as—according to official data from 2015—in Ecuador (17.3) or El Salvador (14.7) (Skarbek, 2020, 24), in comparison with ratios of Global North prisons assumed as ideal (Birkbeck, 2011, 312; Bergman & Fondevilla, 2021, 141–143; Darke, 2018, 140–141).13 But this does not necessarily happen in all contexts, since the ratio of prisoners to prison officers has an enormous level of variation in the region. Thus, in Uruguay in 2015 it was 3.8 or in Argentina it was 1.6 (Skarbek, 2020, 24), levels similar to those in many contexts in the Global North. However, also in these scenarios with lower ratios, it is possible to observe the emergence of various forms of inmate governance in recent years (Avila and Sozzo, this volume; Navarro and Sozzo, this volume).14 From my perspective, there are other conditions that have also played a role in the emergence and diffusion of these mechanisms of inmate governance. A significant element, which is in turn a long-lasting trait, is the wide level of “informality” that characterizes incarcerated life in Latin America and strongly marks the relationships between prison officers and prisoners, in turn connected with precariousness and the poverty of living and working conditions within these institutions of legal punishment. 13

It should also be emphasized that this ratio is built on the total number of existing prison staff in each jurisdiction, including those in charge of different administrative tasks who do not have direct contact with inmates, which in many Latin American contexts is usually an important proportion. It should also be noted that prison work in the region tends to have high levels of absenteeism and sick leaves, which also affects the volume of prison officers who are actually in a given prison on any given day. And to this is added that those who actually work in direct contact with prisoners usually do so in shifts. In other words, considering what actually happens in contexts of confinement, the ratio is usually much higher (Darke, 2018, 141–143; Skarbek, 2020, 26–27; Bergman & Fondevilla, 2021, 143). Added to this, it is necessary to consider the poor working conditions of prison officers and their scarce and inadequate training for the development of their work (Darke & Karam, 2016, 465; Bergman & Fondevilla, 2021, 143–144). 14 Always underlining the level of variation in the situation of prisons in the region and being careful to recognize the existence of significant differences, it should be noted that in the case of the Dominican Republic it can be argued that, by opposition, the state’s capacity to control incarcerated life intensified during the last decades, despite the growth of the prison population, as a consequence of the reform promoted since the beginning of the 2000s, encompassing not only the “new model” prisons but also those of the “old model” in which state presence was intensified and a scheme of “representatives” was structured (Peirce, 2021; this volume).

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The formal rules—legal and administrative—are applied in an extremely flexible way by prison officers, who are themselves endowed with wide levels of discretion. However, these state agents, in any case, constantly cross the borders of those same formal rules, within the framework of relations with prisoners strongly marked by irregularity and personalism, reciprocity and mutual dependence, dialogue but also violence. In this scenario with a high level of informality, the accommodations that are built in incarcerated life generate a certain amount of autonomy for inmates in exchange for a series of benefits for the authorities and guards—both material and immaterial. Within the framework of this autonomy—greater or lesser, depending on the case—the way can be opened to the development of schemes and practices of governance of other prisoners (Antillano, 2015; 2017; Antillano et al., 2016; Birkbeck, 2011, 318; Darke, 2018, 19, 149; Darke & Garces, 2017, 5–6; Darke & Karam, 2016, 467–468; Garces, Martin & Darke, 2013).15 Another significant condition, which is also a long-lasting feature in Latin American prisons—although deepened as a consequence of the growth of overcrowding—and which is a condition of possibility for the inmate governance, is the high dose of “collectivism” that structures the lives of prisoners (Avila & Sozzo, 2020, this volume; Darke, 2018, 8, 149–168, 284–285, this volume). The fact that individual cell accommodation is an extremely rare situation in these penal institutions in the region makes the experience of living with others a constant, both in the past and in the present. This occurs both in cells designed as individual that have become collective as a consequence of overcrowding and in cells directly designed as collective, whose occupation may also be found beyond the limits initially planned as a consequence of growth of imprisoned population. To this is added that, in general, Latin American prisoners spend a lot of time of their days in collective spaces such as the “patios” or the “corridors” of the wings, since the cells tend to have long opening hours—to which can be added, in certain cases, other collective spaces such as schools or workshops in which some inmates spend 15

Lucia Bracco (2020, this volume) interestingly proposes—from her exploration of a women’s prison in Peru—that the “formal” and the “informal” interpenetrate in incarcerated life, building a “hybrid” regime, a “multilayered normative order”, which she interprets using the notion of “interlegality”.

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a certain number of hours per week. This collective, forced and intense coexistence also contributes to the fact that, within the framework of the relationships between prisoners, many times marked by mutual aid and protection in pursuit of survival—although not for that reason free of conflicts and violence16 —, schemes and practices of inmate governance emerge, more or less distant—depending on the case—from the gaze and intervention of prison agents. These three conditions of possibility of the inmate governance operate essentially “from within”, they are dynamics that are linked to what happens inside the Latin American prison walls, even when they have different connections with external processes. Now, at least in relation to certain forms of inmate governance, there are also various conditions that operate more directly “from outside” prisons. For example, to understand the emergence of governance schemes related to evangelical wings in Argentine provincial prisons, it is essential to take into consideration the social diffusion of evangelism, especially in the economically and socially disadvantaged populations, and the initiative of various pastors to enter contexts of confinement and develop their religious activities with inmates (Navarro & Sozzo, this volume). In the same way, to understand the type of governance that the figure of the “narco” embodies in Colombian prisons, the emergence of that position outside the prison and its economic and political capacity linked to a dominant role in the illegal drugs market is essential. (Ariza & Iturralde, this volume). Or to understand the governance schemes of the prisoners associated with the “maras” in various Central American countries, it is essential to understand the preceding and parallel trajectories of these organizations outside the prison walls and the multiple effects they generate (Bergman & Fondevilla, 2021, 172–176; Carter, 2014, 2017; Gutierrez Rivera, 2012).

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In Darke’s important work on Brazilian prisons in this regard, reference is made to these “collectives” emphasizing their “homogeneity” (Darke, 2018, 297). This “homogeneity” cannot be taken for granted, at least in prisons in other contexts of Latin America, where there is a higher level of fragmentation between various “collectives” that may have conflicting relationships with each other and where there are also many examples of volatility and fragility of them through time. In any case, this seems to be a very important issue that also requires more in-depth and comparative analysis in the future.

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These various examples of conditions that operate “from outside” the prison walls, generate reactions on the part of the state authorities, which contribute to a greater or lesser extent to the fact that this type of governance schemes on the part of the prisoners are installed and work, in some cases with some official reluctance, in other cases without it. Therefore, finally, it is also necessary to incorporate as another condition of possibility that plays a significant role in the installation of some of these forms of inmate governance, the production of prison policy decisions that tolerate or try to generate these schemes, justifying these governmental roles of prisoners themselves in various ways and to a greater or lesser extent. In certain cases, these governance schemes even go through formalization processes that may be more or less important and rescue pre-existing practices or not. This clearly happens in the “community-run” prisons in Brazil (Darke, 2015, this volume; Macaulay, 2013, 376–377, 384–385, 2015), in the “solidarity committees” of the São Paulo prisons of the 1980s (Dias, this volume), in the Nicaraguan “prisoner councils” (Weegels, 2017, 2019, this volume) and in other experiences in the region (Postema et al., 2017). Recently David Skarbek has ambitiously sought to generate an explanation of the existence of the diverse variants of prison governance at a global level, including forms of “inmate governance”—differentiating between “co-governance” and “self-governance” (Skarbek, 2020, 9–10). For this author, the emergence of these forms of inmate governance is the result of the nonexistence or insufficiency and “low quality” of “official governance”, which he associates exclusively to the governance practices of state actors. In his perspective, prisoners have needs of order maintenance and since in some cases this is not satisfied by state actors, they themselves construct ways to do it (Skarbek, 2020, 10–18, 42–43). Certainly, weakness in the state’s control capacity is a central variable to explain the birth of various of these forms of inmate governance, as we have already indicated. But it is necessary not to lose sight of the fact that many times it is state actors themselves that promote these schemes, whether they generate their formal recognition or not. This usually happens within the framework of processes of reciprocal accommodation with certain prisoners, crossed not only by agreements but also

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by tensions and conflicts, which give rise to transactions and compromises. But in any case, the schemes of inmate governance are not the product solely of the inventiveness and agency of the prisoners. In fact, this is somehow recognized by Skarbek himself when he argues that in the forms of “co-governance” —using the previously mentioned case study by Darke () on a Brazilian jail—the tasks of some prisoners are assigned “from above” and these actors are presented as collaborators of state agents (Skarbek, 2020, 28–32, 43). It may even happen, although rather exceptionally, that some of these schemes are born directly and immediately as a consequence of a government strategy generated by prison authorities, as shown by the case explored in Avila & Sozzo (2020; this volume) and in the “community-run prisons” in Brazil explored by Darke (2015, this volume). In these cases, from my perspective, it is more difficult to speak of a weakness in the capacity to govern of the prison authorities. In any case, I consider that it is not enough to focus on this single element—although its importance is undoubtedly crucial—when considering the emergence, multiplication and diffusion of the schemes of inmate governance in Latin America. These varied mechanisms are the result of a complex web of conditions of possibility, which operate both “from outside” and “from within” the walls of these institutions of legal punishment but also both “from below"—from prisoners themselves—as “from above”—from state authorities and agents.

Contents of the Book This collection identifies and analyzes inmate governance in Latin America, in an attempt to make this phenomenon as relevant to the academic field as it already is in practical terms in the region, placing it as a central theme of social studies on Latin American prisons. The volume rescues and dialogues with a whole series of previous contributions that have been made in this regard, especially in the last decade—an

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important part of which has been generated by the authors of its various chapters—on various national contexts.17 The chapters of this book carry out a detailed exploration of some of the main forms of inmate governance, in different countries of the region—Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic—, based on empirical inquiries conducted by social researchers who have diverse disciplinary roots as well as theoretical and methodological perspectives. It is precisely this diversity that I consider to be one of the fundamental sources of the richness of its contribution as a collective exercise. The volume is structured in three sections. Part I. Emergence and Transformations gathers a series of works that rescue a diachronic vision and analyze the emergence and transformations of these schemes of inmate governance in different national contexts of the region. Thus, the Chapter 1 by Camila Dias Nunes, Fernando Salla and Marcos Cesar Alvarez, “Governance and Legitimacy in Brazilian Prisons: From Solidarity Committees to the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) in São Paulo” proposes an analysis of these schemes in the Brazilian case through the study of two political and institutional contexts in different periods, each of which is characterized by the existence of groups of prisoners claiming to represent the prison population through different discursive, normative and ideological frameworks. On the one hand, prisoners being recognized by the authorities as legitimate interlocutors in the handling of prison matters. On the other hand, groups of prisoners whose authority is founded on the codes and logic of the criminal world, without the support of or explicit recognition by institutional authorities. To a large extent, the latter groups are founded on a discourse of opposition to the State. In both cases, what is at play is prison governance in its 17

Some books have previously been published that have worked on this issue, but on a specific national case, Brazil, such as Dias Nunes (2013); Biondi (2010, 2018); Darke (2018) and Dias Nunes & Paes Manso (2017). A very interesting collection has also recently been published that centrally addresses this issue in many of its contributions and refers to various countries in the region (Darke et al., 2021). And several special issues of scientific journals on prisons in Latin America included articles that address the issue of inmate governance (see Crime, Law and Social Change, 65, 3, 2016, The Prison Service Journal, 229, 2017 and International Criminal Justice Review, 30, 1, 2020). However, there have been practically no comparative efforts on this topic. The only attempt that has been done so far has been the book by Perez Guadalupe (2000).

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verticality—that is, the relationship between custodians and prisoners— as well as in its horizontality, in the relationships established among the prisoners themselves. The two “cases” refer to the prison system of the state of São Paulo. The first case was observed in the 1980s, when the formation of Solidarity Committees among prisoners was encouraged and supported by state authorities within the context of a “prison humanization policy”. Despite its brief formal existence, this case was very significant as it provided an unprecedented experience in Brazilian prisons by creating formal and legitimate forms of representation for the prison population, who could communicate directly with the Department of Justice, the upper echelon of São Paulo’s prison administration. The second case refers to the emergence of the group of prisoners who called themselves the First Command of the Capital (Primeiro Comando da Capital, or PCC), and which expanded during the 1990s and consolidated itself in São Paulo prisons during the 2000s. Unlike the Solidarity Committees, the PCC explicitly defined itself as the “party of crime” and promoted the struggle for prisoner rights based on a discourse of confrontation with the State. The chapter concludes with some general reflections on these different forms of prison governance . Chapter 2 by Manuel Iturralde and Libardo Ariza is “Tales from La Catedral : the Narco and the Reconfiguration of Prison Social Order in Colombia”. The chapter departs from acknowledging that, recently, anthropological, sociological and socio-legal studies on Latin American prisons have opened a promising line of research, which focuses on the effect of the punitive turn and the war on drugs on social order and governance in prisons. However, the chapter highlights that little has been said of the instrumental and symbolic role of the Narco in Latin American prisons social order, as the archetypical figure that embodies the immense power of drug barons and the cartels they lead. Through the case study of Pablo Escobar and La Catedral (the prison where he was held for a brief period), the chapter shows how, in many instances, the Narco plays similar roles to those performed by prison groups and gangs regarding social order in prisons, also replacing the State in their government and the provision of goods and services. Nevertheless, due to his immense power and number of resources, the Narco takes some of the features of social order in Latin American prisons, as well as its

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relationship to state authority to a different level. Also, the Narco has fostered new dynamics, which have reconfigured prison spaces, markets and power relations. The chapter finally presents an interpretation of the transformation of Latin American prison spaces and social order during the last decades based on the description of what may be regarded as the foundational episode of a new prison era in Latin America: the construction of La Catedral as a symbol of the emergence of a particular prison culture characteristic of the Narco era. Chapter 3 by Jennifer Peirce is “Tigres, Representantes, Agentes: The Evolution of Prison Governance Arrangements in the Dominican Republic’s Prison Reform Process”. This chapter explores the evolution and variety of social order and governance arrangements in prisons in the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic provides a unique case study for prison research because it is a high-crime, and lowresource context, but has made a major investment in reforming prisons to align with international human rights standards. Half of its prisons are “new” and reformed—with new buildings, staff and programs— and half remain in the “old” conditions, with deteriorated infrastructure and police/military authority. In the “old” prisons, governance arrangements have shifted over the past decade, from a “provó” system where individual powerful prisoners ran facilities with near-total control, to a form of negotiated authority in which both prisoner “representatives” and prison staff share power. In contrast, in the new prisons, the new corrections professionals have dismantled all forms of prisonerled governance and have imposed formal authority on every aspect of daily life. These contrasting governance arrangements stem from material and social circumstances and from deliberate policy decisions by government officials. In each setting, prisoners expressed appreciation for certain aspects of daily life under a given regime, and express frustration with other aspects. Based on surveys and interviews with prisoners and interviews with staff and other actors, this chapter describes the history, key components and mechanisms of the current governance arrangements in old and new prisons. It also explores the reasons for prisoners’ mixed perceptions. The chapter argues that the Dominican examples show the need to integrate key insights from the principal theoretical

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frameworks of prison governance. Specifically, the Dominican case illustrates the salience of blending two frameworks: Skarbek’s emphasis on the provision of material goods and safety and of Pérez Guadalupe and Nuñovero’s emphasis on the nature of dialogue between prisoners and formal authorities. Part II. Dynamics and variations bring together a series of works on various national contexts that explore in detail the dynamics of diverse schemes of inmate governance, pointing to different crucial dimensions of its ways of functioning. Chapter 4 by Andres Antillano is “The carceral reproduction of neoliberal order: Power, ideology and economy in Venezuelan prison”. This chapter tries to account for the similarities between social relations and political devices within a prison controlled by the prisoners themselves, and practices and discourses typical of the neoliberal creed (privatization of prison management, exhaustive control and supervision, rigorous and labor-intensive disciplinary regime), or even of its more general premises (conservative values, commodification, individualistic ethic, hierarchization and inequality, overexploitation and dispossession). This is made through the results of an empirical research of one prison in Venezuela. These similarities, where a group of socially excluded prisoners duplicates and reproduces the same devices that lead to their exclusion, are an even greater paradox if they are considered to occur within the framework of a political project seeking to overcome the neoliberal legacy and dignify the poor, including those locked up in prison. The chapter understands neoliberalism not only as a doctrine, a set of policies or a rationality but above all as a social arrangement, in this case, constituted by the effect of the continuity of the use of prison as mechanism of segregation and control of the surplus population (key to neoliberal governance, as Wacquant pointed out) and the emergence, within the prison, of an economy based on dispossession (Harvey), as a result of double exclusion (social and institutional) that prison implies for this surplus segment of the population. Chapter 5 by Julienne Weegels is “Enduring lock-up. Co-governance and exception in Nicaraguan’s hybrid carceral systems”. Publicly, the Nicaraguan police and prisons system are prided for their humanistic and communitarian stance. While they project the moral high ground in the fight against “the corruption of our youth”, they nonetheless appear to

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have a highly ambiguous relationship with both violence against criminalized youth and illegal markets inside prison. In effect, Nicaragua’s prisons are characterized by overcrowding and extra-legal governance techniques in which corruption and the use of violence (both among prisoners and between prisoners and authorities) produce precarious, yet systemic co-governance arrangements. As such, this chapter seeks to grasp the intimate relationship between governance, violence and collusion in the Nicaraguan prison system—a relationship managed and guarded as a public secret as it is revelatory of the shared nature of power within the system. While prison is publicly projected to be governed solely by the authorities through the privilege system, the facilities are neither exclusively governed through this system nor by the authorities alone. Prisoners effectively participate in prison governance as they order and govern their cells according to their own norms. Prisoners and authorities, moreover, collude to make particular prohibited and illegal goods available inside prison (such as cellphones and drugs), both reaping the economic benefits of such collusions. Violence, in turn, appears to be deployed by both authorities and prisoners as an ordering mechanism that establishes the limits of their collusion. Drawing from an extensive ethnographic engagement with prisoners and former prisoners, this chapter explores the joint (dis)organization of “prison as usual” through the violent exchanges that authorities and prisoners engage in to balance prison governance by effectively, yet secretly, sharing power. Chapter 6 by Vitor Stegemann Dieter is “Co-governance of ‘Dialogue’: hegemony and governance in a Brazilian maximum-security unit”. Classic prison studies have emphasized the importance of prisonerstaff relationship for the maintenance of prison social order, yet the rise of an administrative criminology in prison changed that orientation to seek “good management” increasingly from the perspective of governors and staff practices. Subsequent prison studies in the Anglosphere have followed that top-down line of inquiry pointing to the importance of criminal justice legitimacy, prison architecture, penal philosophies or administrative styles. However, recent literature from a “Southern criminology” perspective has found that “Southern prisons“ rely more on the participation of inmates for prison governance due to its precariousness, overcrowding, staff-shortage and the presence of

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gang organizations, resulting in forms of “shared prison governance”, “informal governance”, “co-governance” or “prisoner self-governance”. An important part of this research in Latin America has been based in minimum-security units, more “open” prisons and remand jails, but a gap still remains to be covered in better-organized maximumsecurity units in the Global South. Based on ethnographic research in a maximum-security prison in Southern Brazil and street ethnographicinterviews with drug addicts, ex-convicts and “street criminals”, this chapter stresses the important role of the most widespread prison gang in Brazil, the Primeiro Comando da Capital , as a key organization to promote inmate influence in prison governance in spite of the hard “containment” prison practices of a maximum-security unit. Through the development of licit, illicit and violent “resistance strategies” to the “containment governance”, the PCC managed to challenge the authority of “hard” administrations to push for a “dialogue”. “dialogue” with “prison leaders” and the perception of the PCC as key representative of prisoners in the unit transformed “hard” into “soft power” governance, in which inmates actively demanded to have a “voice” in administrative decisionmaking. The chapter concludes that co-governance, in the particular form of “dialogue” developed, cannot simply be conceptualized as filling the void of the State. Instead, the organization of prisoners and prisoners’ agency can transform governance styles and create different forms of co-governance. Chapter 7 by Lucia Bracco is “A Decolonial and Depatriarchal approach to Women’s Imprisonment: Co-governance, legal pluralism and gender at Santa Mónica prison, Perú”. Research about prisons in the Global South has started to analyze the power dynamics between prison staff and prisoners, but it has focused mainly on men’s prisons. Following decolonial and feminist scholars, this chapter is based on the empirical data produced during an ethnography in Santa Mónica, a women’s prison in Lima, Perú, with the aim of contributing to the decolonization and depatriarchalizing of prison studies. The chapter argues that Santa Mónica functions through a co-governance with prisoner-delegates who have the role of intermediaries or “interface brokers”. Moreover, it proposes that prison is a site of “interlegality”—using the concept of De Souza Santos—where national law and customary law superimpose and

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interpenetrate in the subjects’ actions and minds. Consequently, social relationships between authorities, prison staff and prisoners are defined by a “hybrid legal system”. She concludes on the importance of recognizing different types of political and social organizations, not only as the result of errors or of failed development processes in the Global South but also as an alternative configuration that may lead us to question how we conceptualize prison and imprisonment. In the same line, the chapter acknowledges women prisoners not only as molded by patriarchal structures but also recognize the ambivalences and the possibilities of organizing and engaging in semi-autonomous actions while imprisoned. Chapter 8 by Lorena Navarro and Maximo Sozzo is “Evangelical wings and prison governance in Argentina”. In the last two decades, within prisons under certain provincial jurisdictions in Argentina, there has been a rapid growth of “evangelical wings”, spaces where only inmates who accept to live according to the religious precepts of evangelism are accepted. This chapter is based on fieldwork in a men’s prison in the Province of Santa Fe where 6 out of 10 wings are evangelical. The chapter describes the hierarchy existing among prisoners inside the evangelical wings, in which the “internal pastor”—and indirectly, the “external pastor”—is recognized as the informal, extra-legal authority. It analyzes the various strategies for order maintenance within it, both proactive and reactive, and the roles played by the various positions in the prisoner hierarchy of the evangelical wing. Special attention is paid to the relationships that are built within this framework with the prison authorities and guards. The idea that the exercise of power by prisoners in the upper echelons of evangelical wings can be interpreted as a kind of “outsourcing” by state authorities is discussed. On this point, the chapter argues that this interpretation implies ignoring the series of forces that “from below” and “from the outside” have contributed to the existence and diffusion of evangelical wings, in a process of “conquest” of the contemporary prison that has to be taken seriously. In turn, the chapter emphasizes the important role of negotiation between state and nonstate actors in structuring the forms of governance of this segment of the prison population. It argues that the category of “self-governance” is inappropriate to capture this type of development since it does not take into account the centrality of state action. But it also suggests that the

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conceptual alternative of “co-governance” may run the risk of emphasizing only the collaboration between the prison authorities and guards and the prisoners who occupy privileged positions in the evangelical wings, losing sight of the quota of competition and conflict that also exists between them, in a fluid and complex dynamic. Finally, the chapter advocates in favor of a way of thinking about governmental relations in this type of prison spaces that includes both the collaborative and the conflictive sides between state and non-state actors. Part III. Alternatives? brings together a couple of chapters that explore schemes of inmate governance in prisons that in Latin America are presented as “alternatives” to ordinary contexts of confinement and that for some years have fueled the political debate about what is possible to do in the region to avoid the extraordinary levels of degradation and suffering this type of legal punishment generates. Chapter 9 by Fernando Avila and Maximo Sozzo is “The ‘prisoner-entrepeneur’. Responsibilization and co-governance at Punta de Rieles prison in Uruguay”. This chapter focuses on the “prisoner-entrepreneur” as an agent in the governance relations in a men’s prison in Montevideo, Uruguay. This is a non-traditional prison in which prisoners’ responsibilization plays a fundamental role as a strategy of governance deployed by state authorities and agents to make prisoners responsible for developing, with broad levels of autonomy, an open range of activities that authorities consider “positive”. The production of goods and services stands out among these officially promoted activities. Most of them are generated from prisoners’ initiatives. To obtain the prison authorities’ authorization and support to carry it out, prisoners are encouraged to design the productive activity project and draft a formal request. This “prisoner-entrepreneur” occupies a unique position in Punta de Rieles’ prison population. He is subject to responsibilization, requested to engage in a “positive use” of time and to develop forms of self-governance. However, simultaneously, as “employers” of other prisoners, they become and act as governance agents and they structure the field of action of the “prisoner-employee”, within a framework that has similarities and differences with the labor world on the “outside”. In turn, this governmental role implies a whole series of collaborative but also conflictive relationships with state agents, especially with prison officers. This chapter addresses the peculiar position of the

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“prisoner-entrepreneur” in terms of his governmental role and his links with state agents, as a unique form of governance in this non-traditional Latin American prison. Chapter 10 by Sacha Darke is “Radical Alternatives to Punitive Detention”. Brazil is criticized for breaching international norms on the treatment of prisoners. Its common prison system is overcrowded and understaffed. Yet, Brazilian prisons are not so disorderly nor staffinmate relations are as conflictual as established theories on prison order and legitimate prison governance would suggest. Staffing shortages are mitigated by recruiting prisoners. Of most relevance to the current chapter, prison managers informally engage gang leaders to maintain inmate discipline. The customary practices gang leaders enforce are likewise negotiated with prison managers. This chapter examines the similar roles played by inmates in establishing and enforcing disciplinary rules at dozens of radically different community prisons inaugurated by ex-prisoner-led NGOs in the twenty-first Century. In these prisons, everyday order does not depend on the informal authority of gang leaders. Instead, prisoners self-regulate through the medium of officially constituted, peer-selected councils. Disciplinary powers are formally delegated by prison managers as part of a wider focus on human dignity and empowerment. Delegating disciplinary powers to inmates contravenes the international human rights consensus that prisoners might be entrusted to manage prison routines but never to exercise power over each other. This position is questionable from a Southern Criminological perspective. The chapter asks, under what circumstances, by what means and to what extent are disciplinary powers appropriately devolved to community prison inmates in Brazil. Finally, the book concludes with Part IV Epilogue that includes a concluding chapter “Inmate Governance in contemporary prisons in Latin America. Comparative and theoretical notes” by the book editor. This chapter attempts to take stock of the several explorations included in this book as well as the wider work social researchers have done in the last years. In its first part, it presents some reflections on how to insert the question of inmate governance within the framework of a more wide-ranging consideration about the differences between the prisons of Latin America -and more generally, of the Global South- and those of

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the Global North, critically discussing an approach that seeks to build an understanding of these differences through a distinction of types of regimes of confinement, characteristic of these various parts of the world. In the second section introduces the broader discussion of to what extent the theoretical tools of prison studies in the Global North can be used— and how—to make sense of the mechanisms and dynamics of inmate governance in this region, advocating a position that defends the possibility of “use” but discourages the attitude of “application”. There it also shows how a strong South-South dialogue has been produced on inmate governance in the last years—of which this book is also a piece of evidence—, particularly around some key concepts like “self-governance” and “co-governance”, which have the potentiality of influencing the ways of thinking about prison order in the Global North. Finally, it raises the need to advance in the construction of a comparative perspective on inmate governance in Latin American prisons as a fundamental exercise in the elaboration of our theoretical tools in this regard, based on the recognition of the strong degree of variation that this book evidences. In this sense, it presents a tentative comparative outline, isolating various crucial dimensions and exemplifying the diverse alternatives with the analysis produced throughout this book on the various schemes for the participation of prisoners in the governance of incarcerated life in the region. This exercise is considered a contribution on a longer path to more fully theorize the dynamics and effects of inmate governance, both inside and outside Latin America. ∗ ∗ ∗ Over four years the various authors of this collection met in person and virtually in different places and several times to discuss the chapters that compose it, in their successive versions. I greatly appreciate their enthusiasm and energy throughout this long process.18 It has been an extraordinarily enriching exercise, of mutual learning and help, which I 18 Throughout this process, other colleagues took active part in these different meetings and thus also contributed to the development of this book. I thank all of them and especially Chris Garces, David Skarbek, Jean Daudelin, Jose Luiz Ratton, Rafael Godoi, Gabriel Bombini, Waldemar Claus and Ramiro Gual.

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believe has substantially improved this final outcome. It has also paved the way to new collective initiatives that help us understand the dynamics of Latin American prisons, based on the common understanding of the essential need to hinder the naturalization and reproduction of the extraordinary degrees of inequality and exclusion, pain and suffering they generate on a daily basis.

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Emergence and Transformations

Governance and Legitimacy in Brazilian Prison: From Solidarity Committees to the Primeiro Comando Da Capital (PCC) in São Paulo Camila Nunes Dias, Fernando Salla, and Marcos César Alvarez

Introduction Prisons became an object of increasing interest for the Social Sciences during the twentieth century. In the 1950s, several aspects were the The current work is part of the “Building Democracy Daily: Human Rights, Violence, and Institutional Trust” Project of the Center for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo, financed by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

C. N. Dias (B) Federal University ABC, Santo André, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] F. Salla · M. C. Alvarez University of Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] M. C. Alvarez e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Sozzo (ed.), Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America, Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5_2

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subject of academic reflection, especially in the North American literature, such as, for example, the configuration of the prison as a social organization with relative autonomy, the disconnect between the objectives of these institutions and the outcomes they produced, the effects of incarceration on family relationships, forms of prison governance, power relations between prisoners and their custodians, social dynamics between prisoners, disruptions in the internal order of prisons, etc. Changes in criminal policies since the mid-1970s caused an intensification of incarceration in many countries (cf. Christie, 1999; Garland, 2001; Wacquant, 2001, among many others) and have considerably expanded the objects of study and the volume of academic reflections on prisons. Some of the new topics discussed included the redefinition of prison’s objectives and purposes in the contemporary world, the effects on prisoners of long stays under stricter confinement, prison revolts and rebellions, and the privatization of prisons. A central issue that many of the axes of reflection on prisons have in common is how imprisoned individuals have adapted to disciplinary mechanisms—as well as resisted these mechanisms—through complex strategies that make use of individual or group actions to enhance, their non-acceptance of institutionally imposed rules. In other words, how the relationship between prison administrators and prisoners affects prison dynamics in the current context of increased incarceration and prison overcrowding. In this text we propose an analysis of so-called prison governance,1 based on the Brazilian experience and on the study of two political and institutional contexts in different periods, each of which is characterized by the existence of groups of prisoners claiming to represent the prison population through different discursive, normative, and ideological frameworks. On the one hand, we have the context of prisoners being recognized by the authorities as legitimate interlocutors in the handling of prison matters. On the other hand, we have groups of prisoners whose authority is founded on the codes and logic of the criminal world, without the support of and explicit recognition by institutional authorities. To a large extent, the latter groups are founded on a discourse 1

Understood here in its broader meaning of exercising power in this specific social space.

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of opposition to the State. In both cases, what is at play is prison governance in its verticality—that is, the relationship between custodians and prisoners—as well as in its horizontality, in the relationships established between the prisoners themselves. The two “cases” we will analyze refer to the prison system of the state of São Paulo.2 The first case was observed in the 1980s, when the formation of Solidarity Committees among prisoners was encouraged and supported by state authorities within the context of a “prison humanization policy,” and which, despite its brief formal existence, was very significant in that it provided an unprecedented experience in Brazilian prisons by creating formal and legitimate form of representation for the prison population that could communicate directly with the Department of Justice—the upper echelon of São Paulo’s prison administration. The second case refers to the emergence of the group of prisoners who called themselves the First Command of the Capital (Primeiro Comando da Capital, or PCC), and which expanded during the 1990s and consolidated itself in São Paulo prisons during the 2000s. Unlike the Solidarity Committees, the PCC explicitly defined itself as the “party of crime” and promoted the struggle for prisoner rights based on a discourse of confronting the State and within a symbolic logic that was pertinent to the “world of crime.” This text will begin with a brief review of some of the Social Sciences literature, exploring the ways in which prisoners and prison governance are organized, both in international and domestic contexts. Then, we discuss the two political–institutional and prison governance contexts that were established through the interaction between the prison administration and the prison population in the two cases mentioned, analyzing the performance of each of the prisoner groups claiming to represent the prison population. We will then conclude the text with some reflections on the different forms of prison governance present in these two contexts. In light of the cases we will analyze, it is possible to put forward the hypothesis that obstructions to mechanisms of communication and 2 In Brazil, prison administration is the responsibility of the states. The state of São Paulo has the largest prison population in the country, accounting for about one-third of Brazilian prisoners.

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representation of the prison population that were effectively “legitimized” by the authorities—an experiment that was tried during Brazil’s transition to democracy in the 1980s—favored the subsequent formation of prison groups that imposed themselves in part through the use of violence, in part through the use of the codes of the criminal world, and in part through denunciations of the deficiencies in the prison system. In this sense, it is essential that we understand the governance mechanisms established in São Paulo prisons starting in the mid-2000s, based on the multiple elements present in the form of organization, performance, and demands made by the PCC on behalf of the prison population to the State, with the ambiguities and paradoxes that permanently strain the fragile maintenance of prison order that has been built and maintained since that time. Thus, our analysis of the two experiences—the Solidarity Committee and the PCC—seeks to contribute to reflections on prison governance, insofar as these experiences represent two distinct processes in the emergence of organized prisoner groups within the prison context. In the first case we see a top-down organization, the result of political action by government officials and administrators seeking to reform the prison system by encouraging and supporting Solidarity Committees as a model for managing daily life in prison. In the second case, the PCC arises from a process that originates within the prison population, which goes into revolt as a result of the violence perpetrated by the State itself and due to the precarious conditions in prison and which organizes itself into a group with rules and symbols of identification that allow them to confront authorities at the same time that it seeks to strengthen its power over other prisoners. A second point is that these experiences of organizing groups of prisoners led to two different forms of coexistence between guards and prisoners in everyday life inside São Paulo prisons. The Solidarity Committee was not only created, encouraged, and supported by authorities, but it was also supervised by these authorities, who monitored its activities and channeled those demands that arose in day-to-day prison life. This initiative was not exempted from conflicts arising between the Committee (and its supporters among authorities) and prison guards, who did not recognize the power that was being given to prisoners and

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ignored their demands, especially those designed to restrain arbitrary punishments and violence against prisoners carried out by the guards. In the case of the PCC, its creation and subsequent confrontations with the authorities is structured around practices and references coming from the criminal world and is supported by the PCC’s capacity to exert influence over the prison population. The authorities would come to see negotiations with the PCC and accommodation of its power as inevitable in order to maintain order in prisons, but these same authorities never publicly acknowledge that these agreements were made. Both of these experiences, but above all the emergence of the PCC starting in the 1990s, suggests that these new forms of prison system governance would be possible in a new punitive context that moved from the scope of discipline to that of governmentality, as analyzed by Michel Foucault (), with prison dispositive in different countries taking on new characteristics not only due to the expansion of incarceration but also due to the increasing complexity of its relationship to other social phenomena.

The Problem of Prison Governance in the International Literature Studies on prison dynamics have almost always been associated with the public debate on the role of the prison as a punitive institution, with its accompanying crises and attempts at reform. Thus, internal instabilities that shook North American prisons throughout the 1950s stimulated several studies in the field of Social Sciences, seeking, above all, to understand prisoners’ forms of organization, their relationship to custodians, and their governance mechanisms (Berk, 1966; Goffman [1961] 1974; Sykes, [1958]3 1974; Tittle, 1969). Authors such as Clarence Schrag (1954) had already focused their reflections on the mechanisms for creating leaders among the prison population that could allow prison 3

The date in brackets refers to the original publication date. This date is used in the first reference, but in subsequent citations only the date of the publication used by the authors is used.

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administrators to exercise control over this process, encouraging certain leaders to the detriment of others, or promoting the isolation of leaders considered undesirable. Of particular interest for the present reflection is the discussion on the question of legitimacy within the scope of power relations within prison environments. In that regard, impacted by the wave of riots in British prisons, Richard J. Sparks and Anthony E. Bottoms (1995) argued for the need to discuss the maintenance of order in these institutions using the theory of legitimacy. For these authors, even if order in prisons is maintained through a regime of force, it can be positively or negatively affected depending on the way the rules are applied, the fairness of these rules in terms of the subjects’ shared beliefs, and the humane and dignified treatment of the prisoner. A legitimate prison regime requires a dialogue in which the voice of the prisoners is heard and, furthermore, it must be guided by standards that can be defended externally based on political and moral arguments. This issue gained political relevance, especially from the North American experience, with the incarceration of the black movement militants in the course of the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s and 1970s (Davis, 2003; Wacquant, 2001) and then under new impetus with the so-called war on drugs, which led to the arrest of gang members who acted on the streets in the drug trafficking retail market. This presence of gangs would have important effects on prison governance and relations with the wider society. In general, this involved the transference to within the prison space of groups that were originally external to prisons and that were linked to large North American cities and associated with specific territories, possessing their own insignia, symbols, colors, and vocabularies that defined a specific identity, usually associated to ethnic-racial elements (Jacobs, 1974, 1977). Jacobs (1977) points out that although gangs have in fact contributed to politicizing the discussion about problems in prisons, they were unable to form a stable and univocal alliance with the racial political movements that effectively led the fight for civil rights. In this sense, the gangs produced a political discourse that was somewhat limited by disputes related to the illegal markets they controlled inside and outside of prisons, and by the violent conflicts they engaged in during disputes

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and clashes with rival groups. In any case, Jacobs’s analysis demonstrates the growing presence of gangs in daily prison life as an essential element for new forms of relations between the prison population and the prison administration—that is, of governance mechanisms whose transformations were captured in his analysis and which were characterized by the prison administration’s fraying authority. DiIulio (1990) addressed the problem of governance in prisons from the perspective of institutional and formal management mechanisms. For him, the manner in which the prison staff operates is fundamental to the “quality” of life in these institutions. Prison is a formal government and it is up to the State to train its managers to control the prison population and, furthermore, compel them to control themselves (1990, 7). The author criticizes the view that the prison is itself characterized by a fragile balance always about to be broken—a conception encapsulated by Sykes (1974) —since in this perspective there is no way to compare and contrast different institutions. Likewise, DiIulio rejects those conceptions that point to the need to share control with prisoners, refuting the idea of “democratic” prison management related to prisoners’ self-government. For him, these conceptions do not find support in the concrete reality of the experiences of governance in the prisons, which indicate an increase in violence and disturbances in the same measure that the possibility of prison control by the prisoners expands and management by the State is reduced. Skarbek (2012, 2014, 2016) produced a theory of prison governance by gangs that is very influential today. Based on a critical analysis of two of the main theoretical approaches to prison order—the deprivation theory and the importation theory—the author states that the basic element in the emergence of prison gangs is that of depriving the prison population of governance institutions—and, therefore, the demand for protection and instances that produce order in prisons. At the same time, Skarbek proposes that demands for protection, and therefore for the provision of order and governance, emerges with the increase in the prison population and the overcrowding of prison facilities resulting from this increase. As is clear from the literature since the 1970s, prison gangs emerge as crucial elements in discussions about the production of order and the legal and extralegal mechanisms of prison governance.

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In France, reflections on prison also accompanied the emergencies and crises caused by prison dynamics themselves. The critical perspective elaborated by Michel Foucault was formed, above all, out of the crisis of legitimacy of prison institutions, starting in May 1968 and accompanied by the subsequent hardening of the French government’s security policies in the early 1970s, which led to the arrest of leftist militants and a wave of riots that hit French establishments at the time. Foucault is best known for his book Discipline and Punish (1987), which analyzed the central role of prisons in the modern penal system. The writing of this book, however, was partly the result of Foucault’s participation in activist activities that gave rise to the Groupe d’Information sur les Prisons (GIP), created in 1971 and which constituted itself as a new type of mobilization that sought to publicize the state of French prisons, by gathering numerous testimonials and writings produced mainly by the prisoners themselves (cf. Alvarez, 2006; Artières et al., 2003; Artières, 2004; Eribon, 1990). The creation of the GIP led, at that time, to an intense public debate about the conditions of silence that prisoners were subjected to and about the obstacles that stood between prison, prisoners, and society, not only by denouncing the sometimes inadequate conditions of incarceration but above all by giving prisoners a voice, making visible their faces, and their existence behind bars. Several other works have appeared in France since the early 1970s that sought to produce more analytical studies of the prison system, such as those by Philippe Combessie (2001), Gilles Chantraine (2006a), Philippe Artières (2004), Antoinette Chauvenet et al. (1994), and Corine Rostaing (1997). Adopting the analytical contributions provided by Foucault, Chantraine (2006b) notes that, in addition to the recent trend of extremely rigid confinement adopted in many prisons, with severe limitations on movement, activities, and contacts with the outside world, new patterns of internal institutional organization arose, which the author called a post-disciplinary or governmentalized prison. Looking at a Canadian prison experiment, Chantraine shows that prisoners were encouraged by the establishment’s administration to appoint representatives and name leaders to negotiate with the State over prisoners’ demands by establishing a complex mechanism of privileges,

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concessions, and restrictions. According to him, the collaboration of prisoners was encouraged in the hope of instilling feelings of cooperation, responsibility, and autonomy. However, the rights of prisoners are subject to constant negotiation by the administration, conditioned on the risks or disruptions caused by prisoners in their commitment to autonomous management. Technicians and managers sought to maintain internal order through participatory mechanisms that led prisoners to self-government, thereby minimizing the use of coercive mechanisms. According to Chantraine, however, the organization and self-management of prisoners are always subordinate and are easily deactivated when they threaten the maintenance of internal and external order and security. In short, the literature briefly commented above, points to new fields of study that have opened up to examine social dynamics both inside the prison and their effects on the wider and more complex society, highlighting the need for a public discussion about greater transparency in punitive practices and legitimate channels of expression for the prison population. In Brazil, sociological reflections also addressed these issues, mirroring somewhat the international literature while at the same time linking it to the specific social and political context created by the state of Brazilian prisons.

Reflections on Prison Governance in Brazil In Brazil, the Social Sciences literature on prisons was greatly influenced by American studies, but it only really stood out on its own starting in the late 1970s. Two pioneering works, one based on research in São Paulo (Ramalho, 1979) and another in Rio de Janeiro (Coelho, 1987), dealt with the governance of prisons and the dilemmas involved, since it presupposed a division of power between prison administrators and prisoners. In the case of Ramalho, he analyzed the norms, rules, and dynamics established between prisoners (the proceder, or “procedure”) and how these collectively established rules are relevant to an understanding of prison life. In Coelho’s work, the central anchoring point

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of the analysis is the idea of the fragile balance of the prison institution present in Sykes’s work (1974). In this regard, Coelho discussed the contradictions inherent in the prison institution with regard to its objectives—to rehabilitate and punish—and to its functioning: the imposition of power and the need for prisoners’ cooperation. He also emphasized the important role prison leaders have in maintaining order at a time when prison gangs were emerging within the prison population with the creation of the group that later became known as Comando Vermelho (CV), as well as the erosion of the prison administration’s power, which implied the need to foster these leaders and negotiate with them. One of the most significant contributions to the debate on the emergence of organized criminal groups in Brazilian prisons was provided by Antônio Luiz Paixão in the book Recuperar e Punir chapter Falanges Vermelhas, Serpentes Negras and Prison Order (1987). Paixão’s main argument was that the criminal organizations formed by prisoners at that time were not the result of lenient humanization policies in prisons, as their opponents claimed, but rather to a dynamic that he called the modernization of urban crime. Bank robberies and drug trafficking were criminal modalities that required greater levels of organization and efficiency for them to be successful. These “phalanges,” “commands,” and “serpents,” according to him, were nothing more than “organizational formats and demands that accompany the modernization of criminal behavior in Brazilian metropolitan areas and that alter the structure of prison populations” (Paixão, 1987, 77). These organizations ushered in “a new model for negotiating order” in prisons that directly conflicted with prevailing standards for managing the prison environment. Following these reflections, carried out in the 1980s, the question of the organization of prisoners was taken up in Brazil through the analysis of rebellions in prison facilities. The approach to rebellions was generally associated with analyses of social and political contexts and/or criminal policies that could have an influence (or not) on such events (Góes, 2009; Adorno & Salla, n.d.). Salla (2006) grouped rebellions into three periods, which in a way reflected different forms of prisoner organization and activity: the first, prior to the early 1980s, was characterized mainly by protests against precarious prison conditions; the

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second period, which covers the 1980s, is characterized by rupture in the prisons, linked to collusion, omission, or even incentives from political and administrative sectors hostile to attempts to humanize the prisons, especially during the Montoro administration in the state of São Paulo (1983–1986); and finally, the third period, corresponding to the 1990s, was marked by the activities of criminal groups that organized and took charge during rebellions. Since then, the field of prison studies in Brazil and (more specifically) in São Paulo has been digging deeper into the phenomenon of prison gangs, whose role in the dynamics of creating order in prisons—and also outside them—has been widely discussed in terms of the processes of their constitution, causes, and social, political, and economic effects (Adorno & Salla, 2014; Biondi, 2010; Dias, 2013; Dias & Salla, 2013, 2017; Dias & Darke, 2015). The discussion proposed here is also part of this debate, helping construct the lines of historical and political continuities and discontinuities in the emergence of gangs in the Brazilian prison system. In this sense, it is based on the historical reexamination of the creation of Solidarity Committees in São Paulo’s prisons—an unprecedented political experiment in terms of building legitimate representation for the prison population—to then examine the factors that sought to delegitimize and interrupt this experiment and, in the end, allowed the emergence of the First Command of the Capital (PCC), whose claim to represent prisoners would be based on legitimation discourses situated in a logic that was rather distinct from the one that sustained the Committees. In this sense, considering the two forms of prisoner organization, it is clear that the different logics of prison governance give rise to different ways of building and maintaining prison order.

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From Solidarity Committees to PCC: The Construction of Prison Order at Two Points in Time In Brazil, the transition in the 1980s from an authoritarian regime to democracy opened up a broad public debate about prisons and also encouraged reflections from social scientists. In addition to issues related to precarious prison conditions and the institutional violence rooted in prisons, there was a wide-ranging debate about the ways in which prisoners are represented and their rights guaranteed, especially with the signing of the Penal Execution Law (Law 7,210) in 1984. The push for a “democratization” of prison spaces, which would motivate the proposal of representation for the prisoners themselves to defend their rights, was confronted by the authoritarian legacy4 still present in public security institutions and the political resistance of broad sectors of society, as well as the emergence of a more organized criminality. In 1983, as soon as he took over the government of the state of São Paulo, Governor Franco Montoro appointed José Carlos Dias as Secretary of Justice, whose main task would be to implement a new policy for the prison system. This became known as the Prison Humanization Policy and tried to reverse the arbitrariness and violence practiced in prisons, especially during the military regime. One of the most interesting initiatives of this policy was the establishment in some prisons of groups representing the prisoners, which became known as Solidarity Committees.5 Immersed in the context of policies to extend democratic principles to prison institutions, the Solidarity Committees provided direct channels of communication between the prisoners and the Department of Justice and judges (cf. Góes, 2009, 19). Through these committees, inmates could pass along demands related to prison conditions and the guarantee of prisoner rights. 4

This authoritarian legacy is due in large part to the military regime that ruled over Brazil from 1964 to 1983. 5 The committees were very active at two prison facilities: Penitenciária do Estado and Penitenciária de Araraquara.

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The proposal of creating Solidarity Committees situated these groups within the normative-legal struggle for rights. In this sense, this proposal rejected both forms of representation where “representatives” were appointed by the local administration as well as traditional forms of cooperation between prison administrators and the “natural” leaders of prisoners—derived solely from their ascendancy within the criminal world. In contrast, the charter of the State Penitentiary Solidarity Committee stipulated the direct elections of members by secret ballot, guaranteeing the right to vote to the entire prison population, and barred the election of prisoners who were accused of committing acts of violence against their companions or against prison staff (cf. Góes, 2009, 23). Significantly, the Solidarity Committees were the main target of campaigns to oppose the policy of humanizing the prisons, which began already in 1984. With the support of the vast majority of prison staff, sectors of the judiciary, political parties (including sectors of the governor’s own party), and part of the São Paulo press (cf. Góes, 2009, 23), the movement to oppose José Carlos Dias’s policies did not take long to produce effects, especially on the initiative to form the committees, delegitimizing them. The main attack against the committees arose from allegations that a group of murderous prisoners, called the Serpentes Negras (“Black Serpents”), was seeking to dominate the prison population through the Solidarity Committees.6 Although the existence of the Serpentes Negras has never been proven, much less their impact on the committees, the accusations were enough to undermine the first Brazilian experiment in providing a mechanism of representation to prisoners, by delegitimizing their role as a conduit for communication between the prison population and those responsible for the management of prison policies (Higa, 2017). Paradoxically, the central element in the discourse that sought to delegitimize the committees was precisely the argument that they were being criminalized, that is, that they were controlled by criminal groups that sought to use this participatory forum to plan and carry out illegal activities.

6 Regarding the accusations against Serpentes Negras and their role in destabilizing the experiment of Solidarity Committees, see Higa (2017) and Higa and Alvarez (2019).

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According to the analysis by Góes (2009), the ways in which dissatisfaction with the management of prison establishments was expressed through the Solidarity Committees found some echoes in the new human rights policies that had been orienting the Department of Justice. In this sense, forms of negotiation and formal agreements between prisoners and prison administration were prioritized, whereby violence, which normally accompanied these demands, could be significantly reduced. However, in the face of the blockade or, one could say, the boycott of these new communications channels, the prisoners resumed the traditional violent methods that mark rebellions and riots. Thus, the absence of outlets capable of channeling the discontent of the prison population presented a central element in prison disturbances, and riots constitute its most expressive outcome. The pressure of the judiciary on the executive power, with the investigation of the Serpentes Negras (Higa and Alvarez, 2019), the opposition presented by the guards, within the penitentiary system, to the movement of democratization and participation of prisoners through the Solidarity Committees, the political opposition in parliament and in the political debate to the Prison Humanization Policy imposed the end of the experience of this type of prison governance in 1984. Thus, the difficulties in implementing the Prison Humanization Policy were already evident during the Montoro administration. In the administrations that succeeded him, there was a marked conservative turn in the management of public security in São Paulo, with the reversal of practically all efforts at opening up the prison system. In practical terms, this political (re)orientation had disastrous effects, with an escalation of violence, culminating in the Carandiru Massacre of 1992 (cf. Salla, 2006, 2007). The year following the massacre saw the emergence of a group of prisoners called the First Command of the Capital (PCC), which still poses one of the main challenges to public security in São Paulo. Created in the Annex of the Casa de Custódia de Taubaté—a prison representing what was most arbitrary in the São Paulo prison system—the PCC was anchored in the discourse of unity among prisoners as a way of fighting oppression perpetrated by the State. According to one of its founders:

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We emerged inside the prison because, in all honesty, we didn’t expect the PCC to grow like it did, because our struggle was internal. We wanted to combat the injustices we suffered, because at the time, the injustice was too great, and there was no point in complaining to the authorities, there was no point in complaining to anyone.7

In addition to allegations of mistreatment, violence, and arbitrariness of the State vis-à-vis the prison population serving as central elements in shaping the PCC’s legitimizing discourse, we must mention the absence of communication channels between prisoners and the authorities responsible for prison administration. We can see, therefore, that it was in this vacuum caused by the absence of a representative body of the prison population and the complete obstruction of communication channels between prisoners and prison administration that the PCC found a space to establish itself and legitimize itself as an alternative to this population isolation in the face of their demands and their struggle for rights and recognition. Regardless of the conditions that led to prisoners’ representation by the PCC (and whether they indeed do represent them), the fact is that the discourse of a fight against state oppression and to guarantee prisoner’s rights was appropriated with great success by this group, and it constituted the group’s base of social and political support. With the consolidation of its power over the prison population through a complex process that involved violent disputes, agreements, and accommodations (cf. Dias, 2013), the PCC became an important social and political force. Organized around illegal activities and with strong support from the bases on which its power rests, it presents itself as an actor with which the State, willingly or not, has to deal with and whose claims must be included (in a direct or indirect way) on the agendas and debates around prison policies (Biondi, 2010; Dias & Salla, 2013, 2017; Alvarez, 2013). In this sense, the PCC started to occupy social spaces where the rules, values, resources, and objectives of public policies for the prison 7 José Márcio Felício dos Santos, in a statement to the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission to investigate arms smuggling, on 5/17/2005, p. 56. Geleião, as he is known, was one of the founders of the PCC, and was the group’s main leader until 2002, along with César Augusto Roriz, known as Cesinha.

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system are disputed, appropriated, or rejected (cf. Neves, 1993). The PCC became a political actor that articulates forms of governance and the construction of an order within prisons, centered on its increasing capacity as an informal instance of regulation and conflict mediation (Dias & Salla, 2017). Since 2001, in response to the emergence of the PCC, the São Paulo government has adopted formal and informal mechanisms to try to deal with the group and reduce its capacity to influence the prison population. At the formal level, the main measure was the Penitentiary Administration Department’s creation of the Differentiated Disciplinary Regime (RDD), through Resolution 26/01, which in 2003 was transformed into a Federal Law (Law 10,792/03) and incorporated into the Penal Execution Code.8 This is a much stricter disciplinary regime, with just one hour of outdoor exercise, no conjugal visits, strict control over communication with lawyers and visitors, solitary confinement without access to television and radio, and restricted access to books, magazines, and newspapers. Among the behaviors subject to RDD penalties is suspicion of participation in a “criminal organization.” The maximum time one can spend in RDD is 360 (although the sanction can be reapplied in case of new serious violations, up to a limit of one-sixth of the sentence).9 At the informal level, the penitentiary administration has seemingly attempted to provoke the fragmentation of the PCC’s power by promoting the creation of other prison groups that could constitute themselves as rivals. These groups, together with the PCC, were protagonists in a series of extremely violent clashes inside the prisons. However, they were practically decimated, and at the end of this period the PCC established its hegemonic position (Dias, 2013; Dias & Salla, 2013; Dias & Darke, 2015). Another strategy that sought to deal with the PCC was repression by elite groups of the military police, through arbitrary actions such as wiretaps, torture, kidnappings, and the recruitment and infiltration of 8

For a discussion about the impact of RDD on prison dynamics, see Dias (2009). In terms of measures to deal with the PCC, in addition to creating these punishments in the penal system, we highlight the moves by the State Prosecutor’s Office and the Civil Police to dismantle call centers and block hundreds of checking accounts that were used by the gang to move money. 9

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prisoners and police in criminal activities linked to the PCC (cf. Jozino, 2005, pp. 156–157). In the 1980s, the government’s strategies toward the Solidarity Commission had been to strengthen it as an instance of representation for the prison population. The Sao Paulo Department of Justice, at the time, sought to transform the Solidarity Committees into legitimate interlocutors for the conduct of internal prison affairs. To this end, it tried to make its operations as transparent as possible, even providing regulations that stipulated the conditions for the participation of prisoners, while seeking to avoid claims that the committees served purposes other than to represent prisoners and collaborate with prison management. The mechanism for building a formal and legal governance structure involving the prison administration and the prison population through the Solidarity Committees, however, was subjected to several boycotts by segments within the administration itself, the judiciary system, and the press, culminating, as has already been discussed, in the early exhaustion of a management model in prisons that seemed promising—by linking the representation of prisoners with the formal and legal recognition by prison administrators (Alvarez, 2013). In its place, there was the emergence of a group of prisoners who imposed themselves as representatives of the prison population based on their own terms and on their own way of building legitimacy, which involved a narrative of opposition to and confrontation with the State and the affirmation of values proper to the “world of crime,” at the same time that it buttressed itself on denunciations that their rights were being violated in order to strengthen its position (Dias & Salla, 2017). In this sense, the governance of São Paulo prisons and the forms of legitimacy that sustained them underwent a massive displacement, repositioning the role of state agents and groups that claimed to represent prisoners in terms of disputes and confrontations that are contiguous to the relations of informal and unspecified negotiations. Thus, the discussion of the legitimacy of order-building in prisons was reconfigured.

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Legitimacy and Recognition: Of Whom, for Whom, and by Whom? Prisons are pertinent spaces for discussing the legitimacy of forms of power in a twofold sense. First, by being part of the punitive apparatus created by modern society and serving as the locus for the application of custodial sentences, they express a punitive culture, a set perceptions, feelings, and values that translate into one of the ways that society responds to crime and punishes criminals (Garland, 1990). Long-lasting historical processes that influence those perceptions are associated with the construction of authoritarian or democratic regimes, more hierarchical or more egalitarian societies, and more formal or more substantial experiences of citizenship. In any case, in this regard the discussion about the legitimacy of punishments and the prison itself is situated a little differently in regard to the direct contact the incarcerated population has with their custodians. In this broader sense, the Brazilian social and political experience allows us to observe some obstacles to the functioning of Brazilian democracy, to the extent that broad layers of Brazilian society do not recognize the legitimacy of legal punishments—and therefore of prison—when they tolerate the arbitrary and illegal use of violence by the police, the systematic use of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, the extermination of individuals considered to be criminals, and the refusal to recognize the rights of prisoners. These attitudes directly interfere in the social arrangements structured in prison environments, sometimes making the attempt to build a legitimate legal order unfeasible by not recognizing the rights of prisoners or by allowing laws to be misapplied in regard to the people being punished. Second, it is interesting to analyze the legitimacy of prisons on a more limited level, since they constitute, even in democratic societies, autocratic spaces that impose themselves on confined subjects (Sparks, 1994, 15). This dimension configures a complex construction of power relations, submission, and obedience involving custodians and prisoners in order to build and maintain a prison order that provides relative stability and predictability—that is, through governance mechanisms (Castro & Silva, 2008).

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The issue of the legitimacy of prisons has been discussed in the international literature (Sparks, 1994; Sparks & Bottoms, 1995; Tyler, 2010; Carrabine, 2005; Liebling, 2013; Brunton-Smith & McCarthy, 2016) mainly through this dimension, in which the construction of the internal order comprises laws and formal rules, their form of application by custodians, and the fair treatment of prisoners. The rupture of internal order, riots, and rebellions have been considered indicators of a lack of legitimacy in the power relations between the enforcers of laws and rules and the prisoners who should be submitted to them (Sykes, 1974). Also on this plane, as we have shown earlier, the Brazilian experience can contribute to a critical reflection on legitimacy and on building order in prisons and the ways in which ruptures are made explicit. Although this failed experiment of sharing management with prisoners (the Solidarity Committees) in legal and formal terms may have equivalents in other social and political contexts, its developments have led to important transformations in the development of incarceration in the country, given the size and the centrality of the São Paulo’s prison system for Brazil as a whole. One of them was the decisive public support for the reproduction of prison conditions that violated the rights of prisoners, and therefore in the construction of a fragile internal prison order that created space for groups of prisoners to form or be fortified inside the prisons, forge forms of identity, and make claims to represent the prison mass (Alvarez, 2013). More than being just a gang—as occurs in North American prisons—the recent Brazilian experience with such groups saw them establish a regulation of social relations between prisoners that affected authorities’ ability to enforce the formal laws and rules at their disposal, a regulation that expanded even beyond the penitentiary walls (Godoi, 2017). In addition, although they may use coercion, threats, and physical force, these groups claim and, in a way, seem to have succeeded in creating a basis for the justification of their acts, emerging as an effective instance of control and regulation of prison dynamics. Both in relation to the first aspect and in relation to the second, the Brazilian experience suggests some problematizations regarding the question of the legitimacy of order in prisons and some new challenges for current interpretations.

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Paradoxically, the accelerating growth of the incarcerated population in Brazil occurs during the country’s re-democratization process since the mid-1980s, on the heels of twenty years of military rule (1964–1984). There has been a marked increase in the incarcerated population over the past 30 years. In 1988, when Brazil’s new constitution was promulgated, the country had 88,041 prisoners (Salla, 2003); in June 2017, Brazil had a total of 726,354 people deprived of their liberty, of which 226,464 were imprisoned in São Paulo (INFOPEN, 2019). In the same period, the number of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants jumped from 65.2 (Salla, 2003) to 349.78, reaching a rate of 507.88 if we consider just the state of São Paulo (INFOPEN, 2019). During these decades, the gradual restoration of democratic institutions—promoting free elections, the functioning of political parties, the participation of social movements, freedom of the press, economic freedoms, etc. —does not seem to have produced the same effects in the institutions dedicated to the control of crime (police, prisons, and courts). In addition to the direct impact on prison environments and their population, large-scale incarceration leads to other issues. One of them is related to the possibility of legitimizing prisons as a legal punitive resource in contemporary societies (Sparks, 1994, 1995). For Tyler (2010), the indiscriminate use of prisons to punish an ever-increasing set of behaviors, promoting mass incarceration, tends to delegitimize the prison. Another aspect is related to the effects that mass incarceration has had on countries like Brazil, by degrading the living conditions in prisons, increasing tensions, rebellions, and deaths; providing the conditions for the formation of organized groups, which start to exert strong control over the prison population and over prison life; and, furthermore, the social consequences and impact on the subjective plane regarding prisoners and their families, and even on society as a whole. In line with the tremendous increase in the prison population, there is an intensification of violations of the rights of prisoners as a result of overcrowding and the material precariousness of prisons. At the same time, the increase in the size of the prison population was not accompanied by a concomitant and proportional growth in the institutional infrastructure, especially in terms of the prison staff. In this sense, what

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we see is a huge gap in the capacity of state actors to govern prisons, a chasm that widens as the prison population expands (Dias & Brito, 2017). Darke (2013) approached the problem of order in prison through field research carried out at several Brazilian prisons and observed that the structural precariousness of prisons, with a small prison staff, produces a context in which prison routines rely heavily on the participation of prisoners themselves to carry out a series of activities. At the same time, prisoners’ interest in collaboration is strongly linked to the possibility of circulating within the prison establishment and the reduced use of punitive procedures such as solitary confinement. In other words, prisoner participation in the management of prison life is strongly associated with the situation of material deprivation in Brazilian prisons and is effectuated as a result of mutual interest—of the guards and prisoners— in establishing arrangements that produce more accommodation than conflicts. In this way, at the same time that there is an increase in the prison population, we can also note a change in the capacity to establish mechanisms to govern and regulate social relations in prison, shifting from the guards to the prisoners. As we have seen, in the 1980s there was an attempt to create formal and legal procedures (recognized by state authorities) to carry out the shared governance of prisons, including both the prison administration and groups of prisoners, where the recognition of the prison population’s representatives followed certain rules and regulations established by the prison administration itself. This was a brief experiment, soon made impossible by sectors within the State itself, including the prison administration. Subsequently, groups of prisoners such as the PCC emerged who claimed to represent the prison population by also presenting themselves as the Party of Crime, by establishing new parameters in the governance relations within prisons. We are dealing with two forms of governance where the sharing of power, management, and the establishment of order in prisons by prison administrators and the prison population itself is based on distinct relationships between these actors and in the way they agree upon forms of governance. In this sense, discourses around the legitimation and justification of prisoners’ representation in the context of these two forms

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of governance are organized around different narratives: in the first case, a narrative of demand for rights, based on the legal order itself; in the second case, a narrative that denounces the oppression and ill-treatment present in the prison environment, in opposition to a State that represents an enemy that can be fought against by joining the so-called Party of Crime, as the PCC is sometimes referred to. In the first case, there is a commitment to collective action in the struggle for human rights and the enforcement of laws, taking place within the framework of the democratic rule of law and of the acceptable and legitimate practices in this context. In the second case, there is also an emphasis on collective action, but outside of the normative and legal context of citizens demanding the recognition of their rights, supported instead by a rhetoric of “war” against the State, based on the expansion of illegal activities and, therefore, of engaging in criminal activity as a way to fight oppression. Therefore, there are two forms of governance that emerge from this historical experience, characterized by distinct relationships between the actors involved: political groups, the prison population, and prison administrators. In the model of governance proposed by the Solidarity Committees, due to its formal character and the State’s recognition of prisoners as legitimate interlocutors, they sought to guarantee the opening and maintenance of communication and dialogue in the search for solutions to institutional problems. In the form of governance arising from the actions of the PCC, that is, governance by the so-called Party of Crime, the field of dialogue with authorities is barred, due to the assumptions inherent to the narrative that places the PCC and the State in opposing camps. Paradoxically, as we have seen, it was precisely this second model of governance that consolidated itself. Despite the rhetoric of confrontation and war, it is this arrangement that has permitted the São Paulo prison system to have a relatively stable semblance of order during the past 20 years, significantly reducing rebellions and riots, even amid a scenario of worsening prison conditions as a result of the continued practice of mass incarceration. In this way, the PCC has consolidated itself as an essential player in understanding the local forms of governance of prisons. Mass incarceration, the new forms of governance in prisons, and

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the strengthening of the PCC are inextricably linked in the São Paulo prison system. However, the State continues to be formally responsible for the custody of prisoners and for the administration of prisons, and it is necessary that we understand the complex governance that is established under these terms. The construction of order in prisons through the work of the PCC—and of other gangs, in other Brazilian states—is constituted through a mechanism for sharing management spaces (Dias & Brito, 2017), where the government “outsources” to the gangs the responsibility over internal spaces—cells, cellblocks, and yards—while retaining control over the intermediate spaces and the surrounding establishments—administrative areas, prison walls, access gates, etc. This established order is maintained through a precarious balance and is sustained through agreements and accommodations involving the various state and non-state actors, almost always informal and obscure, and oftentimes illegal. In this model of prison governance, prison order is guaranteed even in a scenario of oppression and constant violations of prisoners’ rights, at the same time that the PCC is strengthened and consolidated in the prison space as a locus par excellence for its self-reproduction and, therefore, the self-reproduction of the governance model that engenders in the relationship it establishes with the State.

Final Considerations The difficulty for the prison population to establish itself as a legitimate interlocutor in the sphere of punishment was evidenced by the frustration of the experiment—unprecedented in Brazil—of Solidarity Committees, conceived of as a channel for prisoners to defend their rights and interests in disputes over prison policies. This text presented the hypothesis that blocking this attempt to democratize prisons led to the repression of legitimate demands that were not able to be legalized, legitimized, or institutionalized before society as a whole. These same demands, however, were later appropriated by the PCC and formed the basis of ideological support that allowed the group to constitute itself as an (alleged) representative of the prison population,

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which is how it presents itself today. A representative body that was a byproduct of prison policies and, at the same time, an extremely relevant political actor—although not explicitly so—in the deliberations and decisions around São Paulo’s prison system during the past three decades. In other words, the historical trajectory presented here portrays a phenomenon where prison groups ended up manifesting those very complaints that were used as slogans to end an experiment of formal and legitimate representation (the Solidarity Committees). Prison gangs have become a paradigm for building prison order and governance mechanisms in prisons. In recent years, an expressive number of studies have been produced with an emphasis on the activities of the PCC and its developments outside of the prisons (cf. Adorno & Dias, 2019; Dias, 2013; Godói, 2017; Teixeira, 2009). However, we see that there is still something missing in reflections on the effects and meanings and the role of the gangs’ performance as representatives of the prison population and, as such, in its specific forms of governance. The social, political, and institutional transformations that shaped new forms of building prison order and new frameworks for the relationships between prisoners and administrators can help deepen our understanding of the governance of prison institutions that took place in Brazil, including the significant differences that exist among different Brazilian states—which present different scenarios in terms of the degree of fragmentation of prison groups (which prevails in many states in the Northeast, South, and North regions of the country) or monopolization of power (as is the case in the state of São Paulo). This variable of “fragmentation” or “monopoly,” for example, seems to be a promising way to understand the dimensions of informal governance mechanisms and the more or less violent, conflicting, and stable forms they take (Butler et al., 2018). The accusations that the Solidarity Committees were dominated by the Serpentes Negras criminal group turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy thanks to the emergence and consolidation of the PCC, which profoundly reconfigured the power relations in the São Paulo prison system—and, later, in Brazil as well (Dias & Manso, 2017)—through

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a form of prison governance that lacks any trace of the legitimacy and formal recognition that Brazil at one point in time attempted to build.

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Dias, C., & Salla, F. (2013). Organized Crime in Brazilian Prisons: The Example of the PCC. International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, 2, 397–408. DiIulio, J. J., Jr. (1990). Governing prisons: A comparative study of correctional management. The Free Press. Eribon, D. (1990). Michel Foucault: uma biografia. Companhia das Letras. Faugeron, C., Chauvenet, A., & Combessie, P. (Eds.). (1996). Approches de la prison. De Boeck Université. Foucault, M. (1987). Vigiar e punir: nascimento da prisão. Vozes. Foucault, M. (2006), Estratégia, poder-saber. Ditos e escritos IV . Rio de Forense Universitária. Foucault, M. (2008a). Segurança, Território, População. Martins Fontes. Foucault, M. (2008b). Nascimento da Biopolítica. Martins Fontes. Garland, D. (1990). Punishment and modern society – A study in social theory. Clarendon Press. Garland, D. (2001). The culture of control: Crime and social order in contemporary society. University of Chicago Press. Godoi, R. (2017). Fluxos em cadeia: as prisões em São Paulo na virada dos tempos. Boitempo. Góes, E. M. (2009). A Recusa das Grades: rebeliões nos presídios paulistas, 1982– 1986 . Ibccrim. Goffman, E. (1974). Manicômios, prisões e conventos. Perspectiva. Higa, G. (2017). Serpentes Negras, Pânico Moral e Políticas de Humanização nos Presídios em São Paulo (1983–1987). Universidade de São Paulo. Higa, G., & Alvarez, M. C. (2019). Humanização das prisões e pânicos morais: Notas sobre as “Serpentes Negras.” Estudos Avançados, 96 , 69–88. INFOPEN. (2019). Sistema de informações estatísticas do sistema penitenciário brasileiro. https://dados.gov.br/dataset/infopen-levantamento-nac ional-de-informacoes-penitenciarias1 Jacobs, J. (1974). Street gangs behind bars. Social Problems, 21(3), 395–409. Jacobs, J. (1977). Stateville – The penitentiary in Mass Society. The Chicago University Press. Jozino, J. (2005). Cobras e lagartos – A vida íntima e perversa nas prisões brasileiras. Quem manda e quem obedece no partido do crime. Objetiva. Liebling, A. (2013). Legitimacy under pressure’ in high security prisons. In J. Tankebe & A. Liebling (Eds.), Legitimacy and criminal justice: An international exploration (pp. 206–226). Oxford University Press.

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Neves, D. P. (1993). Políticas públicas: intenções previstas e desdobramentos inesperados. In E. Diniz, J. S. L. Lopes, R. Prandi (Eds.), Ciências Sociais hoje. Hucitec/Anpocs, pp. 45–85. Paixão, A. L. (1987). Recuperar ou punir? Como o Estado trata o criminoso. Cortez. Ramalho, J. R. (1979). Mundo do crime: A ordem pelo avesso. Graal. Rostaing, C. (1997). La Relation Carcérale. Indentités et rapports sociaux dans les prisons de femmes. PUF. Salla, F. (2003). Os impasses da democracia brasileira: O balanço de uma década de políticas para as prisões no Brasil. Lusotopie, 10, 419–435. Salla, F. (2006). As rebeliões nas prisões: Novos significados a partir da experiência brasileira. Sociologias, 16 , 274–307. Salla, F. (2007). De Montoro a Lembo: As políticas penitenciárias de São Paulo. Revista Brasileira De Segurança Pública, 1(1), 72–90. Schrag, C. (1954). Leadership among prison inmates. American Sociological Review, 19 (1), 37–42. Skarbek, D. (2012). Prison gangs, norms, and organizations. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 82, 92–109. Skarbek, D. (2014). The social order of the underworld: How prison gangs govern the American penal system. Oxford University Press. Skarbek, D. (2016). Covenants without the Sword? Comparing prison Selfgovernance globally. American Political Science Review., 110 (4), 845–862. Sparks, R. (1994). Can prisons be legitimate? Penal Politics, privatization and the timeless of an old idea. The British Journal of Criminology, 34, 14–28. special issue. Sparks, R., & Bottoms, A. E. (1995). Legitimacy and order in prisons. The British Journal of Sociology, 46 (1), 45–62. Sykes, G. M. (1974 [1958]). The society of captives: A study of a maximum security prison. Princeton University Press. Teixeira, A. (2009). Prisões da exceção: Política penal e penitenciária no Brasil contemporâneo. Juruá. Tittle, C. R. (1969). Inmate organization: Sex differentiation and the influence of criminal subcultures. American Sociological Review, 34 (4), 492–505. Tyler, T. R. (2010). Legitimacy in corrections: Policy implications. Criminology & Public Policy, 9 (1), 127–134. Wacquant, L. (2001). As prisões da miséria. Jorge Zahar.

Tales from La Catedral: The Narco and the Reconfiguration of Prison Social Order in Colombia Libardo Ariza and Manuel Iturralde

At my father’s insistence, my mother agreed to finish the new cell. You first entered into a living room with an Italian wicker sofa and a matching pair of comfortable armchairs. Then came a dining room fit for six people and a full kitchen with a stove and refrigerator. There was also a wooden counter, where my father said a little yellow bird came every day to be fed. (Escobar, 2016, 221)

L. Ariza (B) · M. Iturralde University of Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia e-mail: [email protected] M. Iturralde e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Sozzo (ed.), Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America, Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5_3

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Latin American Prisons, the War on Drugs and the Emergence of the Narco Most of the literature that discusses the topic of drug trafficking and prisons in Latin America has focused on the impact of the war on drugs on the significant increase of the prison population across the region, particularly since the 1990s (Bergman, 2018; Darke & Garces, 2017; Iturralde, 2019; Macaulay, 2019, 2017; Madrazo Lajous & Pérez Correa, 2019; PNUD, 2013; WOLA, 2010). Incarceration rates in Latin America doubled (107%) during the last two decades. In 2015, the average incarceration rate for Latin American countries was 237 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants, while at the beginning of the 1990s it was 126 per 100,000 inhabitants (Iturralde, 2019, 478). What Pfaff calls the standard theory of mass imprisonment (2017), that is, the assertion that the war on drugs is a key factor in explaining mass imprisonment in the United States, has been regarded by the literature on the subject as one of the key aspects to explain the punitive turn in Latin America and the impressive increase of imprisonment rates across the region since the 1990s. The war on drugs, sponsored by the United States, has pushed for legal and institutional reforms aimed at hardening the criminal justice system to defeat the Narco, regarded as a dangerous and brutal enemy that must be incapacitated. The enhancement of the criminal justice system to fight drug cartels has resulted in longer prison sentences for drug-related offences as well as the restriction of the rights of the accused (for instance, through mandatory pretrial detention and exclusion of early release mechanisms). Also, the war on drugs has prompted the transfer, and adaptation, of US institutions, methods and ideas to Latin American crime control fields. Examples of this are the implementation of the accusatory model in many Latin American criminal jurisdictions and the building of US-style supermax

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prisons to isolate the most dangerous criminals, among them the Narcos 1 (de Dardel & Söderström, 2018; Iturralde, 2019). Many of the studies on drug trafficking and prisons in Latin America have focused on quantitative data to measure the impact of anti-drugs policies on incarceration and overcrowding rates, and have denounced the sharp decline of prison conditions, which constitute a massive and systematic violation of the human rights of prisoners (PNUD, 2013; WOLA, 2010). But more recently, anthropological, sociological and socio-legal studies on Latin American prisons have opened a promising line of research, which focuses on the effect of the punitive turn and the war on drugs on social order and governance in prisons.2 This line of inquiry is based mainly on qualitative studies (based, for instance, on ethnographies, fieldwork observations and interviews) that assess the configuration and transformation of prisons’ markets, social order and power relations. Most of these studies acknowledge the considerable impact that the war on drugs has had on this social order and these power relations. The impressive increase of incarceration rates of people accused or sentenced for drug-related offences has had several effects in Latin American prisons: overcrowding and deterioration of, already poor, living conditions and provision of goods and services; the rising numbers of detained young urban males, many of them with links to drug gangs and different forms of organized crime; the loss of State control and legitimacy, over prisons’ internal order and legal and illegal markets (Ariza & Iturralde, 2020; Darke & Garces, 2017; Gundur, 2020; Macaulay, 2019, 2017, 2013; Peirce & Fondevila, 2020). 1

As we will discuss, the Narco represents the archetypical figure of the Latin American drug baron (particularly from Colombia and Mexico), who is portrayed by popular culture as a powerful and ruthless leader, a self-made man, full of masculine attributes and who answers to no one. Not even the State rules apply to him. In this way, a complete mythology and aesthetic (known as Narco aesthetics) is built around the Narco, who is celebrated in songs, movies, paintings, t-shirts and all kind of merchandise. Colombia’s Pablo Escobar, and Mexico’s Joaquín el Chapo Guzmán are the best representatives of the Narco; several books, movies and TV series have been made about them, reaching a worldwide audience. The popular Netflix series that, in different seasons, tells the story of Escobar and the Medellín cartel, the Cali cartel, and of el Chapo Guzmán and the Mexican cartels, is called, unsurprisingly, Narcos. 2 See, for instance, the thematic issues on Latin American prisons in Service Journal (2017), 229 and International Criminal Justice Review (2020), 30(1).

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The organized groups of prisoners that, through violent and nonviolent means, impose, to different degrees, order and provide legal and illegal goods and services, are also linked to criminal organizations and gangs outside the prison, and may even control illegal markets in the free world. This is the case of street gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and Barrio 18 in El Salvador and Honduras, and of prison gangs, like the Primeiro Comando do Capital (PCC), Comando Vermelho and Terceiro Comando in Brazil (Biondi, 2017; Carter, 2014; Dias & Darke, 2016; Dias & Salla, 2013, 2017; Lessing, 2017; Lessing & Willis, 2019; Macaulay, 2017). Organized groups of prisoners have taken over many of the functions that should be performed by the State and that are key to guaranteeing their government and daily operations, in many instances cooperating with State officials, especially with guards. In other instances, even if there is no open cooperation between authorities (especially at a managerial level) and inmates, the authorities tolerate prisoners’ organization and activities (both legal and illegal) and limit their functions to secure the prison perimeter and to avoid, when possible, outbursts of violence. Inmates’ self-government has proved to achieve stability, and thus to decrease violence and protests in Latin American prisons. But this is a fragile and tense order which may be broken by prisoner groups’ struggles to control markets, exact taxes on other prisoners and exercise control within prison pavilions. Violence, which is high and common in Latin American prisons (Ariza & Tamayo, 2020), may also break out to oppose the attempts of State officials to interfere with the prison social order through repressive measures, like seizure of illegal goods and disciplinary actions against gangs and their leaders. As noted by Weegels (2020), studying the Nicaraguan case, riots in Latin American prisons are not as common as they could be, considering the appalling conditions of prisons and weak State presence. Violence is strategically used by organized prisoners as a tool of political negotiation and pressure to protect their rights and interests against what they perceive as worsening conditions and abuses from State officials, who may also exert extreme violence against inmates (Ariza & Tamayo, 2020). Despite the relevance of the above-mentioned approaches for understanding the intense transformation of Latin American prisons during

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the last decades, under the spell of the war on drugs, little has been said of the instrumental and symbolic role of the Narco in the social order of Latin American prisons, as the archetypical figure that embodies the immense power of drug barons and the cartels they lead. As will be discussed in the following pages through the case study of Pablo Escobar (maybe the most famous, and most violent, drug baron of all times3 ) and La Catedral (the prison where he was held for a brief period), in many instances, the Narco plays similar roles to those performed by prison groups and gangs in terms of social order in prisons, also replacing the State in their government and in the provision of goods and services. Nevertheless, due to his immense power and number of resources, the Narco takes some of the features of Latin American prisons and social order, as well as the latter’s relationship to State authority to a different level. The Narco has also fostered new dynamics, which have reconfigured prisons’ spaces, markets, social order and power relations. In this chapter, we seek to present an interpretation of the transformation of Latin American—and particularly Colombian—prison spaces and social order during the last decades (under the influence of the war on drugs, the punitive turn, and the massive expansion of the prison system) based on the description of what may be regarded as the symbolic, foundational episode of a new prison era: the construction of La Catedral Prison in Envigado (close to Medellín) to hold Pablo Escobar, the leader of the Medellín drug cartel, behind bars. Pablo Escobar was imprisoned in La Catedral for 396 days (from June 20, 1991, to July 21, 1992). If the Central Panopticon’s opening in Bogotá at the end of the nineteenth century (where Colombia’s National Museum operates today), marked the historical attempt to transplant penitentiarism into the local context as a symbol of modernization and formation of the nation state (Salvatore & Aguirre, 1996), the opening of La Catedral , almost a century later, marks the emergence of a peculiar prison culture characteristic of the Narco era. As any other symbol, La Catedral , surrounded by mythology, with all its excesses, represents and transmits meanings, making sense of everyday 3 As is written on the cover of journalist Mark Bowden’s bestseller, Killing Pablo: “The hunt for the richest, most powerful criminal in history.”

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life experiences. Under the power of the Narco of Narcos, La Catedral expressively shows that the modern project that considered prison a technology for disciplining and controlling the body and soul of criminals has found no ground in Latin America. Thus, despite its short duration, the symbolic and material effect of La Catedral expresses the structural features of the historical formation of the prison under the Narco era and helps to better understand the local prison experience. To describe the 396 days of Pablo Escobar’s imprisonment and their resonance in the local prison world, we will focus on the testimonies of some of the subjects who witnessed those events, as well as on chronicles and journalistic investigations. We will sketch the flow of public discourse on La Catedral , and the ways in which it reshapes the local prison experience and imagination. In order to develop our argument, in the next sections we will discuss: (1) In which ways the Narco has reconfigured the space, dynamics and social relations of Latin American—and especially Colombian— prisons, and how these differ from other forms of social order and power relations, like those imposed by prison gangs in countries like Brazil, El Salvador and Honduras. (2) The case study of La Catedral , the prison where Pablo Escobar was held for 396 days and which symbolizes the emergence of a renewed ethos of Narco-led prison dynamics in Colombia. In sync with current times, under the ethics and aesthetics of the Narco, a political economy has developed in Colombian prisons, whereby a fragmented, delegitimized State rolls back most of its key functions (i.e., the provision of security and welfare to its citizens), leaving them to the brutal competition of unregulated markets and power relations. Like different public spheres of contemporary societies, Colombian and Latin American prisons have also been privatized. (3) How La Catedral reflects and enhances two traits of Colombian and Latin American prisons, porosity and hybridity, which also reveals that they are substantially different—rather than a defective copy—of the modern prison project born in Europe and the United States. (4) The material and symbolic effects of La Catedral in the Colombian prison system, whose hybridity and porosity has increased, as market forces and privileged groups outside prisons have taken control of them, while the State retreats.

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The Narco and the Reconfiguration of Social Order in Colombian Prisons The prototypical figure of the Narco (embodied in characters like Pablo Escobar in Colombia and “el Chapo” Guzmán in Mexico) differs from that of prison groups or gangs in the Narco’s extremely personalized and uncontested power: he answers to no one and discusses his decisions with no one. Of course, prison groups and gangs have their charismatic leaders, but, as the literature on the subject has shown, most of these groups were created or strengthened their power within prisons through a collaborative effort, key to maintaining order by consensus—even if, in many instances, this is supported by the real threat of violence. The Narco brings with him a significant amount of economic, symbolic and social capital, which gives him an important advantage when it comes to taking control of the prison. He does this by means of the respect and fear he produces among inmates, or through his actual capacity to deploy extreme forms of violence to exert control. The Narco represents a particular form of the exercise of power and establishment of a special kind of social order within prisons. This reveals, in an extreme fashion, many of the features of social order in Latin American prisons and the role that the State plays there, affecting its legitimacy. It also reveals the ethos of Latin American prisons and the practices that reveal and reinforce it (Macaulay, 2019, 281). In this sense, Latin American prisons are not a defective copy of the modern, rehabilitative and disciplinary ideal originating in Europe and the United States. As Darke and Garces (2017, 3) remark, the region’s prison systems have focused on managing “offending bodies,” socially regarded as threatening, rather than on correcting them. The ethos of incapacitation has been a long-standing feature of Latin American prisons. But incapacitation takes different forms; the Narco prisoners are a good example of a common way of incapacitating those regarded as criminal in Latin America. Depending on their resources, networks and contacts, prisoners have very different experiences of incapacitation, though they also share common features. Since the prison system does not have the capacity to fully provide goods and services to inmates, as well as guaranteeing

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their welfare and rehabilitation, inmates must, to a great extent, fend for themselves. Those who have resources may secure access to the goods and services they require and can even control the markets to provide those things to other prisoners. This is a great source of economic income and power. Those who do not have the resources to acquire basic goods and services, make themselves useful by joining gangs and groups, or performing tasks for them. Thus, a form of cooperative and hierarchical organization between inmates is likely to develop in these circumstances, as illustrated by the cases of Brazil, Honduras and El Salvador. A key part of holding onto power is to monopolize force; therefore, even if these groups apply rules that are, to a great extent, cooperative, violence is always at hand to enforce those rules if needed. On the other hand, the Narco imposes order unilaterally, and the threat of violence is a main component of his control techniques. The power of the Narco (based on his immense economic resources, the armed organization he commands, and the contacts he has) is not only material but also symbolic. It transmits important cultural and political meanings and transforms the space where it is exercised. The Narco has the will and power to reconfigure the carceral space where he is forced to live, providing it with a particular symbolic meaning. Prison becomes his territory, his domain: he is sovereign there and he wants everyone to know it, inmates and State authorities alike. Thus, the Narco displays his power in very expressive and symbolic ways. He transforms the prison, his prison, in different ways. First, he adapts its architecture and security to his needs. Then, he imposes his style, through all kinds of privileges and excessive luxuries; finally, he transforms its dynamics by imposing his power and controlling the provision of certain goods and services. He might have been put in prison by the State, but the Narco’s business and his power will continue from prison, his new territory, his new kingdom. And he has everything to show for it, both to other prisoners and to the State and society. In this way, the Narco aesthetics, characterized by their expressiveness and excess (regarded as kitsch, bad taste and vulgar by a bourgeois aesthetic sense), colonize and transform the carceral space, also building up the mythology surrounding the kingpin and the Narco-world (Larrosa-Fuentes, 2020, 3).

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The Narco shapes and rebuilds the prison and by unfolding his immense power, he copes with imprisonment through its material and symbolic reconfiguration. In his war against the State, the arrested Narco is momentarily defeated but strikes back by conquering the prison field. Pablo Escobar and La Catedral are a case in point.

Tales from La Catedral There aren’t any visiting hours there, darling. Your father has it all set up,” she explained. “They bring us up there in a truck, and we can stay as long as we want. It’s just like a farm. (Escobar, 2016, 212) They listened to music while the kids watched some of the inmates releasing colored balloons made of paper that disappeared into the night’s darkness. And they ate stuffed turkey, caviar, salmon, smoked trout and Russian salad.4 (Salazar, 2001, 293)

In the chapter “Stories from La Catedral ,” from the book Pablo Escobar, My Father, Juan Pablo Escobar, son of the drug lord, describes in detail his experience during the days that the kingpin was held in La Catedral . He recalls that he was with his family and a group of Escobar lieutenants in New York, where he got his father the “twenty-five or thirty warm coats” (2016, 209) he needed to stand the cold of La Catedral . He had already bought two hundred-meter-range microphones, a dozen pens with built-in microphones and a briefcase with a 1,500-m-range audio receiver, among other security and surveillance equipment that his father wanted to have in La Catedral . His son also got Escobar “the famous black, Russian-style fur hat that later appeared in a photo of my father inside the prison” (Escobar, 2016, 211) and that would become an iconic image of the “King of cocaine” behind bars.5 4

Our translation of the original. As with all myths, there are several versions of the same events. According to a journalistic account, the famous Russian hat was a gift from Escobar’s mother, who bought it on a visit to Moscow. Following this version, Escobar wanted to make this hat a symbol of his identity, like Che Guevara’s beret (Salazar, 2001, 292–293). 5

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One of the Escobar’s henchmen took the suitcases from New York to the top of the ridge known as La Catedral , in the outskirts of Envigado, from which Escobar’s prison took its name.6 Though Escobar’s story is surrounded by rumors and myths, a wide version, shared by many journalists, is that the prison’s grounds were Escobar’s property. He specifically chose that place for its strategic location—inaccessible, with a broad view over Medellín, and frequently surrounded by fog (Salazar, 2001, 280). It was also located in Envigado, the area where Escobar was born, lived and made his fortunes. He chose La Catedral as his place of imprisonment and his new fortress, from where he would run his business and defend himself and his closest allies.7 Escobar chose his new residence after he decided to surrender to the Colombian government. More than a surrender, it was an agreement. After a long and bloody confrontation with the Colombian State, the war was taking its toll on Escobar’s finances and organization; many of his men were killed by State forces and his enemies of the Cali Cartel, or they were imprisoned; the US government was pressuring its Colombian counterpart to capture and extradite Escobar to American soil. Escobar needed a respite to rebuild his organization, improve his finances and avoid extradition. Confronting two enemies at the same time was counterproductive, so Escobar decided to reach an agreement with the Colombian government and to continue his war with the Cali cartel. Nonetheless, Escobar had two main conditions: a legal guarantee of not being extradited and a prison of his choice. He got both. The prison was La Catedral and the legal guarantee of extradition was nothing less than a constitutional ban on the extradition of Colombians. By the time Escobar was negotiating his surrender with the Colombian government, the National Constituent Assembly was adding the finishing touches to a new Constitution that would replace the 1886 Constitution. In the final days of deliberation, the majority of the Assembly members voted in favor of the ban. It was only then that Escobar gave himself up. 6

The press and popular culture, half-jokingly, would soon give the name of the prison a different meaning, comparing it to an actual cathedral, for its richness and splendor. 7 Escobar feared two things: that the Colombian government, breaking the agreement it made with Escobar so he would surrender, would take him from La Catedral to extradite him to the United States. But his greatest fear was an attack from his deadly rival, the Cali cartel.

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Widespread rumors said that Escobar paid off several of the Assembly members, or even threatened them, to secure a majority (Iturralde, 2010, 128). After returning to Medellín, Juan Pablo Escobar went to visit his father in prison. Even he, used to the excesses derived from the immense family fortune, was surprised as what he saw was nothing like what he imagined a prison would be. He thought he would have to wait in line, be searched, follow a schedule; he never dreamt that he would be able to stay overnight. In his words, “I felt like I was in a huge theater production” (2016, 214), in which his father’s bodyguards would disguise as prison guards to take care of him. Such a play would be staged all the time, in the whole prison. After Escobar’s escape from La Catedral , the rumors that the government knew but looked away were confirmed. He literally ran the prison. Even though on the outside it looked like an austere prison, it was nothing of the sort. Escobar chose and paid the guards that watched over him; had the military commander in charge of the security ring outside the prison on his payroll; he had a concealed arsenal, a route of escape in case of emergency; he also had access to the control panel of the prison’s electric fence, as well as the lights and alarm systems (Salazar, 2001, 285, 291). Finally, Escobar chose the inmates that could live with him—all of them trusted members of his organization. The word “prison” did not represent that place, shaped by the will of a powerful inmate. As with all mythologies, rumors about Escobar’s power spread and became facts. For instance, respected journalists published, as a proven fact, that Escobar never missed a match in which his football team, Nacional , were playing, and that he sneaked out of prison to watch them play in Medellín, while “police would block traffic to allow Pablo’s motorcade easy access to and from the stadium he had built years before.” (Bowden, 2002, 145). It was also said that, to celebrate his first year in prison with his family and friends, he went to a nightclub in Envigado, and even that he was spotted doing Christmas shopping in a fashionable mall in Bogotá –420 kms from Envigado (Ibid.). Juan Pablo Escobar’s narration of his father’s imprisonment in La Catedral , as well as the imagined or real journalistic tales, illustrates the Narco’s total dominance over the prison space, rules, dynamics and

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symbols. Escobar set the schedule and activities, the visits regime, all under the approval of the compliant prison director. Thus, Escobar routinely fixed football matches where he played with some of the top Colombian star players, and paid beauty queens to party and spend the night with him and his men (Salazar, 2001, 288, 292). The uncontested power of the Narco replaces the rules that, theoretically, should have guided the prison operations. The State’s influence fades together with its legitimacy and only reaches the external walls of the prison—its function being primarily to protect the Narco and his henchmen from external threats, rather than preventing escape attempts. Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of the reconfiguration of the prison under the Narco’s rule was his ability to transform its very materiality. Several authors (Cañas, 2013, 2014; Larrosa Fuentes, 2020; Rojas Sotelo, 2014) have pointed out that one of the most outstanding features of the Narco culture in Colombia and Mexico is the aesthetic experience that it implies. As Rojas Sotelo (2014) points out, the Narco needs to display his power through clear symbols, an iconography that represents his enormous economic capital through an astonishing purchasing power. Such capitalist display of wealth and accumulation gives rise to what he calls Narco aesthetics: a “violent aesthetics of excess and a taste for tacky neoclassicism—baroque and rococo styles consumed in a paroxysm of the eclectic” (2014, 2018). The Narco’s ambition is not simply to display abundance, but to boast the rarest and most precious things, even if it means transforming ecosystems by importing—as Escobar did—hippos, giraffes and zebras to have his own zoo in Hacienda Nápoles (his mythical stronghold, now turned into a hotel-museum), and therefore recreate entire landscapes that fulfill the grandiose image the Narco has of himself and his power (Cabañas, 2014). Thus, Narco aesthetics is based on exaggeration; it is extravagant, noisy, strident; an aesthetic of objects and architecture (Rincón, 2009, 151). The arrival of Narco aesthetics to prison entails the aesthetic transformation of the experience of detention, which in turn, is a political exercise of resistance to the pains of imprisonment. Like the kitsch aspect of Narco aesthetics, which is humoristic and self-aware, Escobar brags about his power and being a tough, wise guy who mocks the State that imprisons him only in appearance. On the walls of his room, Escobar

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hanged a series of framed vintage portraits of himself and his henchmen, representing stereotypical images of nineteenth-century Mexican rebels and bandits, along with Chicago gangsters. He was a Colombian Pancho Villa, an Al Capone, and he was proud of it. In the prison world, we imagine inmates cannot demolish walls, expand their cells or reconfigure the prison space to their image and personality. Pablo Escobar proved that this was possible; in fact, it could be said that his way of defying rules and the pains of imprisonment was actually to eliminate them by making the prison one of the many places he owned and dominated. When Escobar arrived at La Catedral , the press was able to see that it was a standard, austere prison (though significantly better than the common Colombian prison), without any significant luxuries. But once outside the public’s gaze, Escobar completely refurbished the interior and surroundings of the prison. According to Bowden: A bar was installed, with a lounge and a disco. For the gymnasium there was a sauna. Inmates’ ‘cells’ where actually more like hotel suites, with living rooms, small kitchens, bedrooms and bath. Workmen began constructing small, camouflaged cabanas uphill from the main prison. This is where Pablo and the other inmates intended to hide out if La Catedral was ever bombed or invaded. In the meantime, the cabanas made excellent retreats, where the men entertained women privately. Brightly colored, surrealistic murals were painted on the walls and ceilings of the cabanas, as in classic sixties-era dopers’ lairs, complete with black lamps and Surround Sound. Food was prepared for them by chefs Pablo hired away from fine restaurants, and once the bar and disco were up and running, he hosted many parties and even wedding receptions. (2002, 144–145)

Escobar also order the installation of a games room with a poker and three billiard tables; a family cinema where he and his son enjoyed watching James Bond and Charlie Chaplin movies and the football field where he played with the Colombian star players, whose drainage system cost him a fortune. Through such ostentation of power, the Narco escapes the cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment that results from the conditions of

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a system crushed by the weight of overcrowding and lack of resources. The brutal reality of Latin American prisons does not apply to the Narco as a prison subject. He does not suffer overcrowding nor solitary confinement; even if his pavilion is in an overcrowded prison, he will not directly experience the rigors of an overpopulated prison; he will gaze at them from the comfort of his tower. Pablo Escobar is an extreme example of the privileges of the Narco in the prison system; he did not just isolate himself from the horrors ordinary prisoners suffer; he made a prison for himself and to his taste. The description of his “cell-suite” is eloquent enough: My father’s cell had a 250-square-foot living room and then, through a door, a bedroom with a large bathroom, also 250 square feet in size (...). My father’s bedroom was accessed through a wooden door. In one corner was the bed, which had the Virgin of Mercy, protector of inmates, on the headboard and was raised on an eight-inch cement platform so you could see the city from the pillow. On the single nightstand stood a gorgeous, colorful Tiffany lamp. A wooden bookshelf held a twenty-nineinch Sony television and the collection of James Bond movies that we’d started watching together. Beside the window was his office area, with a desk, sofa, a zebra skin decorating the carpeted floor, and a fireplace to alleviate the cold. Then came the bathroom with a bathtub and steam room, a clothing closet, and a hiding place—of course—where he stashed money and weapons. (Escobar, 2016, 216, 222)

This reconstruction of the prison disrupts the orthodox sense of the penitentiary experience in Latin America and the words we use to name it. The very notion of a cell seems to be put to the test because the space that the Narco inhabits far exceeds the legal standards of living space per prisoner—which most of the prison population cannot enjoy.8

8 In the Colombian case, the Constitutional Court has ruled that the minimum standard of living space per prisoner is 5.4 square meters in an individual cell, which nevertheless varies according to the number of hours an inmate stays in his cell—the more hours inside the cell, the larger it should be.

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Permeable Institutions. Latin American Prisons and the Modern Penitentiary Project In the chapter “Complete and Austere Institutions,” of Discipline and Punish (]), Foucault describes the historical consolidation of the prison as the “the most immediate and civilized form of all penalties” (1995, 233). Austerity, as an ethical and sensory experience that seeks the subjective transformation of the prisoner, and completeness, as an expression of the exercise of disciplinary power, which encompasses each and every sphere of daily life, define modern penitentiarism. These two features, which Foucault analyses in the historical context of Western Europe and the emergence of modern capitalism, are the outcome of the historical turn of punishment, marked by the transformation of the relationship between punitive power and the body of the condemned. The rationalization processes that marked the loss of magic in the world, together with the ascetic ethics that characterized the emergence of capitalism in Protestant European countries (Weber, 2001, 1930]), made possible the specific rationalization and bureaucratization of punitive power, now in the hands of technical experts. This meant the replacement of “unbearable punishments” unleashed upon the body of the condemned with a disciplinary technology of suspended rights, which seeks to transform the soul of the offender by changing his attitudes and dispositions, making him docile and useful (Foucault, 1995, 231). The modern prison produced a technical mutation and a new punitive aesthetic. Under the modern paradigm, austerity implies, as a punitive and rehabilitative project, the imposition of a specific mode of existence based on material deprivation, abstinence, probity and mastery over the instincts and appetites. The modern prison imposes a monastic life. This modern discourse, which legitimizes the austerity and privations of prison life, has been discussed by several authors; it was first explained by Rusche and Kirchheimer (2017 [1939]) through the principle of less eligibility; Melossi and Pavarini (2019 [1977]) critically discussed the penitentiary project of turning the prisoner into a subject of pure necessity; Sykes (2007 [1958]) coined the term “the pains of imprisonment,” to describe the social and legal expectations about what life ought to be in prison. Wacquant’s recent narrative of the penitentiary ethos under neoliberalism

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(2009) alludes to the pauperization of the prisoner and his relatives as one of the most devastating effects of prison experience. Modern prison is not expected to be comfortable or to allocate goods and services beyond the essential. It is the minimum, and not the excess, of goods and services that the law tends to regulate; a minimum serving of water; a minimum serving of food; a minimum space to live in; a minimum number of open-air hours. A sentenced person is expected to go to prison to have a hard time. The inevitable retributive dimension of penitentiary punishment means affliction, pain and deprivation. These are marks of the prison experience; a fundamental aspect of the material and symbolic conditions of modern punishment. Affliction, pain and deprivation are also trademarks of Latin American prisons, not so much as the ethos that guides their dynamics and therapeutic aims, but as the outcome of States’ abandonment and lack of care, which result in a derelict system, overstretched and underfunded. These features, particularly during the last three decades, have been coupled with expressive and vengeful social attitudes against criminals, and echoed by politicians who have translated them into punitive policies. Thus, the phrase “let them rot in jail,” so widespread in Latin American societies, is an expression of States’ ad social attitudes toward criminals and the penitentiary treatment they deserve. Nevertheless, as has been discussed, another key feature of Latin American prisons’ dynamics, which also reflect some of the salient characteristics of Latin American societies, is the extreme inequality vis-à-vis access to goods and services through the legal and illegal markets existing in prisons. Depending on a person’s or group’s different forms of capital, access to and control of such markets are deeply differentiated, as is the experience of imprisonment. State presence and legitimacy within prisons is weak, as is its capacity, and sometimes its willingness, to intervene in such markets and the social order and power relations they shape. La Catedral is an extreme illustration of this process. With its material and symbolic excesses, La Catedral is a place where the appetites of the Narco are satisfied; more than a place of confinement, it is a refuge, maybe uncomfortable in some respects, but by no means a form of deprivation; the grandeur of confinement replaces prison austerity. In this sense, it is an expressive form of resistance against the punitive

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will to turn the prisoner into a subject of pure necessity. Pablo Escobar tames imprisonment, and with it, the State. The Narco’s imprisonment is maximalist. But this bravado of excess is only possible because Colombian and Latin American prisons are incomplete, rather than total , institutions. In order to achieve stability, they become porous by tearing down their walls, materially and symbolically, and allowing the outside world to enter prison grounds. The “incompleteness” of Latin American prisons is balanced by their permeability to the outside world and by the absence of the State. In this sense, La Catedral is not an aberration regarding the dynamics and ethos of Latin American prisons, but rather a magnifying glass, portraying some of their features in hyperbolic terms. Goffman refers to permeability as the degree to which total institutions have the capacity to produce a world of their own, ritualized, hierarchical and governed by a single bureaucratic apparatus that seeks to administrate all aspects of life. According to Goffman: “Another dimension of variation among total institutions is found in what might be called their permeability; that is, the degree to which the social standards maintained within the institution and the social standards maintained in the environment society influence each other sufficiently to minimize differences.“ (Goffman, 2009 [1961], 119). Even total institutions are porous entities; to different degrees, they are permeable to exchanges between the inner and outer worlds. In the case of Latin American prisons, they are extremely permeable to the structures and dynamics of free markets and capitalism, which are adapted to the prison social order. The Narco brings with him the resources and drive of a capitalist entrepreneur, which provide him a dominant position in the illegal drugs market and the power that comes with it.

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Understanding Prison Social Order and Government Under the Narco. The Hybridity of Colombian and Latin American Prisons In the case of the Narco era of penitentiarism, one should not understand the incompleteness of Colombian and Latin American prisons in normative terms, that is, as a sign of the “failure” of the modern prison project. In their attempt to characterize prisons in the global south, and particularly in Latin America, authors, such as Birkbeck (2011), develop their analyses in terms of dichotomies that refer to a binary structure of compliance/non-compliance with what are considered essential features of the modern prison. For instance, imprisonment in global north prisons is defined as “the presence of projects for doing something with or to inmates while in confinement” (Birkbeck, 2011, 321), which implies more social organization. Meanwhile, the analytical category fit to describe Latin American prisons is not confinement but internment, defined as the absence of such projects, which implies less social organization. This kind of comparative analyses lose sight of the fact that the prison project, like Modernity, is a sort of globalized localism that is adapted, and transformed, in specific spaces. From the Rasphius in Amsterdam, the workhouses, Millbank and Pentonville prisons in Britain, Auburn and Philadelphia prisons in the United States, or Mettray in France, the modern prison traveled and changed as it was adapted to different contexts, reaching, centuries later, the top of a mountain with a view of Medellín, Pablo Escobar’s city and dominion. Through this long cultural journey, the penitentiary project loses some of its original elements, while acquiring others that are embedded in particular, localized milieus, experiencing a mutation that exceeds static categories. Foucault’s “complete and austere institutions,” which concentrate all spheres of life in a single institutional space, administered by the State bureaucratic apparatus, reproduce and bring together, in an austere manner, all the dimensions that define the experience of everyday life in the free world. In the Latin American context, prisons are basically

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incomplete institutions: in order to function, they incorporate into their internal order structures and dynamics of the free society, like markets of goods and services, which in turn, shape-specific types of individual agency based on the forms of capital mobilized by inmates. A brutal and unregulated penitentiary market will allow the excesses of magnificence and misery, from the Narco’s pavilion, or prison, with its bar, disco, Jacuzzi, where drug barons party with beauty queens and their underlings, to the overcrowded prison yard, without toilets or drinking water. La Catedral is the prime example of the permeability of the material and symbolic structure of Latin American prisons, of the powerful resistance that privileged sectors of the criminal world can exert against imprisonment. In this prison order, extremely unequal, just like the society in which it is embedded, the poor and the dispossessed will be thrown to the periphery of the prison, into the crammed yards, without water, without toilets, to suffer the misery of confinement in all its dimensions. Meanwhile, the power, and fear, that the Narco instills from his privileged position, transforms the carceral space that he colonizes. Latin American prisons embody the hybrid prison, characterized by a juxtaposition of the spheres of the free world with the internal social order of prisons. By replicating structures of the free, capitalist society, such as the market, it produces a specific habitus that defines the agency of prisoners, whose significant actions are shaped by institutional permeability. The equality of prisoners, which in the model of the total disciplinary institution is achieved by the dispossession and mortification of the ego, achieved through the deprivation of free access to goods and services, vanishes in the hybrid prison of which La Catedral is the example par excellence. The absence or weakness of the State, which does not reach the cells, courtyards and pavilions where the Narco, the Pluma, the Cacique, the gang rule, is a key and common feature of Latin American prisons, which reinforces their hybridity. In this sense, Latin American States are “fragmented security states” (Pearce, 2018), whose presence and monopoly of violence is not uniform across the geographical and social spaces, making them highly permeable to the rules of capitalist markets and private interests, of traditional elites or the upcoming social classes, like

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the Narcos. The fragmented State, with its fading legitimacy, cedes the internal government of the prison to these groups, through explicit or tacit agreements regarding the division of labor. Again, La Catedral is an extreme example of the privatization of State power within the prison social and economic orders. As Bowden (2002, 151) asserts: Everyone knew La Catedral was no prison. Effectively, it was a state within the state. The surrender agreement had been a capitulation to violence, pure and simple, a deal with the devil. Still, most of official Colombia were happy to live with it. Pablo was like a dangerous snake that had been driven into a hole. The prevailing attitude was: Before, Pablo Escobar ruled Colombia; now he rules Envigado, so leave him alone.

Prisons are a facade of Latin American States’ rule and legitimacy: from the outside, they look to society as highly securitized spaces, built to incapacitate dangerous individuals, where the State has sovereign power over the bodies and life of prisoners. From the inside, different rules apply— for the most part, the State is only a peripheral actor in the construction of social order, despite keeping the appearance of a bureaucratic institution that enforces disciplinary rules. Another anecdote from La Catedral elucidates this point: The Attorney General embarrassed the President in early 1992 by producing photographs of Pablo’s scandalous luxuries in La Catedral – the waterbeds, Jacuzzis, expensive sound systems, giant-screen TVs, and other goodies. When Mendoza9 investigated, however, he discovered that all of Pablo’s furnishing were legal. They had been stamped and approved in efficient triplicate by his very own Bureau of Prisons. The bureaucrats had protected themselves well. The regulations allowed each prisoner a bed but gave no description of what kind. Likewise with bathtubs. Who could argue that a Jacuzzi was not a bathtub? Under the rules, a prisoner could be allowed a TV set for good behavior, and where did it say that the TV set couldn’t have a well-sized screen with a satellite hookup, VCR, 9 Mendoza was the Deputy Minister of Justice of César Gaviria’s government, and was in charge of building a criminal case against Escobar and keeping him in check while he was imprisoned (Bowden, 2002, 147–149).

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and stereo speakers? The prison system had created a parallel world for Pablo. He lived in the equivalent of a resort, while on paper he was in a maximum-security prison. (Bowden, 2002, 153)

Tolemaida Resort and Other Luxuries: La Catedral Effect and the Reshaping of the Prison Experience in Colombia Pablo Escobar escaped from La Catedral on the night of July 21, 1992. Rumors that he had tortured and executed two of his associates in La Catedral for betraying him reached the press. President Gaviria was forced to act; he ordered Escobar’s transfer to the maximum-security prison of Itagüí, where other members of the Medellín cartel were held. Aware of the movement of troops outside La Catedral , Escobar feared that he would be assassinated or extradited to the United States, so he executed his escape plan. He and many of his men escaped a State maximum-security prison through a hole they had previously made in one of the walls, without firing a shot, walking through the mountain, in the middle of the night (Salazar, 2001, 300). This event, which put the Colombian establishment to shame, was influential in the development of penitentiary policy in Colombia and the construction of US style maximum-security facilities, with their rules, government style and culture (de Dardel & Söderström, 2018). Nonetheless, La Cathedral ’s ethos had metastasized throughout the national prison system. Its privileges, excesses and violence were replicated, on different scales and with different actors, in several kinds of prisons. From high and maximum-security facilities in Itagüí, Cali and Bogotá, that would later hold the surviving members of the Medellín Cartel and the kingpins of the Cali Cartel, to the new Special Detention Facilities (EREs), designed and financed by the US government, which detain politicians, paramilitary and guerrilla fighters, extraditables,10 to the resort-like military prisons, La Catedral effect shaped the material and symbolic structure of the local prison world. 10

Those who were being extradited to the United States.

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A telling example is that of military prisons. On February 4, 2011, national media reported that at the Tolemaida Military Detention Centre, which is in the heart of the country’s largest and most important military training garrison (Ejército Nacional de Colombia, 2020), many of the 269 officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers who were confined there for homicides, massacres, tortures and kidnapping, were entering and leaving the military base at their will, they had business inside and outside the base, and they lived not in cells but in cabins (Semana, 2011a). The press reports explained that the detained servicemen, many of them sentenced for war crimes and crimes against humanity, with the permission of the director of the military detention center, had built their own cabins, some owned restaurants, while others had transportation businesses to move inmates and their families from the detention center to the other areas of the military garrison and the nearby town. As reported in Semana, several of the convicted militaries had their businesses there, such as retired Lieutenant Colonel Orlando Pulido, sentenced to 30 years in prison for La Cabuya massacre in Tame, Arauca, where five peasants were killed on November 20, 1998, including a seven months pregnant woman. The retired officer’s restaurant was called Héroes and offered fast food and à la carte dishes. This report was the result of a journalistic investigation that a few months earlier had denounced that retired Major Juan Carlos Rodríguez, a.k.a. Zeus, held exorbitant parties inside the military prison and enjoyed unprecedented privileges for a military official convicted for drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit crimes and extrajudicial executions. After his retirement, Rodríguez had been the head of security for drug lord Diego León Montoya, a.k.a. Don Diego (Semana, 2008). Through the excesses of Zeus, the trail of the Narco ethos colonized yet another prison, shaping it to the image and preferences of drug lords who, not only do not follow State rules inside prison but create and enforce their own, with the authorities’ acquiescence. Something similar has happened with Colombian political bosses imprisoned for corruption, drug trafficking and having links to drug cartels or paramilitary groups. Though it may be considered a conquest of the rule of law to put these powerful characters behind bars, something that a few decades ago was not common, just like the Narco, they

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use their resources and influence to adapt prison life to their needs, with the approval or complicity of State authorities. Such approval is even legally sanctioned. Law 65 of 1993, the Colombian Prisons Statue, establishes in article 29 (entitled “Imprisonment in special cases”) that different kinds of public servants, including congressmen and members of government, may be imprisoned in “special facilities” outside of prison complexes. In practice, high-ranking public servants and elected officials are held in police or military bases, similar to Tolemaida. Though formally under the supervision of the Colombian Prisons Bureau, they enjoy all kinds of privileges, such as access to the Internet and phones in their rooms (not cells), a gym, chefs to prepare their meals, a more generous visits regime, not being handcuffed when leaving jail for medical appointments (which happens quite often) or judicial procedures. They also refurbish their spaces of seclusion (transforming them into lofts) and hold parties with special guests, alcohol and musicians. A telling illustration of how the Narco ethos is part of prison culture in Colombia and has made its way into popular culture, is that the media refer to the scandalous excesses and prison lifestyle of high-profile and powerful characters, as “La Catedral style” (“a lo Catedral”). The weekly Semana (2011b) magazine revealed the latest of these scandals in an article that was, tellingly, entitled “La nueva Catedral” (the New Catedral ). Juan Carlos Martínez was a congressman imprisoned for his links with paramilitary groups, as part of the macro-criminal process known in Colombia as la parapolítica (parapolitics), in which hundreds of members of Congress and elected officials have been sentenced for their ties with these groups. Martínez was detained with several fellow parapolíticos, in a special annex of La Picota, Colombia’s main prison complex, which holds 8,332 inmates and has an overcrowding percentage of 38.8% (INPEC, 2020). But parapolíticos lived in quite different conditions in their special annex, known as R Sur (Iturralde, 2013). The press was tipped off about Martínez and his room, which he had refurbished into a comfortable loft, and how he threw wild parties, like when he celebrated his 41st birthday. He had 34 guests from the outside, food from the best restaurants in Bogotá (which included shrimp cocktail, seafood rice and pork ribs) and live music. He was not the only one; several of his fellow inmates threw

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parties like this. Indeed, one of the guards of the special annex at R Sur reported that no rules applied there. What mattered was money and power. And most of those who were held there had both, so they could do whatever they wanted. (Semana, 2011b). In the 1990s, during the golden era for Narcos, in Colombian prisons, just like in the free markets, everything was bought and sold; all kinds of goods and services were provided according to supply and demand, to a level unprecedented in the prison environment, allowing privileged prisoners to import their capital to customize their prison experience. It was an extreme form of privatization of the prison space and dynamics, where capital and markets overrode the State. Wars to control such markets, and therefore the prison social order, were waged in different prisons between the same groups that were fighting each other in the Colombian armed conflict. This is the case of the confrontation between paramilitary and guerilla groups in Bogotá’s La Modelo prison, at the beginning of the 1990s, which allegedly resulted in hundreds of deaths, disappeared and tortured inmates, and which now, together with La Catedral , is part of the infamous mythology of excesses and violence in Colombian prisons (Ariza & Iturralde, 2020). During the 1990s, like never before, even common inmates, could find the kind of supply of goods and services that the State could not provide. According to a guard, during those years, a weekend at La Modelo resembled a popular festival. The inmates’ families visited them, bringing with them all kinds of goods, with almost no restrains. Restaurants and shops were open inside the prison to satisfy the customers’ needs; even cattle were brought into the prison to sacrifice them there and then, for barbecues. The flow of all kinds of goods and services that traversed the prison walls was so permanent and intense, that it cannot be described as smuggling. Such a market was a key component in terms of the stability and legitimacy of the prison social order, commanded by inmates, not the State, in what constitutes a self-governing, functioning community (Kalinich et al., 1988). The juxtaposition of the prison with the market society may also be illustrated by a photograph of La Modelo Prison Newspaper, Libres (Free), run and financed by inmates, since 2000:

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Source: Personal file.

The advertisements on the right-hand side and along the bottom of the page are for some of the services offered in the courtyards to the prison population: bakeries, fast food joints, cafes, restaurants, fresh vegetables, meat, chicken and fish markets; photocopy services and a “poetry factory” that also offers laundry services. To add to this list, long before the Constitutional Court admitted the prison population’s right to use the internet,11 in Patio 4 (4th Courtyard) of La Modelo, inmates were offered access to the outside world through 130 channels of DirectTV ( cable TV), with a one-month-free-trial included. The newspaper’s ads that publicize the goods and services that the market has to offer, reveal the hybridity and porosity of Colombian prisons in their capacity to incorporate some of the basic aspects that define a free market society. They also demonstrate a high level of conservation of individual agency, a key component of capitalist societies, which allows inmates to carry out significant social actions that place them in an intermediate, liminal spot, between the prison world and the free society. 11

See, Colombian Constitutional Court, Ruling T-276–2017.

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And, just like in any contemporary capitalist society, there are key players, capable of influencing, or even controlling, the markets. As has been discussed throughout this paper, the most powerful are the Narcos, the high-State officers, and elected politicians, who accumulate different kinds of resources. However, also in the courtyards in which common criminals (los delincuentes sociales, according to prison jargon) are crammed, a Cacique (chieftain) invariably emerges, replicating the Narco’s power on his turf and on a smaller scale. In the area of the prison that the Cacique dominates, all the cells, corridors and communal areas have a price. The Cacique owns these spaces, and he sets the rules, like those of the housing market –the Cacique allocates scarce spaces in exchange of a weekly rent for their use. The Cacique also exacts taxes from inmates and gets a percentage of all commercial transactions in his territory. Like the Narco, but on a different level, the Cacique is the boss of his courtyard, and he exchanges the scarce prison resources he controls for inmates’ obedience and money. His commands are backed by the threat of physical violence, which he displays through exemplary punishments.

The Dawn of the Narco Era and the Political Economy of Colombian and Latin American Prisons Under the spell of the war on drugs and the punitive turn in Latin American countries, the region’s prison system has undergone a deep transformation that has reinforced the historical features of the Latin American penitentiary project, but it has also led it in new directions. As we discussed, the archetypical figure of the Narco has been a key component of such transformation, particularly in Colombia and Mexico, where the most powerful drug cartels have emerged. His immense power and resources, together with a specific type of ethics and aesthetics, have made an impact on the materiality and ethos of imprisonment. At the same time, the dawn of the Narco era in Colombian prisons is the expression of wider and structural changes, not only in the

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government and order of prisons but of Latin American societies, where the forces of capital and unregulated markets replace the State in the provision of goods and services (starting with security). Wherever a powerful Narco, or someone with similar power and forms of capital (like high-ranking militaries or politicians) is held captive, there is a replica of La Catedral . Even though the documentation on the social order of Colombian prisons before the Narco era is scarce, and it is difficult to assess its defining characteristics, it is reasonable to claim that the Narco fostered a new way of dealing with the pains of imprisonment. The Narco has reinforced the hybrid and porous features of Colombian and Latin American prisons, also reconfiguring their economic and social orders, as well as the role played by the State. Very much in line with the neoliberal political economy of the times, a fragmented State, with a deficit of legitimacy, shows a punitive and authoritarian face to fight crime and social disorder under conditions of extreme violence and inequality. But it recoils before the force of capitalist markets that also colonize prison spaces.

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Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD). (2013). Estudio Comparativo de Población Carcelaria, Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo. Rincón, O. (2009). Narco.estética y narco.cultura en Narco.lombia. Nueva Sociedad , 222, 147–163. Rojas Sotelo, M. L. (2014). Narcoaesthetics in Colombia, Mexico, and the United States Death Narco, Narco Nations, Border States, Narcochingadazo?. Latin American Perpsectives, Issue 195, 41(2), 215–231. Rusche, G., & Kirchheimer, O. (2017). Punishment and social structure. Routledge. Salazar, A. (2001). La parábola de Pablo. Auge y caída de un gran capo del narcotráfico, Planeta. Salvatore, R., & Aguirre, C. (1996). The birth of the penitentiary in Latin America: Toward and interpretive social history of prisons. In R. Salvatore, & C. Aguirre (Eds.), The Birth of the Penitentiary in Latin America. Essays on Criminology, Prison Reform, and Social Control, 1830–1940, University of Texas Press, 1–43. Semana. (2011a). Tolemaida Resort, April 2, 2011, https://www.semana.com/ nacion/articulo/tolemaida-resort/237791-3 (accessed July 20, 2020). Semana. (2011b). La nueva Catedral, February 5, 2011, https://www.semana. com/nacion/articulo/la-nueva-catedral/235170-3 (accessed July 20, 2020). Semana. (2008). ‘Zeus’ se confiesa, March 20, 2008, https://www.semana.com/ nacion/articulo/zeus-confiesa/91718-3 (accessed July 20, 2020). Sykes, G. M. (2007). The society of captives. A study of a maximum security prison. Princeton University Press. Wacquant, L. (2009). Punishing the poor. The neoliberal government of social insecurity. Duke Press. Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). (2010). Sistemas sobrecargados. Leyes de drogas y cárceles en América Latina. Washington Office on Latin America. Weber, M. (2001). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Routledge. Weegels, J. (2020). Prison riots in Nicaragua: Negotiating 3. International Criminal Justice Review, 30 (1), 61–82.

Provós, Representantes, Agentes: The Evolution of Prison Governance Arrangements in the Dominican Republic’s Prison Reform Process Jennifer Peirce

At the entrance of almost every Center for Correction and Rehabilitation—the name of the Dominican Republic’s new, rehabilitationoriented prison—the key principles of the UN Mandela Rules (for the treatment of prisoners) are posted prominently. Slogans such as “Working toward Freedom” and “Creating Second Opportunities” bedeck posters. The premise of the Dominican Republic’s “New Prison Management Model” (Nuevo Modelo de Gestión Penitenciaria)—a major prison reform process implemented over the past fifteen years—is that a corrections system based on human rights and rehabilitation principles is both morally right and effective for public safety goals (Coyle, 2003; Craig, 2004). The New Model is widely cited as a reference point and best practice in Latin America (Carranza, 2012; Justice Trends, 2017). J. Peirce (B) John Jay College & CUNY Graduate Center, New York, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Sozzo (ed.), Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America, Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5_4

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A key component of the New Model is a shift in social order and governance of prisons: trained corrections officers and other professionals manage all aspects of daily operations. While this is meant to improve quality, access, and transparency, it does not start with a blank slate; it interacts with and attempts to replace a social order based on prisoner-led governance arrangements in the old prisons. Further, the arrangements in old model prisons have also evolved, in part as a result of increased public scrutiny sparked by the reform process. Therefore, many prisoners and prison officials have experience with the daily operations and the benefits and challenges of different governance arrangements. This chapter recounts the historical trajectories, key mechanisms, and perceptions of how prisoners and staff negotiate daily operations and social order in old and new prisons in the Dominican Republic. It argues that this unique case of coexisting governance strategies demonstrates the need for integrating several current analytical frameworks and typologies of prison governance, in particular those that hinge on economic and political concerns. The old model prisons in the Dominican Republic illustrate a form of co-governance (shared authority), with both material goods and spaces for some participatory decision-making. Meanwhile, the new model CCRs demonstrate the effects (deliberate and unintended) of shifting away from prisoner-led governance and toward full-fledged formal authority management—but with gestures toward participatory spaces. I contend that neither fully achieves the elusive balance of meeting prisoners’ needs for material well-being, a sense of autonomy and voice, and the collective operational order of the prison as a whole.1

1

This chapter draws on and contains excerpts from my doctoral dissertation, From Rulay to Rules: Perceptions of Prison Life and Reforms in the Dominican Republic’s Old and New Prisons (Peirce, 2021).

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Context: A Brief History of the Nuevo Modelo De Gestión Penitenciaria The prison reform experiment in the Dominican Republic began through a convergence of initiatives and visionary individuals in the late 1990s and early 2000s. First, two broader reforms converged: an international aid project to modernize public institutions in the country and the shift from an inquisitorial to an adversarial criminal justice system. Second, a few key players decided to take a chance on using some of the modernization resources to “convert” one single prison. A group of influential people—the British Embassy, a Spanish consultant, the Attorney-General, a few former prison directors, and the former president of the main university (who had himself been a political prisoner in his youth)—merged their political capital and technical resources to build a framework—called the Nuevo Modelo de Gestión Penitenciaria (New Prison Management Model)—and to pilot it quickly in some smaller prison facilities. This model was based on a blend of Spanish and British approaches to corrections and was designed explicitly in contrast to US prison models that emphasize security and technology. After relying on European funding for the first five or six years, the Dominican government institutionalized the New Model into its regular structures and budgets. The reform team then established a brand-new academy for a new staff figure, agentes de vigilancia y tratamiento penitenciario (corrections officers, known as VTPs). A key qualification for this job is to be a civilian—former police and military officers are not eligible due to the repressive role these institutions have historically played in the country. VTP salaries are much higher than police wages (to reduce corruption) and there is a clear professional career path. The training emphasizes human rights, respect, security, programming, and a discourse of rehabilitation. Still, the training and structure of the VTP corps is hierarchical and quasi-militaristic, with officers organized by rank denoted by stripes on their uniforms. Over the years, the new model project gradually converted the old prisons into new prisons, with remodeled or new facilities. The government also built a coordination institution—located under the Director of Prisons (which manages all prisons, including the

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old ones) but with substantial operational autonomy—and was granted a regular budget from the Procuraduria (Attorney-General’s Office). This has caused some tensions between the two sides of the system in terms of public profile and resources, but they coordinate on daily operations fairly consistently. The prison reform process coincided with the shift in the judicial system in the Dominican Republic, from the inquisitorial system to the adversarial system (Hartling & Modesto, 2020). However, these two processes were not closely coordinated in terms of operational rollout. This is evident in the criteria for judicial decisions on pretrial detention and on assigning people to old or new prisons. The new Criminal Code prescribes that pretrial detention should be used only as a last resort and sets out various alternatives—but judges and prosecutors continue to impose pretrial detention because they perceive it to be the least risky option (Peirce, 2020). Judges also have discretion over the prison to which they assign a person with a conviction or in pretrial detention, as well as over decisions regarding transfers (to another facility or the other model), day release permission, or early release. In practice, the decision on where to send a person for detention is constrained by the availability of CCR beds (due to the policy of not allowing overcrowding). In other words, any “overflow” people assigned to prison if the CCRs are full will by definition go to the traditional prisons. On top of this, various extra-legal factors influence the decision, too: influence of the attorneys, bribes, or simply the judge’s view about whether a person would benefit from the CCR programs. Since 2003, the Dominican government has built or renovated 24 facilities, spacious and well-equipped, called Centros de Corrección y Rehabilitación, known colloquially as azulitos for their pastel painted walls. The azulitos by policy cannot exceed bed capacity, and so they hold only a third of the country’s incarcerated population, with the overflow going to the 19 remaining old facilities, which are increasingly overcrowded. Since 2004, the total prison population has ballooned from 14,000 to about 27,000 people—due mainly to rising pretrial detention and harsher sentences. In 2018, the Dominican government inaugurated

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its “Humanization Plan,” which has invested heavily in new infrastructure and training more VTP officers, with the goal of expanding the New Model and CCRs far enough to replace all the old model prisons. Since the governing party switched in the 2020 elections, political dynamics have shifted away from the Humanization Plan. Most dramatically, the Attorney-General who initiated that plan, Jean-Alain Rodriguez, was indicted in 2021 on corruption charges, in part related to the construction of new CCRs (CDN, 2021; Listin Diario, 2021). Nonetheless, the new leadership appears to be continuing to invest in and expand the New Model, with the goal of replacing the old prisons.

This Study—Methods This paper draws on data from a larger mixed-methods project that explores prisoners’ perceptions and conditions, in both old and new Dominican prisons (Peirce, 2021). I developed this project in collaboration with Dominican prison authorities from 2016 to 2019, who gave me access to facilities after several months of discussions. The quantitative portion used a survey of prisoners, adapted from the British survey Measuring the Quality of Prison Life (Liebling, 2004), with some additional content on basic services and the role of prisoner-led governance groups. The qualitative portion used interviews and participant observation. Over the course of about six months in 2017–2018, I visited 17 facilities, some of them several times, for one to three days each; this study is not an extended ethnography of any facility. I excluded women’s prisons and “special population” facilities (for military officers, elderly people, and pre-release semi-open centers). On most visits, I brought two or three students (men and women) from the main university, whom I trained as research assistants. We spent most of our time administering surveys and doing interviews, but we also observed the daily routines, educational, religious, and recreational activities, and shared meals and unstructured time with prisoners and staff. In most visits, our research team enjoyed a significant degree of autonomy and unsupervised conversations in the collective areas of the facility where we spent most of our

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time (patio, chapel, classroom), but our visits to cell areas were closely escorted. The sample for the survey is 1240 prisoners, from 17 facilities of varying sizes (from both models, with about 56% in the old model). I chose participants as randomly as possible from those who were available on the day of data collection in the general population areas of the prison (the patio in the old facilities and various program and recreation spaces in the new model) and willing to participate. Some declined but most were eager to participate. I did not survey people in maximum security, solitary confinement, or women’s facilities, although I did interview people in these settings. We administered the survey on paper, with some people filling it out themselves and others responding verbally, depending on literacy level. The survey also includes open-ended questions—specifically, about positive, negative, and surprising aspects of prison life, preferences for either model, and general comments— and responses generated in conversation between the prisoner and the research team. I also conducted over 150 semi-structured interviews, in Spanish and occasionally in English or French. My interviews with 46 currently incarcerated people lasted between ten minutes to about an hour, since the chaotic social dynamics and schedules often interrupted interviews; some spoke to me in pairs or small groups. Due to some people’s hesitancy to be seen speaking with me alone, I also held focus groups (between six to twelve people each, one with women) with prisoners inside and two with former prisoners. Additionally, I interviewed former prisoners, whom I found through a small NGO in a marginalized community, through the Catholic Church’s official program for people on parole, and through personal referrals. My study also includes interviews with prison facility staff and other key actors, such as government and elected officials, attorneys and judges, academics, journalists, and human rights advocates.

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Prison Governance in Latin America Latin American prisons may appear chaotic to an outside observer, but as significant empirical research has documented, both officials and prisoners use elaborate and evolving strategies for survival and order amid very tough physical conditions. Although basic conditions, such as amount of space, food, and programs, are extremely important, the modes of governance of a given prison vary dramatically even where material resources are similar (Lessing, 2016; Peirce & Fondevila, 2020; Sanhueza et al., 2015; Skarbek, 2020). Governance of prisons in Latin America involves complex relationships between formal authorities, prisoners, and other actors. Thus, simple typologies such as the classic US studies that set out degrees of top-down control (DiIulio, 1987) are insufficient. Understanding prison governance and order in Latin America requires an analysis of how the material conditions, prisoners’ organizations, and staff tactics influence and interact with one another. Birkbeck defines prison management models in part through social arrangements—which encompass formal staff structures, staff-prisoner interactions and communication mechanisms, and informal inmate-led methods of distributing power and resources within the facility (Birkbeck, 2011). In settings where staff have training and autonomy to establish more multi-faceted interactions with inmates and to use professional discretion, prisons are less punitive overall (Cheliotis, 2006; Lerman, 2013; Liebling & Arnold, 2012). Although formal authority is more comprehensive in US prisons than in other regions of the world, it is not total. Prisoners organize to respond to needs that formal authorities do not meet (including protection, illicit products, and dispute resolution), using different modes of centralization and communication, depending on the tactics of formal authorities (Gundur, 2018; Pyrooz et al., 2011; Skarbek, 2014). This perspective differs from conventional analyses of prison violence, which tend to reduce facility management strategies to one factor—degree of strictness in staff authority—along with individual traits of inmates, such as age and criminal history (Blevins et al., 2010; McCorkle et al., 1995; Useem & Piehl, 2006). However, in Latin America, prison governance modes are more diverse and, arguably, more influential than in the Global North. In the

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Dominican Republic, there are only very limited facility divisions by risk status of the prisoner: a few CCRs have “maximum security” areas that are separate. Mostly, in both old and new model facilities, prisoners of all types live together: similar proportion of pretrial detainees versus sentenced people (about half and half ), as well as similar proportions by criminal charge, age range, and education level. Though the size of a prison varies, the material conditions of the buildings and living conditions are relatively similar (apart from the old model / new model difference in the DR case). Given these circumstances, the overall “culture” of a given prison and the ways that both authorities and prisoners manage day-to-day life are more influential than the particular combination of individual characteristics or program interventions. Scholars who have analyzed the relatively disappointing “impact” of training programs meant to improve the skills of formal corrections authorities and to reduce violence inside prisons in the Global South (e.g. in Africa) have underlined the tendency for external observers to discount the role of informal prison governance and culture (Jefferson, 2007; Martin, 2017). In Latin America, researchers have demonstrated the various ways that internally-organized inmate groups run most daily prison affairs (Antillano, 2015; Darke, 2018; Weegels, 2018); these dynamics also exist in other regions (Butler et al., 2018; Lindegaard & Gear, 2014; Narag & Jones, 2017; Piacentini & Slade, 2015; Symkovych, 2017). This is often called “co-governance”or “hybrid” governance (Darke, 2018; Macaulay, 2013). There are several frameworks for understanding these arrangements. Some comparative scholars look at organized groups that coalesce around street-level gangs or organized crime and/or around political identity, and then emphasize how their role inside prisons varies by geographical and political setting (Butler et al., 2018). Skarbek takes a broad comparative approach at the global level, going beyond just “gangs,” and instead bases his typology on if and how much the formal authorities meet prisoners’ basic needs. In cases where they do not, extra-official governance emerges, led by prisoners themselves, with varying degrees of centralization (Skarbek, 2020), depending on availability of information and

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enforcement capacity. The more centralized forms of extra-official governance may include coordinated management by gangs or other structured organizations of prisoners that evolve over time and across facilities (as portrayed in US prisons, see (Gundur, 2018; Skarbek, 2014; Trammell, 2009), and in some Brazilian prisons, see (Biondi, 2017; Lessing, 2015; Nunes Dias & Darke, 2016). Similarly,Sozzo (Sozzo, 2019), referring to Latin America, argues that both the degree of informal authority (of prisoner groups) and the degree of official authority (by state actors) are important, and that different combinations of these two dimensions exist in the region. In other words, highly organized informal authorities can co-exist with highly present formal authorities, through a form of negotiation. Writing about Peru, Pérez Guadalupe & Nuñovero set out a twoaxis framework that is more rooted in Latin American contexts (Pérez Guadalupe & Nuñovero Cisneros, 2019). They argue that prisons can be categorized based on the degree of institutional presence (from “authoritarian,” which means total control as in max-security models, to “abdicated,” where prisoners are warehoused with nearly zero attention from authorities) and degree of dialogue (from “institutional”—extensive and leading to actions—to “apparent,” where officials offer superficial, tokenistic spaces for prisoner input or well-being). This framework is helpful because it emphasizes that it is the substance of the engagement of formal authorities that matters, even if they do not necessarily provide all the basic amenities that one would expect in a North American prison. Therefore, a medium amount of institutional presence combined with sincere institutional dialogue may generate stability and low violence— even if there are vast gaps in basic needs that prisoners fill through other channels, such as families or prisoner-led committees. This is more nuanced than Skarbek’s framework, which assumes a direct relationship between basic needs (material and safety) and the response of prisoner organizations. However, Pérez Guadalupe & Nuñovero do not account in as much detail for the variation in the details of daily living conditions, as they focus mostly on the role of authorities. As the Dominican case demonstrates, prisoners may respond differently if engaged authorities are offering improved water and toilets

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versus if they are offering “rehabilitation” programs and classes—even if both are sincere initiatives. The following section outlines the evolution of governance in the Dominican Republic prison system, demonstrating how a major policy reform—the introduction of the “new model prisons”—affected governance arrangements over time.

The Evolution of Prison Governance Models in Dominican Prisons The reforms in the Dominican prison system affected governance arrangements in both old and new facilities. As the New Model built new facilities and imposed the authority of formal corrections officials (VTP officers) in these Centers for Rehabilitation and Corrections (CCRs), the prisoners and staff in old model facilities took notice—and they often objected. Both prisoners and staff in the old model saw their routine but unofficial transactions cut off, sometimes abruptly. As noted above, the CCRs expanded gradually over more than a decade, one facility at a time, and as of 2019, held only a third of prisoners. The traditional (old) prison facilities remain predominant, but they now exist with the CCRs as a comparison or reference point, for both authorities and for prisoners. Prisoners now hear about CCRs that offer a different set of material amenities, with more formal officer presence. Meanwhile, government officials responsible for traditional prisons must respond to questions from the public, the media, and prisoner advocates about the material conditions and safety/violence levels inside the old prisons—with implicit or explicit comparison to the CCRs. Leaders remained collegial in the public discourse, but old model officials had to do more work to demonstrate action and change in reducing corruption and poor conditions in the remaining old prisons.

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From Provó to Representante: Governance in Traditional Prisons During this time period, the social order arrangements in the old model facilities have evolved from fully inmate-run to partially inmate-run. Within the governance frameworks described above, this represents a shift from “abdicated” governance—near-total absence of formal authorities—to “co-governance” arrangements, with significant variation by facility. In the Dominican old model prisons, guards (police and military officers) typically remain only on the periphery of the facility. Their role is to prevent escapes and riots, but not to be actively involved in the social order of day-to-day life inside. More than ten years ago, old model prisons (known colloquially as rulay, a term loosely akin to “street life,” with the implication that “anything goes”) were entirely the domain of inmate provós (leaders), who ruled primarily by force and fear. This leader gained power through controlling illicit economies (particularly drugs, but also licit goods like food and clothing) and overtaking rival leaders through actual and threatened brute force, often leveraging outside street-gang connections. Such men were colloquially called tigres—a reference to using brute force to gain power. The provó had no incentive to promote positive activities among other inmates, except to keep people occupied and calm. As one current staff member of an old model prison said, “Yes, in truth the prison was a myth, as they say, it was a war zone. Like, in La Victoria prison you couldn’t walk like you walk around now. I’ve been visiting that prison since I was 13 years old and back then it was not what you see now. You walking around like this? No. You couldn’t. The police only guarded outside.” The formal authorities did not care much how a provó ran the facility, as long as there was minimal media attention and a sufficient flow of bribe payments to officials. For some, this meant extensive privileges. One formerly incarcerated person told me about this time: “Yes, I myself would leave every so often. People left as they wished. It was a time of terror, terror, one had to be armed, had to belong to a group, to a gang, to a well-known neighborhood, to be calm, and even then, the guys from your own circle who had more power would abuse the weakest one.” A

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police officer described the era in terms of the corruption: “So, before, it was harder, right, because the Prisons Directorate had less resources. So, the police, for whatever thing, sometimes prisoners would escape in coordination with judicial and prison authorities. Many colonels and generals made their retirement off of that stuff ”. Despite the incentive to keep bloodshed low to fend off outside scrutiny, riots and homicides among inmates were relatively frequent, as this was the primary way that other prisoners attempted to overthrow a provó and take over the role for themselves. In the words of one former resident of the country’s largest prison said: “That was an epoch of terror. You had to be armed, to belong to a gang, to a neighborhood group. Now, the police control things, and the control is to keep things clean for business.” As the media coverage of these incidents of violence started to increase, prison authorities were under pressure to “get control.” As the new model prisons were expanding—and enjoying positive and extensive media coverage—the old model prison authorities sought to counter the narrative that the rulay prisons were “hellish” or “disasters”. Although the expansion of the new model facilities was never framed as a competition between the old and the new facilities—everyone acknowledged that the new model facilities benefit from vastly more resources—there was more scrutiny of how authorities were running the traditional facilities. In my interviews, most officials from both models underlined that there was a widespread perception that staff in the old model, at headquarters and at the facility level, participated in corruption and neglect. According to new model staff, this is a valid reason for barring such staff from being hired into the CCR management roles. In contrast, old model staff saw this as an unfair generalization, even if they acknowledged that some individuals may have been corrupt or neglectful. Many old model staff expressed frustration with this broad-brush characterization and explained that they sought to demonstrate their competence and creativity by improving conditions in the rulay prisons, even under difficult circumstances. In this context, according to officials who participated, officials responsible for the traditional model sought to increase their presence and influence inside facilities governed by the provó system, with the goal of reducing violence and offering more programs and better conditions.

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Gradually, the prison authorities identified the “power brokers” among inmates, civilian prison staff, and police/military guards and mapped out interests and incentives. Using this information, they established “prisoner committees” and nominated Representantes. These individuals became a kind of intermediary between facility-level prison directors and a given sector or cell area; one high-level staff said it’s “collaboration between authorities and prisoners.” Another official commented that they began by asking the Committee to coordinate visit day and cleaning issues, and then gradually expanded the list of tasks. According to both prisoners and officials, the selection of a Representante required nomination by formal authorities and also agreement or endorsement by the prisoners in his sector or facility. For example, one prisoner told me that prisoners would gather for a meeting and express their agreement (or dissent) for the selection of a given nominee, voting with their voices or raised hands. Representante is the government’s term; prisoners usually call this person the jefe de la cárcel (chief of prison). If there is a prisoner who has de facto power in a sector of the prison— whether as official Representante or not—and is not cooperating well with the authorities’ goals for the Committee, the headquarters will move him. “This allows us to manage the system at the national level … We took one [prisoner] out of La Victoria some months back where there was this type of management, a [prison] leader that was someone with some power, and there was fear … When I proposed [transferring him], they said, “you’re crazy,” and I said, no, he’s crazy. And he leaves.” This process of establishing representantes involved transferring some people to other facilities, which, according to officials, was a strategy to ensure that the selected individual had a “positive” influence with the prisoner population. Prisoners explained to me that the representante typically had several traits: a longer sentence (often over 20 years, usually for a homicide or organized crime charge), significant “weight” with prisoners (implying respect in the street), literacy, and the ability to communicate and negotiate respectfully (some added that this means not having a fiery temper). It is notable that, by and large, street gangs do not have a major presence in Dominican prisons. Local gangs are active in marginalized neighborhoods in most cities—they are called naciones—and people spoke to

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me openly about their affiliations (e.g., the Trinitarios, the 42 s, Latin Kings). They all emphasized, though, that there is an expectation that inside prison, people will respect the existing arrangements per facility— such as the inmate committee and representante—and not prioritize their gang affiliations or obligations. Many interviewees said that the naciones “do not operate” (“no corren”) inside or “lower their flag.” However, since gangs tend to be geographically local and people are usually incarcerated in a facility near to their residence, the reality is that many people in a given prison do have ties to these local gangs. This lends some coherence and a sense of familiarity, but also local conflicts can nonetheless spill into intra-prison life. As one prison staff member said, “We don’t want gangs or groups here … You guys are friends from the block, OK? It’s justified to defend yourself, since if I can’t provide you food maybe your friend can, OK, so that’s a survival instinct, but with regard to the rest of it [gang dynamics], no, I don’t think so.” The fact that most old model prisoners have cell phone access and visitors usually circulate freely through the facility means that the walls of prison do not actually block out the dynamics of home communities. The representante system is based on an informal agreement; nothing is official or written. But the exchange and expectations, based on my interviews and observations, are quite clear and similar across facilities. According to both prisoners on Committees and prison staff, the authorities quite openly provided a set of resources to each Representante. At the individual level, these include privileges of access to administrative areas of the prison, fewer restrictions on visits, a single cell, a formal “good conduct” letter for a parole application, and perhaps a cellphone or payments (accounts on the latter two were less consistent in my research). At the collective level, the representante (and his delegates or committee) generally have partial or full control over disciplinary decisions and other inmates’ access to certain activities, funds for improving the facility conditions, and sometimes a measure of influence over decisions about other prisoners’ transfers. In exchange, the Representante sets up and manages a “Discipline Committee”—made up of other prisoners, usually—that handles dayto-day order and hygiene, addresses disputes among inmates, and doles

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out consequences for rule-breaking. In one larger facility (over 500 prisoners), interviewees told me this was twenty or thirty people, “people with capacity”; in another of similar size, they told me there were fifty people on the committee, whereas in a smaller facility, the committee was ten or twelve people. The Committee has a “delegate” for key tasks, such as collecting fees, doing headcount, food logistics, visitor access, and others. In practice, the Committee also serves as a regulator for the drug trade inside the facility, including negotiating fees and kickbacks to police officers and civilian staff. One former prisoner, who was incarcerated during the period of transition from provó to representante, said: “They need the help of the prisoners to impose discipline. The authorities know that the police alone can’t do it.” The Committee sets rules for basic daily operations, such as how collective lunch is distributed and how the patio space is organized on visitor days. There is an economic organizational role here, as the old model prisons have complex economies. First, the Committee collects a weekly limpieza fee (a euphemism) from each prisoner, like a tax. In my survey, the average amount of this fee was 25 pesos (about fifty cents) per week, plus occasional “special fees” for initiatives like repairs or holiday parties. Within the broader prison economy, the Committee also enforces interpersonal economic obligations, such as paying for sleeping areas, sales of goods and services (licit and illicit), etc. There are rules to control “bad behavior” —for example, to limit fighting, stealing, snitching, and disputes over women. Many people used the term “mediators” or “judges” to describe this function. The Committee runs a kind of tribunal, to address and mediate conflicts and infractions. It sometimes issues punishments for infractions—ranging from mandatory chores to a fine to a few hours or days in the isolation cell to a beating. For example, in one facility, prisoners mentioned that a common punishment was removing an individual’s belongings for a fixed period. In another, prisoners said that beatings (“dando golpes”) occur either in the basketball court or holding someone in the isolation cell. The prisoners generally respect and follow the rules and systems set by the Representante, as long as they perceive that the benefits they receive—tranquility, order, protection from theft, contract enforcement—are worth the fees they pay and the restrictions/rules they must

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follow. One formerly incarcerated person described the Representante system positively: “It was a marvel, because before you get to the point of fighting, the representante shows up and mediates so that there are no problems.” Another said that the mediation is “absolutely necessary … since conflicts can even lead to deaths.” In my interviews, one of the most common comments was along the lines of “if you obey the rules, you can live quietly.” Some prisoners expressed frustration at some of the inequitable standards of rule enforcement, suggesting that prisoners with more power or resources had fewer rules, but they still generally viewed the Committee system as necessary. Moreover, many prisoners spoke about fearing the harshness of punishments, which often involve violence, while simultaneously describing this system as justified. One older man recounted, regarding the Committee delegates, “In the traditional prison, one lives with tension … We had 70 armed men to be able to maintain discipline, in each cell area. Yes, many times some of those men would do inappropriate things.” The other way that the Representante and his Committee establish adherence and order is through offering improvements to collective conditions of prisoners, using resources drawn from both prisoners and formal authorities. The old model facilities are extremely overcrowded— as of 2019, ranging from 150 to 700% over capacity. According to my survey, 72% of prisoners paid money for their sleeping space, whether a floor space or a “goleta” (box-like private bed stacked against the wall), and only 30% sleep on any type of bed. Further, prisoners or their families pay out of pocket for food and hygiene products, since very minimal supplies are provided by the administration. Access to bathrooms and water is scarce, with a typical cell sector having one crude toilet for dozens of prisoners and one or two water taps. My survey found that the average amount of out-of-pocket money a prisoner spent per month inside prison was $124 US—which is about two thirds of minimum wage in the country. Prisoners must generate these funds by selling or stealing goods or services inside prison or by donations from their families or other people on the outside. Generally, I observed that Representantes and Committee members lived in nicer goletas or even in cell spaces that were more like a private room, with a door and more amenities.

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Given this burden, any alleviation of the harsh prison conditions has a major impact. The official authorities and Representantes, in several old model prisons, according to my interviews, organized significant infrastructure improvements, such as installing electric wires, water taps, or even expanded cell/bed areas. In one facility, prisoners told me that the Representante persuaded the authorities to fix the electricity. In another, a prisoner recounted admiringly how, five years ago, the Representante collected over 20,000 pesos (about $400) toward the construction of a school and assigned twenty prisoners to do the labor to build it. In another facility, the prisoners uniformly lauded the jefe because he had collected funds (a “special tax”) from inmates and, in collaboration with the prison administration, bought materials to install new toilets and running water. In both cases, these improvements build positive perceptions of the administration and of the Representante, with an emphasis on the Representante’s ability to negotiate and organize the process. One prisoner said “We have the #1 chief here” due to improvements in food and reduced violence. In other words, these material improvements counterbalance some of the harshness, costs, and favoritism of the Committee system and some of the neglect of the formal administration. Another important function of the Committee is discipline and enforcing rules. There is some variation across facilities, but typically the Committee has a kind of “hearing” for more serious or complicated cases, allows the involved parties to speak, and determines a type of verdict and punishment. The lighter consequences may include removal of some privileges (such as access to sales activities or sports), a fine, cleaning duties. According to prisoners, the jefe or Committee may impose these for lighter infractions without a hearing. For more serious breaches, the most common punishments are either a beating or time in the solitary confinement cell. In my survey, in traditional facilities, about 20% reported experiencing some type of discipline or punishment. Of these, 37% of prisoners reported having experienced beating, compared to 46% who had spent time in solitary confinement. In Dominican prison slang, the isolation cell (solitary confinement) is usually called la plancha—the grill—because in past eras, the primary discipline tactic was to tie a prisoner to a board and let him bake in the hot sun. This then shifted to a punishment “cell,” which can also

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be extremely hot or uncomfortable. Further physical punishment sometimes occurs inside the punishment cell; answers most frequently listed in our surveys were: beatings, stabbings, and deprivation of food and water. In some cases, it also serves as a temporary protection space or as a place to isolate people who are deemed as dangerous to the general population. For example, in two old model facilities I visited, the person inside the punishment cell was very visible, with a metal door or bars. In both cases, the prisoner Comité members told me that the person was “crazy” or “deranged,” had a history of violence against inmates, and posed an ongoing threat. The Comité said they had no choice but to keep him indefinitely in the plancha. Both facilities also had other plancha cells for shorter punishment periods, used at the discretion of the Comité. In general, though, conversations about discipline in old model facilities focused far more on the threat or use of violence and the removal of privileges in the social order. One prisoner I spoke with summed up his strategy for surviving inside as “He who lives straight walks straight.” In other words, if you follow the rules, you avoid trouble. The governance arrangements of the traditional model prison rely on most prisoners buying into the explicit and implicit rules of behavior and enforcement mechanisms. On the whole, a surprising proportion of them expressed some support for the Comité system, mostly with one of the following reasons: the rules are clear so one can choose to avoid trouble, prisoners participate in the decisionmaking in some ways, and / or that the tension is worth it due to the relative degree of liberty inside the prison.

Agentes De Vigilancia Y Tratamiento Penitenciario: Governance in the New Model CCRs The basic premise of the governance model in the CCRs, at least on paper, is robust presence of official/formal authorities (VTP officers and civilians) and robust provision of amenities, programs, and opportunities—importantly, at no charge and impartially, all in line with modern management processes. The theory is that by treating prisoners with decency and a rehabilitative ethos, they will not need to resort to illicit

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or confrontational behaviors, and they may even learn behavioral change that will benefit them after release. In the early days of the New Model facilities, the leaders of the reform team developed strategies for the “conversion” of a traditional prison into a CCR. A key challenge in this process was confronting and dismantling the negotiated co-governance arrangements between the Representantes and Committees and the facility officials. According to early leaders, they decided it was not possible to retain a portion of the co-governance arrangements or any individual actors, given the extent of corruption and illicit transactions. One of the pioneers of the New Model told me, citing the United Nations and British corrections expert Andrew Coyle, …a prisoner cannot have any kind of decision-making capacity over fellow prisoners. This is a golden rule. … In the educational space and the space of other occupational activities and spiritual activities sometimes, there they can suggest … the professor can create groups like on the outside … in that group doing that project, that seminar, there could be one who coordinates. But to have levels of coordination inside the prison, this is terrible. Very specifically, in the living spaces, this is grave, grave. In the living spaces, I mean in the cells, pavilions, blocks, buildings. It’s grave to hand over authority to a prisoner over others, very grave.

When the team opened a new CCR, they typically transferred most of the prisoners—those not in the Committee structure—to the new building quickly and attempted to gain their favor through the vastly improved material amenities, offered for free. Then, they had to assess the Committee members and Representante on an individual basis, to determine which ones were willing to reside in the new building as generic prisoners without any special role. In the case where the New Model leaders decided that an individual prisoner would cause too much disruption or challenge the new arrangement, they would either transfer him to a different CCR where he had fewer connections or would decide to leave him in the traditional model, in another facility. One former official described the challenging experience of transferring the first group of women prisoners who moved from a traditional facility to a CCR.

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When we took them out and were coming for the transfer, I remember we entered the prison with them, and they were there with mouths open, because if you had a cell like your own house, with your night table, TV, with three other prisoners under your command, who did your ironing and cooking, and then you come into [the CCR] with your bag [suitcase] and they tell you, you’re in bed 107, it’s yours, floor 2, they didn’t believe it. The first night with all of them supposedly sleeping, we got the call about the first riot the women did.

Overcoming this initial resistance to the change in the privileges of the prison conditions required CCR staff to be deliberate about who moved to which facility and when. In this sense, at the beginning, the selection of people in CCRs, at least in the initial stages, is not random or comprehensive, even though most prisoners are transferred without incident. The CCR management strategy relies on the formal authorities providing full supervision and coordination in all areas of daily life. Each facility has a director and deputy directors for security, treatment, education, legal issues, and administration, each with a staff team. The VTPs specialize into roles, including perimeter security, transfers of high-profile prisoners, admissions, searches, overseeing certain dormitory or activity areas, etc. Some have additional training and work in educational or psychological treatment programs or in administrative roles. Only those in perimeter security and prisoner-transfer roles carry firearms; those in other roles carry only small batons. The rules are clear, posted on walls, and procedures are spelled out in an Operations Manual. Routines are scheduled into 30-min increments and VTPs shift prisoners from one program area to another in organized lines. The CCRs do provide vastly more basic conditions and amenities— but they are not always 100% available or completely free of charge, in practice. In general, CCR prisoners had full access to clean water, toilets, and three meals a day at no charge. There were significant complaints about the quality and quantity of food, however. In my survey, this was the most common complaint about the CCR facilities, with over 30% describing it as “bad” and another 60% describing it as “mediocre.” Since people have the option to purchase outside food in traditional

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prisons, the rule against doing so in CCRs means that prisoners do not have the opportunity to supplement their food intake out of pocket, except through a limited and expensive commissary. In terms of sleeping space, there is no charge for a bed space. According to my survey, 88% of prisoners slept in a mattress, with the remainder citing shortages of supplies in certain facilities. In a few CCRs, prisoners reported having to pay for mattresses or sheets, again due to supply shortage. They also expressed frustration about having to purchase other essential products only through the administration’s channels—items such as clothing, hygiene products, medicine—with limited options for their families to find the best price or version outside the facility. In the new model facilities, prisoners generally describe the overall social environment in terms that imply less overall violence and fear: orderly, safe, tranquil, and regulated. In interviews, they attributed this difference due primarily to the much more extensive, structured, and well-resourced work of prison staff in new model facilities. The staff are involved in all aspects of daily activities, from leading programs to imposing discipline to sharing leisure time with prisoners. I regularly observed VTP officers, including senior ones, spending time playing cards or dominoes or basketball with prisoners and interacting socially in a friendly manner. This is in stark contrast to US prisons—where officers are almost always in control/surveillance mode—and to old model facilities, where staff interact with prisoners mostly only for gate control. Further, daily life in CCRs is generally quite full and regimented, with time blocks for morning and afternoon activities, meals, daily counts, etc.; VTP officers ensure circulation of groups through this daily routine. In interviews and surveys, prisoners almost all said that the Representante and Comité system does not operate in the new model facilities, except for a designated inmate per cell who is responsible for assigning cleaning tasks each week. One focus group participant explained: I can answer this because I’ve been in the two [models]. Here is better, because in the public [traditional], the chief, when you pay him, you’re paying him to do a job. The chief has people in the street. For example, if I’m here and the chief. And if he [a fellow prisoner] wants to know something about his case, I charge him and I call my assistant outside to

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go and investigate that, because he’s paying. [Here] we cannot pay because the state pays, but nor can we tell [someone] what to do. For example, he’s been in prison for 8 months, but they gave him three months [of pretrial detention], and he’s almost at 8 months and doesn’t know the reason for this length of time. The legal officer [of the CCR] is there for that, to call the prosecutor and tell the Attorney General’s Office, tell the accused person who is his assigned lawyer and what’s going on with him.

There is a sub-rosa economy among prisoners in CCRs—particularly with respect to drug sales and cellphone access—and the accompanying violence that sometimes flares up over disputes and debts. But most prisoners in CCRs report that illicit goods and violence among prisoners is minimal, due largely to the constant surveillance by VTP officers. Further, prisoners who are “notorious” (famous) or part of organized crime are typically held in a separate block in maximum security conditions. Nonetheless, I observed that some prisoners in the regular cellblock areas enjoyed some additional privileges—autonomy, access to more resources—if they joined religiously-based “good conduct” or “therapeutic” sectors. VTP officers spoke plainly about the fact that members of these groups enjoyed more trust from officers, due in part to their shared religiosity. Discipline in new model CCRs is a central pillar of the work of the VTP officers. Indeed, more new model prisoners experience serious punishment more than old model prisoners, according to my survey: 46% of new model prisoners, compared to 21% in old model facilities. Staff in CCRs have a process set out in their manual, including a type of tribunal called the Comisión or Junta de Evaluación y Sanción, composed of the prison director, a security officer, a psychologist, and an educator (but no representative for the inmate). According to CCR staff I interviewed in a larger facility, the Junta typically meets once or twice a week, and reviews from five to twelve incidents per meeting. The scale of consequences ranges from a verbal reprimand to removal of certain privileges (most commonly, phone access and conjugal visits), with the most severe punishment being a month in solitary confinement or a transfer of up to 60 days to another facility. The Junta also imposes the threat of

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not achieving a “good conduct status” for future parole applications or applications to work-release programs, according to one focus group. Even though international prison standards emphasize drastically reducing the use of solitary confinement,2 the new model CCRs use a form of solitary confinement quite extensively: 46% of survey respondents reported having spent time in solitary confinement (more than twice the proportion in rulay prisons) and the median length of time was 25 days. The new model staff call this isolation cell the “reflection space” or espacio de reflexión, implying that it facilitates internal thinking and change by the prisoner. The permissible sentence is one to thirty days, and if an inmate “reoffends,” additional periods of stay may be added. One prisoner described the Junta’s process as such: They have a council, among themselves like a court, you go, they sit you down, ask you what happened, how was it, and they tell you to leave … They ask you “what are you here for?” [and you say] “well for drugs, or because I slashed so-and-so.” They take that into account and tell you thirty days in reflection, or fifteen, whatever.

The physical cell space is moderately more humane than in the old model, and prison staff may permit access to programs (but often do not). Still, prisoners report that people are put in “reflection” for other behavioral objectives, not just punishment for infractions. For example, I heard anecdotes about VTP officers putting prisoners in the reflection cell to detox from a drug addiction, to “encourage” school attendance, and to separate people who have mental breakdowns or suicide attempts from the general population. The fact that CCR prisoners refer to this cell as the plancha (the grill) implies that they see it as equivalent to the isolation cell in the old model. Most prisoners saw the isolation cell as justifiable punishment for certain rule infractions, but almost all shared the view that the VTP agents use the reflexion space arbitrarily, for even small slights. Notably, prisoners in the new model facilities talk about a significant amount of violence committed by prison staff, specifically those 2 For example, the UN Mandela Rules cap stays at 15 days and prohibit this for certain vulnerable groups.

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who are in a security role (rather than a role such as teacher, psychologist, or administrator). Officially, staff in the new model facilities are not permitted to use violence as a disciplinary tactic; the operations manual specifies sanctions against any staff member who does so. Yet, in the new model facilities, prisoners widely report that security officers use violence, mainly for this purpose. For example, one prisoner told me, They hit you, mistreat you. Supposedly if this is a rehabilitation center, they have a repressive part, punishment, which is to isolate you for 1 month, 2 months, a year, six months, ten days, fifteen days. One supposes that’s there so that [an officer] resists the mistreatment of a person. So I say, if they’re going to mistreat you, beat you, they should drop the isolation cell, and that’s it. If they have isolation, I believe they should not be hitting people.

The governance strategy in new model facilities contains contradictions. On paper, it relies on a modern corrections and rehabilitation logic and transparent, orderly procedures, with clear delineations of roles for officers and no role for prisoners in day-to-day management. In practice, it is clear that officers sometimes break procedure and employ arbitrary and/or physical force in their efforts to keep order. While material conditions are relatively similar for all prisoners, there are some groups who enjoy slightly better conditions and/or more autonomy in their activities. Prisoners generally appreciate the free and equitable access to basic amenities but complain fiercely about the shortages and the officers who misuse their authority.

Discussion: Integrating Conceptual Frameworks of Prison Governance The Dominican prison system provides a unique window into significant changes in governance arrangements in prisons that feature the usual characteristics of Latin American prisons. Due to the reform process over the past two decades, as well as changes in prison conditions, authorities have sought to alter how prisons are managed. This occurred through

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robust, direct interventions that aimed to dismantle and replace the previous arrangements (in the case of the CCRs) and more gradual, negotiated adjustments to infuse more formal authority into shared arrangements with prisoners (in the case of the traditional prisons). The Dominican case study helps to illustrate the importance of integrating two prominent conceptual frameworks of prison governance in the research: Skarbek’s theory of official / extra-official and centralized / decentralized governance, and Pérez Guadalupe & Nuñovero’s theory of institutional presence and degree of dialogue (Pérez Guadalupe & Nuñovero Cisneros, 2019; Skarbek, 2020). In the traditional model Dominican prisons, the provó era is a classic example of one extreme in both frameworks. In terms of institutional presence, it is toward the “abdicated” end of the spectrum, as formal authorities only guarded the gates. Due to this neglect, the official governance system did not provide sufficient goods and protection, so extra-official governance flourished. The provó maintained a fairly centralized grip on power over key areas—assignment of living spaces, movement of bulk goods, the drug trade, weapons, and discipline. His power over economic activity and ability to control information and enforcement mutually reinforced one another, in line with Skarbek’s theory. But prisoners also participated in highly decentralized forms of self-governance, organizing delivery of small amounts of food and other goods through visitors, setting and enforcing daily behavioral rules at the cellblock level, and generally surviving autonomously at the micro level where less profit was at stake. Finally, in this era, there was no effort by authorities to develop dialogue with prisoner organizations, except for coordination between certain police/military officers and the provó directly. Thus, while this dialogue was real, it does not represent genuine institutional engagement with prisoners’ concerns in the way Pérez Guadalupe and Nuñovero posit. When the formal authorities decided to develop more presence and authority inside traditional systems, they did engage in dialogue with prisoners (not just the provó) about the daily operations and needs of hundreds of men in any given prison. Although it seems that formal authorities determined the design of the Representante system and the allocation of roles and resources unilaterally, they did also make room

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for substantive input from prisoners in terms of the selection of Representantes. Still, this dialogue is not comprehensive or equitable, as once the Representante is selected, the authorities negotiate primarily with him and his Committee, not the prison population at large in some quasidemocratic way. Furthermore, they increased the presence of formal staff in the day-to-day activities, in particular through visible infrastructure improvements and some health and program services. This represents a shift from abdicated institutional presence toward something in between—but not authoritarian. In Pérez Guadalupe and Nuñovero’s typology, then, the Representante model sits somewhere in the middle of both axes: some institutional presence and some dialogue. Following Skarbek, this transition did increase the quality of official governance to some extent—modest improvements in conditions and a significant improvement in safety and conflict resolution due to the Comité’s tribunals replacing the heavy hand of the provó. Still, the state authorities are far from fulfilling prisoners’ basic needs, and so a form of co-governance emerges, mainly through the Representante and Comité. This prisoner-led arrangement is centralized because the formal authorities deliberately give information and enforcement capacity to this group; they do not need to rely solely on violence to acquire this. The Comité system does substantively improve the quality of governance: it facilitates some better conditions—even if prisoners must pay extra taxes and provide free labor for infrastructure projects—and reduces violence and conflict through its tribunal. Skarbek gives less emphasis to the importance of prisoners’ sense of participation in co-governance arrangements, but prisoners in my study spoke often about this issue. They largely accept the Comité system, despite its serious shortcomings, because they feel they have some degree of voice in how it works. Also, they retain some autonomy over the micro-level choices in their daily lives. In contrast, the New Model CCR governance arrangements sit in a different area of both typologies. Through Skarbek’s framework, the New Model facilities do vastly improve material conditions and security through free, government-provided amenities, space, and supervision. This puts the CCRs squarely in the “official governance” side of the

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typology—but, as my interviews demonstrate, prisoners are still dissatisfied with the quality of the fulfillment of these basic needs. They must pay for mattresses that should be free; they have three very meager meals per day; they experience fear of violence committed by VTP officers. But there is only minimal emergence of any co-governance or prisoner-led solutions. This is largely because the authorities make significant effort to prevent such dynamics. They permit only very modest “privileged” groups and areas under the auspices of church-led entities and a very ascetic set of behavioral norms. It is notable that the Dominican CCRs have not experienced more presence of prison gangs or other criminal groups attempting to exploit this gap, as Skarbek has documented in the US context (Skarbek, 2014). This may be because the institutional presence in the CCRs, while strict, still allows some degree of prisoner autonomy. Further, prisoners perceive this arrangement in contrast to the Comité system in the traditional model, and so they may be more ready to accept the tradeoff of less participation for better amenities. In terms of institutional presence, the CCRs raise the question of a potential third category in Pérez Guadalupe and Nuñovero spectrum. The VTP staff model has full, robust presence, but it is not authoritarian in the way the Peruvian scholars describe. Rather, the CCRs’ emphasis on rehabilitation programs, arts, and culture dilutes some of the quasi-military dynamics in other highly formalized Latin American prisons. However, the most significant complaint from CCR prisoners is about their constrained autonomy: they cannot buy food if they are hungry, they must follow strict daily routines, and they have few avenues of recourse if they perceive an abuse of power by an officer. In this sense, the “dialogue” that the government officials develop in the CCRs is closer to the “apparent” end of the spectrum in Pérez Guadalupe and Nuñovero’s framework. The Dominican CCR case is distinct, though, in that the authorities largely appear to be sincere in their efforts to build a formally managed, rehabilitation-oriented system. To them, their engagement with prisoners’ concerns is genuine and constructive, not just marketing or tokenism. So, the spectrum of the degree of dialogue should also specify whether perceptions of both parties to the dialogue align or not.

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Conclusion This chapter has outlined the evolution of governance and social order arrangements during the prison reform process in the Dominican Republic, in traditional and new model prisons. In both settings, the arrangements are complex and contingent, particularly during periods when official policy and concrete prison conditions are changing. The CCR governance approach of robust formal authority was developed externally and imposed top-down, and now grapples with the shortages of material goods and the challenges of officers who use violence or force. The cost of retaining full formal control and not allowing some more meaningful spaces for prisoner participation in decisions or ability to acquire goods beyond what the state requires is widespread frustration and cynicism among prisoners. The Representante system emerged more organically, as authorities responded to external pressure and scrutiny sparked by the reform process. The negotiation between formal authorities and Representantes has different content and power dynamics in each facility, as the very severe material shortages dictate certain distributions of roles and power, in line with Skarbek’s theory. To prisoners, this is a tradeoff that allows them some more autonomy and access to “banned” goods, but they live in the unpredictability of unofficial arrangements that largely rely on individual discretion by prisoner leaders and staff. And still, they struggle to meet their basic material and security needs. Nonetheless, it is striking that in neither setting is there a governance arrangement that is rooted in hierarchical street gang rule. This is common in other parts of Latin America and tends to generate the most difficult challenges for both prisoners and staff. Thus, the Dominican case offers some lessons for the region. However, the nuances of governance tactics in different prisons exist within the larger context of the Dominican judicial system and the political incentives that shape it. Despite two decades of implementation of the adversarial system—meant to reduce long pretrial detention and to bolster due process—Dominican prisons remain full of people in pretrial detention. The overall prison population has doubled during the reform period, with about two thirds in pretrial detention. Political leaders and judges readily point to the progressive achievements of

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the New Model CCRs but simultaneously uphold the widespread use of pretrial detention instead of available alternatives. This leads to a contradictory reality: as the CCRs have expanded, the traditional prisons remain as full as they were in 2003. To put it more bluntly, the existence of the New Model relies largely on the continued existence of the traditional model—to absorb “extra” prisoners. The political confrontations that would be necessary to drastically scale back the prison population— namely, constraining pretrial detention, shortening sentence lengths, and expanding parole—might not be feasible. Reducing the scope of the prison system overall would also require tackling the corruption incentives that continue to infuse prison operations, especially in the traditional model. The recent initiatives to expand CCRs and dismantle traditional prisons—through the Humanization Plan and its new iterations –are laudable. But any effort to implement a governance approach that achieves order, and a sense of fairness will quickly be corroded if the judicial system and political culture remain punitive and risk averse. An eventual outcome could be a kind of “hybrid” of the staff presence and structures of the CCRs with some of the prisoner-led initiatives of the traditional model. The central political challenge, though, is to shift the incentives of judicial actors toward alternatives to incarceration. With smaller, less crowded prisons and with more efficient and transparent judicial processes, some of the key shortages and pressures that shape the governance dynamics described in this paper would fade. Smaller prisons with stable populations are easier to manage and could better allocate scarce resources. Policymakers who support improving prisoner rights and well-being must also try to understand how and why certain changes occur, and why actors inside prisons welcome or resist these changes (Goodman et al., 2015). In the Dominican context, this requires an honest assessment of how to apply more state control and transparency on the existing self-governance system without inadvertently causing a backlash due to a perception that people are “worse off ” without the jefe at the helm. The themes emerging from my interviews suggests that prisoners value access to basic material goods and services (free for the most basic and at a fair cost for discretionary items), predictability and transparency

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regarding enforcement of rules, fair and impartial treatment, opportunities to resolve conflicts, opportunities to contribute to decisions, and having a recourse channel for cases of abuse of authority. In short, material conditions and lack of violence matter, but only as part of this longer list. This provides support for theories of legitimacy and procedural justice in prisons (Jackson et al., 2010), including in a non-Western and hybrid-governance setting. As scholars of reform elsewhere have also noted (Crewe, 2011) even when institutional and physical changes are implemented, if power relations and incentives for transparency and fairness remain unchanged, prospects for true rehabilitation of incarcerated people are slim.

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Peirce, J. (2020). Overuse of pretrial detention in tension with judicial and prison reforms in the Dominican republic. Latin American Law Review, 1(5), 45–69. https://doi.org/10.29263/lar05.2020.03 Peirce, J. (2021). From rulay to rules: Perceptions of prison life and reforms in the dominican republic’s old and new prisons [Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Criminal Justice (unpublished)]. The Graduate Center (CUNY) and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Peirce, J., & Fondevila, G. (2020). Concentrated violence: The influence of criminal activity and governance on prison violence in Latin America. International Criminal Justice Review, 30 (1), 99–130. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1057567719850235 Pérez Guadalupe, J. L., & Nuñovero Cisneros, L. (2019, May). Gobernanza Carcelaria en América Latina: Hacia un Modelo de Gestión de ’Cárceles Ingobernables. Latin American Studies Association Conference, Boston, MA. Piacentini, L., & Slade, G. (2015). Architecture and attachment: Carceral collectivism and the problem of prison reform in Russia and Georgia. Theoretical Criminology, 19 (2), 179–197. https://doi.org/10.1177/136248 0615571791 Pyrooz, D., Decker, S., & Fleisher, M. (2011). From the street to the prison, from the prison to the street: Understanding and responding to prison gangs. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 3(1), 12–24. https:// doi.org/10.5042/jacpr.2011.0018 Sanhueza, G., Valenzuela, V., & de los Ángeles Smith, M. (2015). Victimización física entre internos en cárceles chilenas: Una primera aproximación. Revista De Trabajo Social, 88, 61–73. Skarbek, D. (2014). The social order of the underworld . Oxford University Press. Skarbek, D. (2020). The puzzle of prison order: Why life behind bars varies around the world . Oxford University Press. Sozzo, M. (2019, May 26). Autonomía, capacidad, estabilidad y formalidad. Una mirada comparativa sobre la participación de los presos en las relaciones gubernamentales en las prisiones en América Latina. Latin American Studies Association Conference, Boston, MA. Symkovych, A. (2017). Compromised power and negotiated order in a Ukrainian prison. The British Journal of Criminology, 58(1), 200–217. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azx012 Trammell, R. (2009). Values, rules, and keeping the peace: How men describe order and the inmate code in California prisons. Deviant Behavior, 30 (8), 746–771. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639620902854662

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Dynamics and variations

The Carceral Reproduction of Neoliberal Order: Power, Ideology and Economy in Venezuelan Prison Andrés Antillano

Introduction The “rehabilitation center” is a prison within the prison. Furthermore, it is perhaps the only thing that evokes, within Peonía, the image of a prison. Occupying a dilapidated building (an old administrative office at the time when the state controlled the prison), about 20 inmates (although the number can fluctuate: after a particularly busy weekend, when the population rises or close to holidays and special occasions, like Christmas, the number usually grows to more than 50) wander into an area no larger than 100 square meters, confined by a wire fence that separates the compound from the rest of the prison facilities, under the indifferent watch of a pastor and his deacons, who monitor and manage the center. Boys with dark skin, with shaved heads (one of the marks of A. Antillano (B) Central University of Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Sozzo (ed.), Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America, Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5_5

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punishment that they must wear with resignation during their stay in the center), wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts, spend their time doing nothing, watching television in the common room where they also sleep (the thin and dirty mats are stacked against one of the walls), waiting to be called for the hard and unpleasant tasks which they are forced to complete: unloading the truck that brings food to the prison, hauling goods to the stores controlled by the bosses, cleaning and garbage collection tasks, carrying the corpses of other prisoners executed or killed in clashes with rival gangs, or any other tasks that the bosses order. The life of the prisoners in the center is monotonous and meaningless, they are suffering from the restrictions and stigmas that are imposed as part of their punishment. Unlike the rest of their fellow inmates, they are prevented from moving freely through the rest of the prison and they cannot use time at their discretion; instead, they stay within the closed perimeter of the center, subject to arbitrary orders and treatment that infantilize them. Not even the bathroom has doors, to avoid sexual foreplay with fellow inmates or even masturbation. Despite its pretentious name, except for the obligation to participate in collective prayers, which the inmates assume with a mixture of indifference and cynicism, there is nothing of rehabilitation in the rehabilitation center: it is a place where the bosses who control the jail send those inmates who violate the harsh unwritten rules that govern inside the prison. These violations can range from robberies, using innuendo to refer to women visiting other inmates, fights and any act of interpersonal violence, including insults and teasing, ignoring strict regulations on language and dress, indecent acts, or double-meaning phrases that produce irritation in other members of the community, and homosexual contact, failure to pay debts, including the regular payment they must make to live in peace within the prison, or for any act of defiance of those who govern the prison. In a different sense, life in the rest of the prison could hardly be more of a contrast: hundreds of prisoners indulge in bustling activity, in which everything, as long as it does not violate the rules and can be paid for, is allowed. Dozens of small shops provide any merchandise imaginable: varied dishes (while inmates without resources must prepare their food on makeshift fires or depend on inedible prison food),

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clothes, tattoos, drugs, pirated movies, artisanal alcohol. Even on special occasions, women who come from the street offer sex or stripping. Prisoners with more money wear fashionable clothes, carry state-of-the-art cell phones, and wear gold garments, while the poorest are covered with simple clothes worn out by use. The kingpins and those who can pay live in spacious cells, some old offices now converted into luxurious rooms, with jacuzzies, plasma televisions, and other amenities, while the poorest sleep in overcrowded cells, if they can pay for them, or in makeshift huts out in the open. This peculiar device, the “rehabilitation center” (a prison made by the same prisoners to punish other prisoners), makes sense in the light of informal agreements and transactions with the State, which forces the gang that controls the prison to substitute the use of corporal punishment and punitive executions for less visible sanctions. These agreements and transactions together with a certain process of bureaucratization, in the Weberian sense of the term, causes the most expressive and violent forms of exercise of power to be abandoned by the bosses who govern the prison for other more rationalized and effective, in addition to its usefulness as a means for the profit and overexploitation of the captive labor force and discipline of the prison population. In contrast, the picture of a prison outside state control and self-governed by the inmates themselves is already part of the usual landscape of Latin American prisons. But what we are interested in highlighting in this article is how, unexpectedly, the social order sustained by the inmates of Peonía (as in so many other Venezuelan prisons and throughout Latin America) on the margins of the state, emulates, like a fairground mirror, societal models and penal prescriptions of the neoliberal creed: de factoprivatization of the public, deregulation, commodification, prison technologies proposed by neoliberalism. All this in Venezuela, a country governed by a political project that sought to leave behind the neoliberal legacy of previous governments, along with its heritage of social exclusion and criminalization of the poor (Antillano, 2012, 2018). We propose to account for the similarities between social order constructed by prisoners themselves, within a self-ruled prison, and practices and discourses typical of the neoliberal creed, part of its penitentiary program (privatization of prison management, exhaustive control and

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supervision, rigorous and labor-intensive disciplinary regime), or even of its more general premises (conservative values, commodification, individualistic ethic, hierarchization and inequality, overexploitation and dispossession). These similarities, where a group of socially excluded prisoners duplicates and reproduce the same devices that lead to their exclusion, are an even greater paradox if they are considered to occur within the framework of a political project that seeks to overcome the neoliberal legacy and dignify the poor, including those locked up in prison. This allows us to understand neoliberalism not only as a doctrine, a set of policies or rationality but above all as a social arrangement, in this case, constituted by the effect of the continuity of the use of prison as a mechanism of segregation and control of the surplus population (key to neoliberal governance, as Wacquant pointed out) and the emergence, within the prison, of an economy based on dispossession (Harvey, 2004), as a result of double exclusion (social and institutional) that prison implies for this surplus segment of the population. After two decades of post-neoliberalism,1 the balance of progressive governments in South America is uneven and not very encouraging. Despite the bright promises and undoubted progress, in most cases, there are signs of exhaustion and restoration. In countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador, neoliberal governments substitute postneoliberal projects -although in some cases for a short period-, while in Venezuela, after three lustrums of poverty and inequality reduction, the same government that raised the banners of social justice restores, 1

The wave of post-neoliberal governments in Latin America began with the victory of Hugo Chávez in 1998 in Venezuela, where, after his death, his party (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) still governs. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the elections in Brazil with the Workers’ Party, then was succeeded by his fellow Dilma Rousseff, who was overthrown in 2016. Also in 2003, in Argentina, Néstor Kirchner took the government, which was succeeded by his wife Cristina Fernández, to be replaced by a right-wing government in 2015, but to return to power, this time led by Alberto Fernandez, in 2019. In 2006, Evo Morales came to power with the Movement toward Socialism, who was evicted by a coup in 2019 but returned in 2020. In Ecuador, Rafael Correa governed between 2007 and 2017. Other countries that experienced progressive governments during the period were Honduras (2006–2009) Nicaragua (2007-present), Uruguay (2005–2020), Paraguay (2008–2012) El Salvador (2009–2019), Peru (2011–2016), Saint Vicent and the Grenadines (2001–present). Despite significant social and economic advances and important democratic innovations, most of these governments have over time been ousted by coups, through adverse electoral results, or have had marked authoritarian drifts.

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without confessing it, neoliberal policies that were repudiated in the past. In all cases, there are evident signs of exhaustion of post-neoliberal proposals, of the perseverance of dynamics of dispossession, exploitation, exclusion, and domination typical of the order that was intended to be left behind. When the restorative impulses loom as an imminent threat, it should be asked if they do not find in the persistence of practices typical of neoliberalism, but underground and peripheral, the conditions that, from below, fertilize and reproduce their resurgence. This paper discusses this reproduction of neoliberalism from below (Gago, 2015) regarding a space distant from the scene of the great political projects and economic models: the prison. For this, we will consider neoliberalism not as a doctrine or a rationality but as a set of practices (which also involve subjectivities, discourses, norms, and values) that operate under certain conditions and are governed by a rationality based on calculation, competition, and the search for maximization of economic gains. In this way, areas regulated by different practices and rationalities (democracy and politics, public interest and common goods, rights and solidarity, honor and reputation, rehabilitation and justice, in the case of prisons) would be colonized by practices oriented toward the pursuit of profit through competition, exploitation, and dispossession, subordinating themselves to rationality proper to the free market. A sort of commodification of the different spheres of social life (Foucault, 2007) or rather, as Brown (2016) clarifies, an extrapolation of the market model and competition to areas and practices previously alien to it. This definition allows us to recognize the neoliberal nature both in institutional practices emanating from centers of power (state or not), such as economic policies that involve the dismantling of rights and the expansion of the market logic to areas previously considered of public interest, and social practices “from below” produced by collective subjects (we could even suppose that both practices from above and practices from below interact and constitute each other). The ascription or doctrinal acknowledgment of the neoliberal creed is irrelevant, as it emphasizes practices and their rationality rather than the explicit sense that agents attribute to such practices. Our interest is to describe the prison social order, as it is manifested in Peonía, based on its identities with practices and logics typical of the neoliberal order (whether in what is prescribed

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concerning the prison or about more general values and practices) and to inquire the material conditions that make it possible for such practices to flourish in a context as unlikely as a prison self-governed by the prisoners themselves. Our fieldwork, carried out intensively between 2012 and 2015— entailing two or three visits per week—and then until 2017 through more sporadic visits, focused on Peonía, a prison facility just over 100 km from Caracas, controlled by a prison gang. Chelina Sepúlveda, Iván Pojomovsky, Alberto Alvarado and Amarilys Hidalgo actively participated in this research. An extensive literature associates neoliberal hegemony with recent changes in the prison. On the one hand, scholars point out how the increase in the incarcerated population is consistent with changes in rationality and sensitivity typical of neoliberal regimes (Cavadino & Dignan, 2006; Garland, 2005; Melossi, 2009; O’Malley, 2009); this is also explained as a control mechanism complementary to the flexibility of work and the exclusion inherent to the economic changes that derive from the new order (De Giorgi, 2004, 2007; Wacquant, 2003, 2010). On the other hand, the neoliberal project permeates the prison space, reconfiguring its nature, functioning, and effects (Irwin & Owen, 2004; Pemberton, 2009; Wacquant, 2001a). We propose that both dynamics associated with the neoliberal program, the expansion of the use of the prison as a form of control and legitimation and the mutations in its internal order, are related to each other, which is why the insistence of post-neoliberal governments on mass imprisonment would produce as a paradoxical effect changes within the prison that emulate the penitentiary program advocated by neoliberalism.

The Long Neoliberal Night Neoliberal hegemony in the region coincides with dramatic changes in the place and functioning of prisons in Latin American societies. Since the late 1980s, when the so-called “Washington Consensus” was imposed, the prison population in Latin America has increased fivefold (Iturralde, 2019; Nuñovero, 2019), in contrast to the relative stability of

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the incarceration rate during previous decades, when a good part of the countries of the region faced repressive dictatorships. Democratic transitions converged the arrival of neoliberal policies (although incubated during authoritarian regimes) and the widespread use of incarceration. The growth in the incarcerated population was accompanied by an increase in intramural conflict, riots, massacres, and the emergence of prison gangs throughout the region, which put the governability of the prisons in check and even managed to wrest control from authorities. In addition to explaining the excessive growth of the incarcerated population, neoliberalism has an impact on the functioning of prisons through policies that generate disorganization of their informal order and deterioration of the material conditions of the prisoners. Thus, the “rehabilitative ideal” and treatment programs are discarded, replaced with harsh discipline and exhaustive and rigorous control (Irwin, 2004; Simon, 2000). Educational or treatment activities diminish or disappear altogether.2 An attempt is made, generally with dubious results, to bring Latin American prison systems up to date with neoliberal reforms imported from central countries, such as privatization processes or attempts to implement supermax prisons. In Venezuela, during the 1980s and 1990s, the incarcerated population skyrocketed dramatically, coinciding with the application of neoliberal policies and the consequent impoverishment of the population and increased inequality. The prison population increased from 12,000 in 1980 to more than 29,000 in 1989. Since 1989, with the second wave of neoliberal reforms (deregulation of the labor market, privatization of services, fall in state social spending), the incarcerated population grew again, surpassing the barrier of 30 thousand inmates. At the end of the 1990s, at the hands of a center-left government that maintains the neoliberal adjustment program, incarceration slowed its growth and even

2

This statement, however, requires nuances, at least in the case of Latin American countries, because although in most countries a punitive and incapacitating approach of the prison prevails, and the prisoners are left to inactivity without many options of treatment, education or recreation programs, at the same time in recent years projects that recover the ideal of rehabilitation and treatment have been tried in different countries. See, i.e.: Hathazy (2016); Peirce (in this volume).

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decreased, to stabilize around 25 thousand inmates (see Antillano et al., 2016).3 The use of incarceration was growing hand in hand with legal reforms, but above all with aggressive police policies that increased arrests and sent more people to prison. Already precarious treatment programs were abandoned and investment in education and prison labor was reduced. Even the progressive system, the basis of the idea of rehabilitation, was replaced by a mechanical calculation that considers hours of study and labor to reduce the length of the sentence. Faced with the decline of the rehabilitative ideology, although it only had served to give a veneer of legitimacy to the prison management, institutional violence and coercion became the only and naked resources. The increase in the incarcerated population fractures the existing order and the capacity for state regulation, producing riots and episodes of increasing violence between the prisoners and from the authorities toward the prisoners. During those years, the first prison gangs emerged and firearms appeared inside the facilities. The marriage between neoliberalism and punitivism has been widely discussed in the Anglo-Saxon context and, although to a lesser extent, in European and Latin American contexts (see, for Latin America, Hathazy, 2013; Iturralde, 2019; Sozzo, 2016; Wacquant, 2003; Wilenmann, 2020). The relationship between the use of the prison and the reinforcement and legitimation of the neoliberal State (Davies, 2014; Hancourt, 2010; Wacquant, 2010), the substitution of the waning welfare policies (Beckett & Western, 2001), its use as a means of controlling the surplus population (De Giorgi, 2004, 2007; Wacquant, 2010), its association with the fears and anxieties of the middle class (Cheliotis, 2013), the affinities with neoliberal moral discourses on crime and poverty, and with managerial rationality focused on risk in neoliberal governance (O’Malley, 2009), would explain this relation. For its part, the redesign of penitentiary regimes is explained by the abandonment of rehabilitative perspectives and their replacement by tough and managerialist approaches, the search for cost reduction and the colonization of market

3

For a discussion on neoliberal policies in Venezuela, see Maya and Lander (2001).

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criteria in the prison environment, as well as the attractive opportunities offered by the private exploitation of oversaturated prison systems.

The Prison Pink Tide Although the relationship of these changes in contexts of neoliberal governments might be evident, in countries that have tried postneoliberal change these trends have not necessarily been reversed. Despite denunciations of the punitive legacy of the previous regime and an initial impulse to introduce important legal changes, and although together they maintained lower incarceration rates than their neighbors (with the dramatic exception of Brazil, Uruguay, and El Salvador), progressive governments quickly restored punitive legislation and mass incarceration policies, even presenting spectacular increases in their incarceration rate: El Salvador (411%), Ecuador (398%), Venezuela (302%), Brazil (221%), Nicaragua (219%), Bolivia (with an overpopulation of more than 200%) (Iturralde, 2019; Nuñovero, 2019). Also operating in these contexts is the remodeling of the internal regime in a direction similar to that of their peers who continued along the neoliberal path: privatizations as in the case of the APAC model in Brazil (although it is certainly a project of a religious nature and not a business for profit; see Darke, in this volume), regimes of draconian control (the case of El Salvador and Brazil, where an attempt was even made to transplant the supermax model), militarization, increasing violence against prisoners, hard control, etc. The vain promises of redemption of post-neoliberal projects are exposed when considering the persistence (or even worsening) of the patterns of violence, oppression, hopelessness and chaos within prisons, embodied in the Scylla and Charybdis of institutional violence and the prison gangs that govern the lives of inmates (Cerbini, 2012; Dias et al., in this volume; Dieter Stegemann, in this volume; Nunes, 2011; Nuñez, 2007). This continuity in the penal field of formulas more typical of neoliberalism does not fail to pose problems and challenges to progressive projects. First, it brings back to the discussion the proverbial lack of “criminological imagination” of the Left, which is often torn between

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immobility and replications of conservative and anti-popular positions in the face of the challenges of crime and the use of punishment. Second, it also shows the limits of these transformative projects in a broader sense, since the prison, which continues to recruit its clients from the most disadvantaged groups, reveals the insufficiency of social inclusion efforts and transformation of the structural conditions that generate exclusion and inequality. Finally, the resurgence or persistence of practices typical of neoliberalism, whether through policies carried out by the State or through spontaneous, underground, and peripheral social practices, blurs the distinction between neoliberalism and post-neoliberalism, generally posed in terms of discourses sustained or proposed programs. In Venezuela, the government that was inaugurated in 1999, with the presidency of Hugo Chávez, proposed from the beginning a break with the neoliberal policies that characterized previous governments, including distancing itself from the mano dura policies that served to criminalize broad disadvantaged groups. During the first years, as a result of inclusive social policies, poverty and inequality were reduced, while some timid measures allowed a significant reduction of the incarcerated population, which went from 25 thousand prisoners at the beginning of the new government (120/100,000) to 14 thousand (57/100,000) in the first year. However, the number of prisoners began to rise just a couple of years later, the effect of legislative changes and aggressive policing. In 2002 there were 20 thousand prisoners, and in 2009, paradoxically coinciding with the highest levels of well-being in the general population, the prison population reached the historical figure of 50 thousand, for a rate of 170/100.000, not counting the growing number of detainees in police headquarters, which is not reflected in official statistics.4 This twist can be explained by changes in the Chavismo narrative on crime (from “structural” rhetoric during the first years, which understood crime as a consequence of social disadvantage and called for policies of inclusion to a moral discourse on crime as a consequence of “capitalist 4 Although detainees in police headquarters have been a constant since the entry into force of new procedural legislation in 1999, their number has increased substantially in the last decade, until today it is equal to or even greater than the number of registered prisoners. The opacity of this figure is important since it depends on local authorities or police who do not report prison statistics, collected by the Ministry of the Penitentiary Service.

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values”), or due to disputes within Chavismo, a particularly heterogeneous political project, between actors with more progressive positions in criminal matters and others (especially the military sector, of capital importance that was growing over time) who held more conservative positions. But above all, it would be the very limitations of the social inclusion policies unfolding during those years, based fundamentally on the redistribution of huge but fickle oil income, which, although it improved the living conditions and the consumption capacity of disadvantaged groups, was not able to circumvent the structural conditioning factors that generate poverty and inequality and have a universal impact. This failure produced new social gaps between those who were better able to access the opportunities for inclusion that were opened during this period and those who were left behind (generally excluded young people, with little capitals to compete for access to income distributed through governmental policies and their effects on the economy), which led to an increase in intraclass conflict, including high rates of crime and expressive violence, and the rise of punitive claims from the newly included in the face of threats from laggards. As in neoliberal contexts such as the one described by Wacquant, mass incarceration and tough policies become a mechanism for containing the surplus population (in this case, from the labor market and redistributive policies) while contributing to the legitimation of the State (Wacquant, 2010).

Neoliberalism in the Shadow On the other side of the coin, these punitive policies and the growth of the incarcerated population produce changes in the intramural social order, breaking the previous forms of regulation and promoting the emergence of prison gangs. Prison gangs in Venezuelan prisons date back to the 1990s when the incarcerated population skyrocketed and the state’s ability to control and support an increasingly growing and conflictual population diminished. In Peonía, a prison whose population ranges between 2,000 and 3,000 inmates (along with the other facilities that make up the complex, the total number of inmates may exceed 5,000), the presence of the state is reduced to guarding the

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outer perimeter of the prison, to a dilapidated educational center and precarious area of culture (which do not fulfill any correctional objective: participation in educational and cultural activities only matters to the extent that they are computed to reduce the duration of the sentence), a medical service and a kitchen that prepares inedible mess, from which only the inmates without any other recourse feed, while the other inmates prepare their food or eat in the private restaurants inside the prison, most of which are owned by the gang members. The rest of the spheres of life are under direct monitor by the Carro, the gang that replaces the authorities and governs the prison. As soon as they cross the threshold that separates the entrance, under the control of armed officers of the National Guard and the guards of the prison administration, and enter the decrepit facilities where the prisoners live, armed men dressed in shorts appear who control the steps of those who enter and give alerts to others. Order, security and surveillance, the defense from rival gangs or sporadic incursions of the National Guard, justice and discipline, the cleaning and repair of common areas, parties, and protection of visitors, fall under the watchful eye of the members of the Carro. The bosses of the Carro have developed permanent supervision of the prison population, through a complex web of surveillance and information: Gariteros or watchmen stationed in key areas, who report any news, luceros that tour the prison or are in charge of controlling the different areas, prisoners who denounce to bosses to whom violate the code of conduct that governs life in prison. The kingpins dole out justice, resolve conflicts, impose norms and punish the wayward, most of the time by sending them to the Rehabilitation Center, but also, depending on the severity of the offense, by applying cruel corporal punishment. Marked social differences distinguish the different groups within the prison. On the one hand, the gang leaders, who hold the highest levels of life, show off their privileges and power. When we toured the prison with one of them, some inmates bowed or greeted them with gestures of respect and submission. The bosses control most of the businesses inside (and outside) the prison, they have the largest cells, equipped with jacuzzis, latest generation televisions and other luxuries, they carry the most ostentatious weapons and are followed by an entourage of bodyguards (their perros). The Carro also has different ranks: the luceros de

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la alta (in charge of armed clashes) and the luceros de la baja (who do police work and maintain direct contact with the population, generally prevented from communicating directly with the bosses). Other prisoners, due to their position before incarceration that provide them with money or their relationships outside the prison, also enjoy privileges above others. Then there is the rest of the population, who dedicate themselves to different activities to survive: they produce artisanal goods or sell different merchandise, they spend the day lazing around, playing basketball or talking, unless they have to garitear: the obligatory turn of surveillance in some of the strategic points assigned to them by the Carro. The following social position is occupied by cristianos, members of one of the two evangelical churches that operate in prison, who as a general rule become believers to escape the harsh and severe rules of mundana life, which govern the rest of the prisoners. The cristianos live in a separate area, the iglesia, they must walk all the time with a tie and bible in hand, and are dedicated, in addition to religious activities such as prayer and preaching, to mediate in case of conflict, to offer refuge to those who transgress the rules (hence they have been in charge of the management of the “Rehabilitation Center”) and unpleasant tasks, such as picking up garbage, caring for the wounded or carrying the dead out after confrontations or executions (see on evangelical churches inside prisons in Latin America, Navarro and Sozzo, in this volume). Finally, the outcasts: those punished in the rehabilitation center, who cannot move freely, are subjected to acts of debasement such as having their heads shaved and being used as forced labor for the bosses. There are also the abnegados, expelled from the social order, who wander on the periphery of the prison with their mouths sewn up (a parody of the hunger strike, which seeks to pressure the authorities to transfer them and, at the same time, prevents being executed by the members of the Carro, following the unwritten traditions that make the strikers “untouchable”), waiting to be transferred to other prisons, and the chicharrones, who do not have a visitor or means to live and must occupy the margins of the prison. Social stratification presupposes different living conditions within the prison, while most of the services and goods (from food, a place to

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sleep, a room for intimate relationships, to drugs, liquor or women for sex service) are commodities that are accessed if you pay for them. Not only is the prison privatized de facto, but the life inside it is markedly commercialized. Goods and services previously provided by the state, become tradable merchandise from which everyone with sufficient roguery or power extracts benefits. The common areas of Peonía function as a large market in which it is possible to buy practically anything, legal or illegal. In addition to this, all prisoners must pay the causa, a weekly tax that allows living in prison, just as all businesses pay revoluciones, a mandatory tribute that all commercial activity must pay to the bosses. Although the most lucrative businesses, such as drugs, are the monopolies of the members of the Carro, anyone with sufficient disposition and resources will find the best conditions to establish an enterprise that at least allows them to survive in prison -this entrepeneurial dimension is also present in other different prison contexts of Latin America, see Avila and Sozzo (in this volume). This diverse and complex world is regulated by strict informal rules, the rutina. These norms, which rule relations between inmates (including relations with bosses and with lower categories), relations with visitors and relations with prison staff, behavior in public and private (including sexual behavior), are deeply conservative in nature: stealing, violence, deviant sexual behavior or discourtesy toward visitors and women receive the severest punishments, and being considered a chocón (a rule breaker) is a serious moral devaluation both inside and outside the prison. In the background, this set of rules, which from a distance may seem motley and bizarre, seek to preserve internal order, avoid fights and conflicts, provide each individual with security against interference and aggression from others, and guarantee the incontestable dominance of the Carro. The rutina not only preserves the order of domination and the power of the bosses, but also postulates and reinforces a moral order. The informal rules that govern life inside the prison enshrine autonomy and self-determination, even under the tyrannical rule of the Carro, prisoners can dispose of their time and life as they please. It stimulates initiative and self-reliance. It promotes competition, selfishness, and dominance over others. It sacralizes hierarchies and inequality. All in a framework

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in which neither the social order nor the free functioning of the prison economies is endangered. For this reason, violent fights (and everything that can precipitate them, such as double meanings, disrespect for visitors from other prisoners, deviant sexual acts), challenges to bosses, robberies, no matter how insignificant, and unpaid debts, are severely punished (Antillano, 2015; Sepulveda & Pojomovsky, 2021). On the one hand, it is not only that it does not prevent intolerance, abuse, and even violence against those devalued groups (the “manchados”), but it also prescribes them—against homosexuals and transsexuals, rapists, people who due to their previous jobs and activities are considered undesirable, those that for a reason they have violated the baroque informal rules (“bataneros” or thieves, snoopers, mannered, etc.), all are subjected to rude treatment, including conditions of slavery and debasement, and segregated from collective life. On the other hand, the rutina promotes self-regulation. Saberse conducir ( knowing how to conduct yourself ), saberse comportar (knowing how to behave) are central values in prison that are also rewarded when returning to the world of crime (contrary to the dominant idea in contemporary positivist criminology of the offender unable to contain himself and a slave to his impulses). Far from the anti-authoritarian creed of the first liberalism, contemporary neoliberal rationality emanates a gaseous moral constellation that gathers a motley mixture of backward values (racism, machismo, conservatism, Christian fundamentalism—the role of evangelism in Venezuelan prisons, as in the rest of America Latina: See Navarro and Sozzo in this volume), authoritarianism (discrimination, intolerance, violence) along with values associated with unbridled capitalism and the free market (competition, unscrupulousness, entrepreneurship, individualism, selfresponsibility), as a result of resentment that fertilizes in exclusion, the weakening of the social and shared values and deregulation of both the market and social life (Brown, 2019). Similarly, the informal prison order combines entrepreneurship with conservatism, autonomy with authoritarianism, self-responsibility with intolerance. Surprisingly, Peonía replicates what different authors warn about the relationship between neoliberalism, discipline and punishment (Hancourt, 2010; Wacquant, 2010). Free and unbridled consumerism

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(the number of those punished tends to increase at times of festivities, when consumption and ostentation are exacerbated, or when the prison population grows beyond available resources), profit motives and ostentation, the inequalities and exclusions that proliferate everywhere within the prison, the demand of harsh control and uncompromising punishment, which contain those defenestrated from the paradise of lumpen consumption and discourage any rebellion of the relegated. The rigor of the codes, the severity of corporal punishment, the existence, in a grotesque twist, of a prison within a prison, and how these devices target precisely those who belong the least, account for the link between the neoliberal order (even this unnamed order that unexpectedly grows behind the prison walls), authoritarianism and punishment. The two images that open this chapter, that of a libertine and unrestricted prison and, within it, another that harshly punishes the wayward and conflictual, evoke free market societies and their excessive use of punishment like a mirror or an echo for those who are outside their privileges and at the same time sustain it.

The Kitchen of Neoliberalism It is astonishing how this self-rule order, which condenses and reveals abominable and dark practices, at the same time reproduces the neoliberal prison project. The de factoprivatization of the prison, the imposition of a draconian and authoritarian regime, where discipline renounces any rehabilitation purpose and only concentrates on the punishment and control of the conduct of the prisoners, the commodification of life, where everything is paid for, the overexploitation of captive labor, unexpectedly emulates the neoliberal recipes for criminal punishment (Autores, 2001; Crants, 1991; Goldberg & Evans, 2009; Lotke, 1996; Mason, 2013; Pemberton, 2009; Varios Arriagada, 2012), but this time applied by prisoners themselves. This prison social order reproduces the general values of the neoliberal creed: inequality, greed and competition, exploitation and taking advantage, conservative values, and an individualistic ethic. It is a synecdoche of neoliberal society (Whitfield, 2016).

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Neoliberalism is an elusive and changing concept. It is understood as rationality (Foucault, 2007; Ferguson, 2009), a doctrine (Hayek, 2011), a set of policies or culture (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2001). Some author emphasis is placed on the market (Lapavitsa, 2005; Shaikh, 2005), or on the contrary, it is argued that without a certain state configuration (a neoliberal state) neoliberalism could not be possible Davies, 2014; Harvey, 2007; (Wacquant, 2010). For others, neoliberalism is reduced to the purely economic sphere, especially financialization, or it extends to the most varied social spheres, previously outside the market. Instead, in Latin America, a “social” reading of neoliberalism prevails, which associates it with informality and “business opportunities” (Devés Valdés, 2003; De Soto, 1986; Gago, 2015). The persistence of neoliberal logics and practices in contexts apparently far removed from their creed, such as China or the post-neoliberal processes of Venezuela and Argentina (Fernandes, 2010; Gago, 2015; Ong, 2006) has also been discussed, explaining their paradoxical existence as an effect of areas of exception in which different technologies, governing and citizenship regimes interact and are articulated (Ong, 2006), or as a hybrid composition of the state, where different and even opposing logics and rationalities coexist (Fernandes, 2010), or of neoliberal rationality incubated from below by peripheral sectors (Gago, 2015). Two defining features of neoliberalism are key to understanding what happens in prison: deregulation and the expansion of market logic in areas so far removed from the market. The erosion of the state regulatory capacity of intramural life from the 1990s, as a result of the accelerated increase in the incarcerated population, the defunding due to the fiscal crisis, turned the prison into a deregulated space. Neither the legal norms nor the official authorities rule in Peonía. The informal codes, the rutina, which is intended to be exhaustive to the detail in other orders, do not restrict economic activity or prohibit exploitation or profit. On the contrary, it encourages this: an entrepreneurial spirit spreads among the prisoners and revolucionar is highly valued, to establish an enterprise, no matter how small, that reports profits. Only physical labor is looked down on in some prisons del malandreo, perhaps because it evokes the exploited condition of their class origin. The bosses of the prison are characterized by their participation in different businesses,

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both inside and outside, in which they show the same charisma, leadership, and the same managerial capacity with which they lead the lives of their vassals. The prison code in general encourages autonomy and selfsufficiency. The rutinario (who complies with the rutina) is a lone wolf. Unlike what earlier works on prison codes point out (see Clemmer, 1958; Sykes, 1974), informal norms do not seek to preserve cohesion vis-à-vis the prison administration. Solidarity and altruism are not valued behaviors. On the contrary, informal norms emphasize individualism, focusing on outlawing any act that may cause the slightest discomfort to others (Antillano, 2015). No one becomes involved in anyone’s life. Each is on his own. As in neoliberalism “outside” or “from above”, the withdrawal of the state does not mean its absence. The state continues to intervene by action or by omission: by controlling what enters the prison, deciding when to act and when the action of the prison gangs is tolerated (which in the end solves a governance problem for it and, while the profits collected by the prison gang are externalized, is a continuous source of income), contributing indirectly and at a distance to regulate the intramural social order which, like the “free market” economy of neoliberal utopias, would otherwise be chaotic and unfeasible. Nor is this order outside of state regulation a realization of the neoliberal utopia of a self-regulating economy, in which the actors concur free and equal, guided only by their quest to optimize their profits. Once again similar to what happens with the economy outside the walls, the absence of regulation allows those who have more power (in this case, the prison gang that by the power of weapons reigns on the rest of the prisoners) to establish asymmetric relations and appropriate most of the surpluses. The increase in the incarcerated population, and the loss of control by the state of intramural life, means the opportunity for certain groups to be able to impose themselves on others and exercise hierarchical and force relations. The concurrence of equal and “nude” actors, in prison, does not lead to the virtuous “invisible hand” that regulates the market, but to incessant conflict, to violence as a form of relationship. Just the kind of order that the oldest prisoners remember as the one that prevailed before the power of the Carro was imposed. In Peonía, more than Rousseau, Hobbes rules.

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Neither the withdrawal of the State nor the existence of a group that exercises power over the rest is sufficient to explain neither this order nor the nature of neoliberalism. As in the emergence of neoliberalism from above, which only achieved its take-off and consolidation from the exploitation of new economic niches (new markets, such as those of Eastern Europe but also with the privatization and commodification of previously public goods and services; financialization, but especially accumulation by dispossession in peripheral countries and of nature; the cheapening of labor and the deregulation of the labor market, etc.), this social order that emulates neoliberalism is sustained by availability and other economic opportunities associated with the increase in the incarcerated population, the colonization by the logic of the market of spheres previously guaranteed (although it was precariously) by the provision of the State, the subordination of practically all aspects of life in seclusion to drive-market rationality. The growth of the prison population from the 1990s on, not only meant the overflow of state regulation and the breakdown of the precarious balance among the prisoners, but also the emergence of extraordinary opportunities for extraction of revenues and exploitation of the population. With the collection of extortive taxes, slave labor, the expansion of the internal market, businesses that are operated abroad, taking advantage of the protection provided by the prison, the prison is an immense source of wealth for those who control it. This availability of increasing rents due to the increase in the prison population (to which the process of monetization of the poor by the redistributive policies implemented between 2002 and 2015 contributed paradoxically, which allow prison gangs to extort money from prisoners and their families, as well as finance wasteful consumption inside the prison) in a deregulated context, resulted in the emergence and consolidation of a fraction of prisoners with the capacity to govern the other inmates and to reappropriate these rents, reshaping relations with the rest of the population and superimposing logics of plunder over the logic of dominance. The criminalization of burgeoning illegal economies, particularly the drug trafficking business, involved the flow of prisoners to prison with economic power who contributed to reshaping relations within the prison, both with the authorities, buying favors and privileges,

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and among the prisoners themselves, establishing marked inequalities of resources and power (on the role of the narco in internal relations within Latin American prisons, see Nuñez, 2007; Ariza & Iturralde, this volume). Dealers of some importance usually occupy relevant positions in the Carro (in general, the members of the gang come from privileged positions in different illegal economies, so they usually have better conditions that challenge the population even before they enter prison), while the drug barons are protected by the heads of the jail, enjoying a lifestyle full of luxuries and privileges. The market of drugs within the prison (and to a lesser extent other illicit markets, such as prostitution, illegal alcohol and counterfeits, and pirated products) become a significant source for the capitalization and circulation of resources among prisoners. In sum, the growth of the incarcerated population, the relevance of the lumpen economy, and the monetization of the poor (without resolving their real inclusion) favor the logic of dispossession and accumulation by dispossession that brings life in a prison closer to the neoliberal social order. This neoliberal society of captives should not be viewed as the mechanical, one-way effect of incarceration policies. Much of the literature uses what we could call a hydraulic model to explain prison gangs and the self-governing prison social order: the growth of the prison population exceeds the state’s capacity to control, demanding complementary and substitute forms of governance in the hands of the own prisoners. This explanation is insufficient since it blurs broader social configurations in which both massive incarceration policies and the emergence of prison gangs occur, especially those related to the living conditions of the poor, from which the prison recruits its members. In a context of fragmentation and exclusion of the popular classes, crime, and particularly the informal and illegal economies, becomes an attractive alternative for many, if not even the only option available to survive. Competition and the ability to deploy violence, the entrepreneurial spirit that these submerged economies require (the vitalist impulse, as Verónica Gago calls it), are much more necessary since success and survival depend on the ability to impose on others, eliminate competitors and effectively protect itself from incessant threats, emulates the new spirit of

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capitalism (Bolstansnky & Chapiello, 2002) that accompanies neoliberalism. Amid exclusion and precariousness, outside the world of wage labor, segregated from formal markets and abandoned by the state, fierce competition, calculation and courage, exploitation and domination over others, become invaluable resources. In this sense, the prison has an articulated and organizing effect on these practices and provisions that precede it, which are reinforced and enhanced in overcrowded prisons, abandoned by the state, and in which exclusion and precariousness multiply. In turn, the prison spreads its effects back to the world of the poor beyond its walls. The cruelty, the unscrupulousness, the cold calculation, but also the entrepreneurial spirit, the initiative, and the managerial capacity that we frequently discover in the bosses, operate as a kind of habitus not only within the prison but as we find in our work with gangs from poor neighborhoods in Caracas, extrapolated to successful criminal careers once they returned to the community (see Antillano & Sepúlveda, 2021). The cultural and symbolic capitals that are acquired behind its walls (a sort of “human capital”, in the neoliberal syringe, which is revalued in prison) are invested in successful criminal careers, or forms of organization that they impose on poor communities that exported the predatory and domination logics incubated within. The prison expands its effects beyond its walls. In the contexts of exclusion and precariousness of poor communities, the “neoliberal technologies” that are incubated in the prison find fertile ground where they can take root and prosper. The persistence of social exclusion and punitive policies, together with the erosion of the state’s capacity to regulate spaces of exclusion (the poor neighborhood, the jail) and the flourishing of submerged economies and dynamics of survival marked by violence and illegality, offer fertile ground for accumulation by dispossession, overexploitation, the commodification of spheres previously rule by logics other than those of the market, and finally for social dynamics that emulate and restore neoliberal logic from below. These processes of de factoprivatization, dispossession, and violence that proliferate on the margins and abandoned areas or beyond the reach of inclusion policies, not only serve as a ferment for neoliberal restoration

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(the thousands of merchants and small owners who kept the mercantilist relations alive in the words of Lenin, during Soviet Russia) but also reveal both the intrinsically criminal nature of the neoliberal order (the predatory logic and the violent dispute of all-against-all instituted as the natural order of things), as well as the limits and inadequacies of many of the efforts that tried to overcome it. Acknowledgements I thank Rebecca Hanson and Liliana Buitrago for the help and suggestions.

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Enduring Lock-Up: Co-Governance and Exception in Nicaragua’s Hybrid Carceral System Julienne Weegels

While the Nicaraguan prison system officially functions as a progressive privilege system with a humanistic reeducational penal ideology advanced through its Penitentiary Law, overcrowding, violence and a desperate lack of resources characterize its prisons. Even as the government and national prison direction (DGSPN) publicly pride themselves on their efforts to re-educate and reinsert prisoners, they have persistently denied local and international human rights organizations access to prison facilities for the investigation of reported human rights violations. Inside prison, the persistent denial of public scrutiny translates to a culture of public secrecy. Public secrets are secrets that are “shared and known but unspoken” (Taussig, 1999, 50). They are hinted at through J. Weegels (B) Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Sozzo (ed.), Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America, Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5_6

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a veil of indirect confirmation: warning, caution, omission, indirection and silence (Penglase 2014; Weegels, 2021). Interested in understanding how prison life is organized, this chapter seeks to grasp the experience of government and exception in the Nicaraguan prison system—experiences marked by violence and secrecy, and revelatory of the shared nature of power in Nicaragua’s hybrid carceral system. This sharing of power is particularly manifest in the emergence and maintenance of what I call co-governance arrangements. To be able to explain the intricate workings of these arrangements, I explore the rules that underpin them as these were recounted to me during my extensive ethnographic research with prisoners and former prisoners of three Nicaraguan prison facilities (2009–2016). Even if prisoners and authorities might argue over who is actually in charge in prison (“quien manda”), the secrets they keep involve each other to such an extent that they arguably depend on one another for their safety and keeping. As Elias Canetti pointed out, “secrecy lies at the very core of power” (1984, 290). Immersed in evolving relations of loyalty, I became aware of the extent to which life in prison is not only subject to a politics of concealment, but that secrecy and the exercise of power are intimately related to one another. In effect, secrecy becomes a security practice deployed by both prisoners and authorities, to hide the ways in which they (dis)organize prison life and its markets, and to render unspeakable the violence and collusion they engage in to run the prison system. Here, I will focus specifically on prisoner and authority performances of co-governance, considering them largely as the opposing forces that they generally position themselves to be, even as they jointly (dis)organize prison life. After providing a brief note on methodology, I first consider the notions of violence and governance that inform this chapter. Then, at the hand of ethnographic vignettes, I explain how co-governance arrangements emerge and are maintained between prisoners and authorities in Nicaraguan prisons. In doing so, I first explore the formal system of prisoner consejos (councils) set up to assist the authorities in monitoring the prison population. I then zoom in on the overcrowded cell space where, beyond and alongside the consejos, prisoners establish particular internal rules and hierarchies. Following on this, I consider how authorities (both prison guards and police officers

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fulfilling that role in police jails) engage in the extralegal use of force against prisoners. Though authority use of violence may seem volatile or marginal, I hold that it is part and parcel of Nicaragua’s hybrid carceral system, as it appears to be deployed not only to adjudicate disciplinary punishment to particular prisoners, but more systemically to maintain the power balance in favor of the authorities. Finally, I consider the implications of prison co-governance for the broader political economy of exception in Nicaragua, especially after the exteriorization of these arrangements following the 2018 protests.

A Brief Methodological Note Taking an ethnographic approach, my prisons research took place over the course of 31 months between 2009 and 2016 with prisoners of a Regional Penitentiary System (SPR, 2009–2013) and a City Police Jail (CPJ, 2015–2016). Most of these participated in a theatre-in-prison programme that my husband, a Nicaraguan theatre artist, and I set up. Participation in the theatre programme at the SPR fluctuated of between 8 and 23 long-sentenced prisoners, convicted to sentences of 5–30 years, largely for violent and/or property crimes. The programme was hosted at the penitentiary proper, which is operated by the National Penitentiary Direction (DGSPN). As a “cultural activity,” it automatically fell under the prison’s direction of penal re-education. The programme at the CPJ, on the other hand, consisted of 13 shorter-sentenced prisoners, convicted to sentences of one to five years, largely for drug-related and/or property crimes. As a police jail, the CPJ is run by the National Police and its “rehabilitative” programme was hosted at a community center located away from the jail. This broader programme was initiated and run by the local Juvenile Affairs unit. In order to look beyond those participating in theatre, my research included former prisoners of these two sites and a small number of (former) prisoners who sat out their time at the capital city penitentiary La Modelo, likewise run by the DGSPN. In 2015, I also hosted a former prisoner radio show at an “urban juvenile” radio station where I traveled with participants from my different research sites. During and

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around the radio shows I was able to discuss multiple cross-cutting topics with my research participants, both in a group context and individually. After leaving Nicaragua in 2016, I continued to conduct follow-up interviews with a number of my original participants. In the aftermath of the massive anti-government protests that shook the country in 2018, I got involved in human rights research with (former) political prisoners and their family members. Over time, this varied set of data allowed me to acquire a comprehensive understanding of fluctuating governance patterns inside and outside Nicaragua’s prison system, thoroughly informed by (former) prisoners’ experiences.1

Conceiving of Co-Governance Following Blundo and Le Meur’s conception of governance as “a set of interactions (conflict, negotiation, alliance, compromise, avoidance, etc.) resulting in more or less stabilized regulations, producing order and/or disorder (the point is subject to diverging interpretations between stakeholders) and defining a social field [i.e. prison]” (2009, 7) I analyze prison governance by investigating the interactions among prisoners and between prisoners and authorities, the relations that these interactions produce, and the regulations these result in. Drawing on the Latin American governance debate, specifically on critical and localized studies of criminal and prison governance (e.g. Antillano et al., 2016; Arias, 2006; Carter, 2014; Darke, 2018; Darke et al., 2021; Iturralde, 2016; Jaffe, 2013; Jones & Rodgers, 2009; Penglase, 2014; Rosas, 2012, and the other chapters in this edited volume), I seek to come to an understanding of prison governance and the public secrecy that surrounds it as situated, performative and relational expressions of power and morality. However, before continuing I’d like to unsettle a premise that more “classic” prison studies tend to be guided by, which is that notions of “good” prison governance and security tend automatically to be related to low levels of prison violence, while high levels of prison violence are considered a 1 See Weegels (2021) for more elaborate methodological considerations and ethical dimensions of my long-term ethnographic engagement with (former) prisoners in Nicaragua.

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result or symptom of “failed” governance (e.g. Peirce & Fondevila, 2019). This is strongly related to the ideal that violence, in any form, is undesirable and that the state should be dominant in exerting power in prison by bureaucratic rather than coercive means. In the same way that the failed state paradigm has come to be critiqued (e.g. Call, 2008; Mazarr, 2014), I believe “failed” prison governance should not be seen merely as the result of state incapacity (hence resolvable by increasing state capacity), but rather as the result of selective abandonment and governance by other means (acknowledging states’ use of violence on multiple levels). This way, and by looking beyond violence as morally undesirable, we can more clearly address its productive workings (e.g. Benjamin, 1978; Penglase, 2014; Rodgers, 2016). Violence is however not only produced by the state or the prison-as-institution, but also by its subjects. This points to the need for a processual rather than static understanding of institutional structures, in which power is exerted not only from “above” (by the authorities), but also from “below” (by the prisoners), and the structures themselves become subject to movement and change (Vigh, 2009). A processual understanding of prison thus alerts us not only to the shared nature of power behind its walls, but also to the central role that “performances of legitimation” (Beetham, 2013) play in the constant articulation and maintenance of prisons’ “power balances” (Sykes, 1958). In Nicaraguan prisons, practices of violence and secrecy inform shifting governance arrangements as well as the development of a carceral “state of exception” (Agamben, 2005), as both prisoners and authorities act outside of the legal framework to exert power over one another. These governance interactions permeate not only the prison system, but also Nicaragua’s larger system of political and state power, which is commonly referred to by prisoners as “el Sistema.” The Sistema encompasses both the sistema penal (prison system) and sistema judicial (judiciary), and also more abstractly the relational system of state and non-state political actors that are able to exert their power over and through the state apparatus. As such, it encompasses a hybrid carceral system that exceeds the limits of the formal criminal justice system. Inside prison, co-governance arrangements are then the relational spheres for the articulation and (re)production of this hybrid system.

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On the Face of It: Privileges and Prisoner Consejos On the surface, prisons in Nicaragua appear to be governed in a straightforward, open and legal way, where authorities abide by the penitentiary laws (no. 473 and 745) and their re-educational ideology. This open governance system incorporates a particular group of prisoners to help govern prison: the consejos de internos (prisoner councils). This institutionalized collaboration between authorities and prisoners constitutes the institutional framework for co-governance. Yet it is but the tip of the iceberg—of the Sistema—and to consider only this would be to neglect what is hidden, metaphorically, under water. From the outside looking in, there are three pivotal aspects of the co-governance system that remain hidden from view: (1) prisoners’ self -governing practices, which may be very extensive depending on the facility at hand, (2) the authorities’ extralegal governing practices, and (3) the collusion between the authorities and prisoners to ‘run’ the prison. Undergirding these is a shadow economy based on the trade in illegal and illicit products (ranging from cellphone minutes and bootleg liquor to crack cocaine). Before diving under water, let me address the role of the prisoner consejos. In the prisons that fall under the DGSPN, prisoners are formally sanctioned and disciplined through the privilege system, which allocates or withdraws privileges that are progressively accumulated or similarly stripped. Every prisoner’s conduct is monitored in a personal booklet (the Tarjeta de Control de Interno, TCI) where both re-educational officers and prisoner consejos keep track of prisoners’ good and sanctioned behavior, and which is made available to the warden, chain of command and supervising judge (juez de ejecución de la pena) on a regular basis. The TCI is often of direct influence on the approval or disapproval of a prisoner’s chances at obtaining early release.2 At first glance it may seem like the privilege system works perfectly. Prisoners comply with prison regulations most of the time, at least on the face of it, and largely 2 Yet the exact politics of early release are much more arbitrary and relate to the Sistema’s party-political implications; early releases are regularly implemented with explicit reference to the central government’s political will (see Weegels, 2020a).

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refrain from using force against the authorities, despite their numbers and potential for collective action. As privileges are assigned individually, arguably every prisoner has something to lose if they would engage in action against the system. Erving Goffman (1961, 54) classically argued that the individualizing effect of privileges both conditions and explains prisoner compliance. Cheliotis (2014) added that in this way, and by playing into gendered conceptions of “good behavior”, authorities are able to maintain order even when the allocation of privileges is inconsistent or arbitrary. Much in the same way the Nicaraguan privilege system reduces the potential for collective action against the authorities, but what complements this is that prisoners effectively help uphold this system alongside the authorities. According to the penitentiary law, every Nicaraguan penitentiary is under the obligation to establish prisoner councils. Every prisoner on the consejo is elected by the general prison population (referred to as el colectivo, the collective) to overlook a specific area, such as orden interior (internal order), sports, sol (sun time on the courtyard), religious activities, and visits. The area that an individual consejo-member is in charge of thus mirrors the authorities’ division of tasks. Every prison dormitory has a prisoner council consisting of one to six members, depending on how large the population of that cell is. The Regional Penitentiary System (SPR), for example, had 5 galerías (cellblocks). Galerías 1, 2 and 5 had dormitory-style cells with 60 to 70 prisoners in each cell, and five to six consejo-members per cell. Galería 3, consisting of cells 11 and 12, had up to 200 prisoners in each cell. Galería 4 consisted of 12 smaller cells with 8 to 12 prisoners per cell and only one had consejo-member per cell. In this way, a total of about 150 consejo-members monitored a prisoner population of around 1100 prisoners. I say monitor, because when prisoners leave their cells for sol , for example, the consejo-member in charge of sol will check who went out and who stayed inside and keep a tally for the guards. The same goes for participation in re-educational activities, (conjugal) visits, church and so forth. Formally, then, the consejos are in charge of monitoring prisoner participation in different arenas, and as such, they are a body of control. Javi, a former prisoner of the SPR of eight and a half years, explained that “with the consejo the thing is that the authorities keep you under control through the prisoners

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themselves.”3 When I asked him if he had ever aspired to be a consejomember himself, he inferred that there is a normative difference between prisoners who become consejos and those who do not: When you’re a consejo you prefer the protection of the guards instead of the ‘family’ inside. They [the consejos] don’t acknowledge that they’re in the same boat, in the same sea. I looked out for my life [in prison] and to be a consejo is to be awaiting death […] Sure, there are consejo-members that are cool, but they even end up losing [more than they had] because another [consejo-member] will rat on them. Prison is another world, a difficult world. They [the consejos] are the eyes of the guards inside the cell; they even stay awake all night… they do some good jobs [for the guards] (laughs).4

It appears that Javi considered being a consejo on a par with being a sapo (snitch), and indeed there are many parallels. Both have closer relations with authorities and provide them with information that the authorities would arguably not be able to obtain otherwise. Yet perhaps the main difference between a sapo and a consejo is that the sapo offers his information on the sly whereas a good consejo will try to walk the fine line between watching out for the colectivo’s best interests without betraying the authorities’ trust in them to monitor the prisoner population. After all, consejos are elected and known to the general population (which is why Javi considers being a consejo like walking around with a target on your back), and sapos are hidden among their ranks. Importantly, the consejo also has a public position to fulfill with the colectivo: they are elected by the colectivo to represent them, not only in monitoring their participation, but also in communicating quejas (complaints) between prisoners and authorities. When a consejomember loses support of the colectivo, a new consejo-member has to be appointed in his place. This is in the best interest of the collective as the consejo is appointed, from the prisoner’s point of view, on the one hand to minimize interaction with authorities and on the other to facilitate fluid interaction with them when this is necessary (arranging medical 3 4

Javi, former SPR, 2016, private interview. Idem, 2016, follow up interview.

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check-ups, for example). When a consejo is ineffective, the authorities can argue “but you chose him yourselves” and decide not to deal with complaints. Javi made it clear that he found it very insulting to be lectured by the authorities that you as prisoners “have organized badly.” In their role as brokers, consejos are also sought out to resolve internal conflicts without getting the guards involved. “The consejo of discipline will seek a solution to the conflict, and then only report to the authorities that the situation has been resolved,” Javi explained. The best consejo, as such, is one who deals with authorities minimally, providing them with the basic information they request but never duping the colectivo (i.e. not “snitching” much desired information to the authorities, for example, about secret stashes of prohibited commodities). Interestingly, however, the prisoners to be elected consejo for a cell are usually proposed by the authorities.5 As Javi explained cynically: The jefe de sección (section chief ) would come [to the cell] to propose soand-so to be the new sapo, and the sapo would be right there by the starclad officer’s side.6 But the guardia always come with the chitchat that ‘I need you to approve him’, because in the end they know the collective is in charge (saben que el colectivo manda).

In Javi’s statement an interesting contradiction appears: prisoners know that “consejos are snitches,” and the authorities know that the colectivo is “actually in charge.” This enhances the notion of the consejo as an ambivalent figure—on the one hand too close to the authorities for comfort, on the other a necessary buffer or broker between the colectivo and the authorities. This way, the consejo itself can be understood as a balancing act, as a catalyst mediating between the pressures of the authorities and the prisoners to “run” the prison in the way they deem best. On the balance is “quien manda” (who is in charge). Due to this role in the 5 Prerequisite for being elected onto the consejo de internos is that the prisoner has completed at least 40% of his sentence and has advanced into the regimen laboral (work regime), the stage before the regimen semi-abierto (semi-open regime) and regimen abierto (open regime). Those imprisoned on drug charges or for rape are excluded from being elected. 6 Estrelludo translates literally as “starred one”, referring to the stars or stripes indicating rank on an officer’s uniform. Stripes are low-rank, stars higher-rank. An estrelludo is thus slang for a high-ranking officer.

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middle, consejos often endure a lot of pressure. Clearly, both prisoners and authorities keep a close watch on them. They are expected by the prisoners to act on their behalf, yet the authorities expect them to “think along with us” too, and offer individual consejo-members more privileges (estímulos, as they are formally referred to). This in turn blurs the sapo-consejo distinction. Manuel, a respected lifer7 at the SPR, became a consejo-member and was able to exert leadership in his cell for a number of years. He often warned prisoners not to trust the authorities as “they’re always out for their own best interests.”8 In 2013, however, his cellmates ran him out of his cell: the authorities had conducted a strip-search and found everybody’s cell phone except for Manuel’s. Conclusions were easily drawn. “Manuel was lucky not to be stabbed,” Junior said grudgingly, “for being a sapo.”9 The incident underlined that there is only so much leeway before functioning as a broker comes at the expense of one’s own safety. Yet the exchange of information between prisoners, consejos and authorities is pivotal to the functioning of the prison. Or, as Javi formulated it: Without the prisoners the authorities wouldn’t be able to run the prison, so they pretend to have your best interests at heart. They talk to you, te trabajan con sicología (they ‘work’ you, psychologically). You think they’re doing you a favor, but the system doesn’t favor anyone. For example, you haven’t seen your jaña (girlfriend) for a while and really want a [conjugal] visit. You get along with your jefe de sección and talk to him, you know, slip him 200 pesos maybe, to ensure he’ll take your petition higher up. Of course, paying a guard is against the law, and it’s not pre-established [the prices], but this happens en confianza, when you know you can count on this guard. […] [But] the system doesn’t want guards to get friendly with prisoners: when a guard gets along with a particular cell too well, they’ll relocate him to another cell. The same happens when a guard doesn’t get along with a cell at all, they’ll change him too. They’ll move him to a 7

The maximum sentence at the time was 30 years. In January 2021, in the vise of a series of repressive laws implemented after the mass protests of 2018, a constitutional amendment was passed to allow for natural life sentences. 8 Manuel, SPR, 2010, group discussion. 9 Junior, former SPR, 2013, private conversation. Javi also commented on the incident, but Manuel never mentioned it himself.

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well-behaved cell. But then if he gets in trouble with that cell, they’ll put him on administrative duty, because they don’t want a guard screwing up the system for them, you know.10

This system, according to Javi, is one where the authorities retain control over the prisoner population by a give and take of privileges and fostering governance relations that will always maximally benefit the system itself, also, or perhaps especially, financially. Prisoners and authorities should never get “too close,” but shouldn’t be on hostile terms with each other either. Following this logic, prisoners and authorities always stand on opposite sides of an imaginary moral divide. For the authorities, if the prisoners are too comfortable they start “abusing the system.” Instead, prisoners should be under the impression that they always need to work for their privileges. This opens up a space for sapos, wishing to get on the good side of the authorities, and sharpens the mistrust prisoners hold toward each other for “turning sapo” (hacerse sapo). Yet authorities and prisoners monitoring one another through the prisoner consejos is not the only side to the co-governance system in place. While the “psychology” underlying it pictures prisoners as interested mainly in obtaining privileges for softening or shortening their time, more violent dynamics provide both authorities and prisoners with ordering mechanisms to control one another’s life behind bars.

(In)security and Self-Governing Practices Nicaraguan penitentiaries are not built as panopticons and they do not have electronic surveillance systems. Though the outer perimeters are secured by guards armed with AK-47 automatic weapons, rounds are walked in the corridors of the cellblocks by unarmed guards bearing truncheons. Similarly, police officers patrolling police jails do not bear weapons inside prison. During rounds they peer through doors made of metal bars (or metal-bar fronts of cells), yet visibility is usually impaired by hammocks and bags with personal belongings 10

Javi, former SPR, 2016, private interview.

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hung from the bars and ceiling due to overcrowding. Officers usually do not enter cells unannounced on their regular rounds, except during surprise requisas (strip-searches). In the absence of continuous surveillance and with heavy restrictions of access imposed on those who wish to enter prison (including workshop facilitators, researchers and other third persons from which a formal Ministry of Governance approval or aval politico, attest of political sympathy extended by the government party, is required), concealment and secrecy have become key security practices that both prisoners and authorities engage in. Authorities to keep hidden the extralegal governance practices they engage in (such as corporal punishment and corruption), knowledge of which would blemish the “revolutionary project” the government claims to uphold, and prisoners to keep hidden the extralegal ways in which they make money inside prison. In doing so, and taking into account that prisoners spend much time under little or no surveillance in overcrowded spaces with multiple other men, prisoners engage in a number of ordering and governing practices to secure the cell space and their time inside (Frois, 2016; Skarbek, 2020; Weegels, 2017). Here, it is norms rather than organizations that regulate prisoners’ cellbased governance system. These norms are endogenously determined and reflected in codes of prisoner conduct that dictate how and when solidarity or distrust is in place (like toward consejos, but also for example toward so-called donados—prisoners abandoned by their families), as well as how and when physical violence may be legitimately used against fellow prisoners or authorities. These codes also determine the speed and level of ascent a prisoner may accomplish up the cell-based hierarchy. Though prisoners often refer to their cellmates as family it is a mistake to assume that relations always start off well. It is also a mistake to assume that the “mortification process” (Goffman, 1961) occurs only at the hands of the authorities, especially in contexts where prisoners have established their own governing practices. In Nicaragua, prisoners are effectively subjected to mortifying practices at the hands of their cellmates too. While their “civilian” self may be deployed to obtain a good position on the inside, sidestepping such humiliation, these mortifying practices generally include dispossession, beatings and/or the threat of being violated. However, rather than mortification, it may be more

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appropriate to speak of adaptation processes—be they in the form of submission or domination—as prisoners struggle to obtain a position on the power field (see also Darke, 2018). Survival, or adaptation, in this “cemetery of the living” implies learning one’s place—when to dominate and when to submit, how to ascend up the hierarchy and how to keep good relations with one’s fellow prisoners as well as the authorities in the meantime. Importantly, keeping good relations does not necessarily mean avoiding violence, but enduring it in the right way and resorting to it at the right time. Former CPJ prisoner Joey’s rite of initiation and subsequent process of adaptation illustrates this. Joey was beaten by the police upon his arrest and when he was put in jail he explains that: The start for me was ugly. When I came in [to the cell] they [other prisoners] made me strip and beat me. […] They put on music and had me walk up and down the corridor naked, whistling at me and smacking me on the butt with their flip-flops or hands to make me dance.11

At the CPJ, prisoners outnumber on-duty guards by as many as 80 to 1, and its overcrowded cells warehouse on average 35 prisoners per 25 square meter cell. These cells tend to be very hierarchically organized. Joey did not recount his experience of cell initiation until after his release, as we sat in the back of a car on one of our trips to the former prisoner radio show. It was rare for a (former) prisoner to discuss his own initiations to prison life: those kinds of stories were usually generalized, starting with “in the cell they used to…” or “I heard that…” In this way, I had been told about sexualized rites of initiation before, like the “baile de la botella” (dance of the bottle).12 This baile is an event that every CPJ-prisoner will assure exists but no one will acknowledge to have suffered, as it clearly exhibits characteristics that feed into the

11

Joey, former CPJ, 2015, conversation. A similar type of initiation rite is practiced in La Modelo and referred to as the baile del egipcio, which is more like the one Joey endured. While the egipcio does involve a “walk of shame” it does not involve a bottle, but the stripping and smacking (with flip-flops or towels) of a newcomer. 12

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(re)production of specific, dominant machista masculinities.13 Another prisoner of the CPJ had explained to me before that, When a group of guys in the cell gets together to make another guy dance la botella they’ll turn up the radio, put a bottle on the floor, and the guy made to dance has to get naked and lift this bottle up by inserting the top of the bottle into his ass […] Then he has to dance with the other guys, with the bottle, you know, and they’ll say sexual stuff and smack him on the butt. If they don’t like how you dance, like if you don’t do it right, or if you drop the bottle, they’ll beat you.14

Though the baile de la botella is a highly sexualized and cruel type of hazing, there are rules to it: They won’t make just anybody dance, but if they don’t like you, or if they think you might be a perrita (i.e. gay) they’ll make you dance […] If you refuse, you have to measure your fists (i.e. fight) with the guys that wanted you to dance, which will be the toughest guys in the cell, and they’ll beat you hard.”

As the event Joey described resembled the initial build-up to a baile I hesitated to ask, afraid he might be offended or clam up, but probed if there was any bottle involved. He directly assured me of the contrary: No way! Back in the cell they beat me hard and made me sleep by the side of the toilet. I spent like two weeks on that spot, I even thought of killing myself back then. But slowly I moved further from the toilet, to other spots on the floor, then to a hammock, and the last half year I was on a bunk.

It may seem strange for Joey to move so abruptly from the harrowing experience of his “welcome” to discussing the spot where he slept, but 13

For a discussion of machismo in prison see Weegels (2014). Wiz, former CPJ, 2015, conversation. I had heard this story before on various occasions, as early as 2010, when we happened upon a friend who spent two months in pre-trial detention at the CPJ during a bus ride back from the SPR. He said he witnessed a baile in his cell and only barely escaped being forced to participate. 14

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he did this to indicate his rapid ascent up the cell-based hierarchy. The hierarchy in a CPJ prison cell—as for most of the prison system—is quite often spatially reflected, and most directly evidenced in the place where a prisoner sleeps. The most powerful prisoners and those who have spent the most time there will be on bunks, followed by those in the hammocks, and then the floor—first those under the bunks, then those in the middle of the floor, and last those on the floor closest by the toilet or in the shower (where prisoners are most likely to acquire skin rash or fungus). According to this rule, Joey laughs that eventually, I got even with the guys that organized the beating, ha-ha! All four of them were released, but three of them were caught again and came back. That’s when I was on top and they were on the bottom [rung], so it was my turn! I had my little group of bróderes (brothers, friends) then, and me la desquité (I took revenge).

Joey and his friends beat his returning former cellmates and made sure they slept on the floor this time. Fights were often over space and as such about safeguarding (or seeking to alter) the hierarchy. Wilfredo, a former SPR prisoner of four years, explained to me that in the prison context your bed is a house (chante or casa) and a grouping of beds a neighborhood (barrio). He noted that prisoners from the same prison barrio will watch over one another’s bed and belongings (including your caleta – stash) when either is absent from the cell, to prevent others from robbing their belongings or appropriating their space.15 Similarly, a bróder will ask for your permission to use your chante (i.e. bed) while you’re out. Barrios on the inside and outside often converge: for example, in the CPJ, Araña shared his bunk with his friend Ezequiel from their barrio on the outside. Due to their friendship and Araña’s good position inside prison, his cellmates did not haze Ezequiel when he came into the cell, and he did not have to compete for a place to sleep. Instead, Araña let him sleep with him on his bunk. Araña, however, had originally made it to the top by challenging his cell’s leader, engaging in fights with most of his cellmates, and quickly establishing himself as a key player in the 15

Wilfredo, former SPR, 2015, conversation.

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internal drug trade. Though he had relinquished those activities by the time he attended the community center, he was able to retain his position as a cell leader. At first, when Araña would be out at the community center, Ezequiel would watch over his chante. Later Ezequiel himself was also allowed out to the community center. In La Modelo, where cellblocks are literally called by the name of the prisoners’ barrio of origin the cells are often made up of groups of prisoners associated with a particular (gang) territory outside prison. In Managua, then, a particular cell often represents a particular outside block, group or street gang. Yair, a La Modelo prisoner of three years, explains: We don’t steal from each other; we’re all from the same block […] on the outside in the R.P.T. [Reparto Schick]. Our motto is: we’re all family and we don’t fight amongst each other (todos somos familia y entre nosotros no peleamos).16

Though the cell may be a space of violence for the newcomer, it can also be the only space where he feels secure. Bobby and Carlos purposely did not participate in activities on the La Modelo’s courtyards, for example, and spent little time outside their cell. The cell or dormitory space, however, can also become particularly dangerous, especially when (accused of ) breaking prisoner rules—think of how Manuel was “run out” of his cell. Though most of my research participants had not experienced a stabbing firsthand, they had heard about previous stabbings, and particularly La Modelo prisoners spoke of the ease with which someone could “joderte” (shank you). When I asked Bobby, “but when they stab you they don’t mean to kill you, just to hurt you right?” He shook his head and answered, Well, their idea is to kill you. There are guards who have been stabbed in these fights […] [so] when there’s a confrontation they [the guards] get nervous. They see that you’re being stabbed and they can’t even open the door. That’s when you’re going to get killed.17 16 17

Yair, La Modelo, 2016, written interview over Facebook. Bobby, former La Modelo, 2015, private interview.

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The warnings and stories of past stabbings (and resulting deaths) keep the threat of the shank alive to subordinate, sanction or scare fellow prisoners out of stealing from or snitching on their cellmates. Effectively, stealing and snitching—especially when committed up the hierarchy rather than down it—are the two most severely punished or “cardinal crimes,” as they breach the norms of the cell-based hierarchy and threaten the integrity of the prisoners’ self-government. Despite the violence and coercion used by prisoners to position themselves in relation to others along the lines of “who is toughest,” many prisoners also recall their cells as being spaces of sharing. Remember how above Yair spoke of his cellmates as “family.” Former La Modelo prisoner Bobby similarly talked of his cell as being a “small community in which we would rotate cleaning and cooking duties and share food brought in by visiting family members.”18 Prisoners from the CPJ and SPR engaged in a similar dynamic of sharing food and cleaning duties, and only cell leaders would be exempt from complying with the latter. Yet much of the respect that cell leaders garnered derived from their generosity in “taking care” of their cellmates. At the CPJ, cell leader Araña occasionally indulged his cellmates in food and marihuana, like on his birthday and local festive holidays. Such practices of sharing, however, always hinged on the simultaneous disposition to deploy violence against rule-breakers, or as Araña noted “they respect me, but that’s only because I’ve beat them all.”19 In the CPJ this balance between the use of violence and sharing, between subordination and domination—always striving for the latter—was guided by the ley de la gallada, or law of the roosters.

La ley de la gallada Whereas initiation is done mostly to see where the newcomer places himself on the pecking order through some kind of test that confronts him with the fact that he needs to adapt to the existing rules, the jodedera never stops. “Jodedera” stands for screwing around and having 18 19

Bobby, former La Modelo, 2015, private interview. Araña, former CPJ, 2016, private interview.

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fun, though it refers to a potentially violent type of fun. It encompasses everything from hanging out, joking around and annoying guards to smoking drugs and picking fights. As such, it constitutes a particular type of disorder endorsed by the prisoners (quite opposite to the type of order that the authorities wish to impose), which is nonetheless bound to the gendered order of domination and intimidation. Prisoners of the CPJ many a time referred to each other as ladrones (thieves) without any disapproving undertone, the take-away point being that of the “bond of thieves,” that is, “no se roba entre ladrones” (thieves don’t steal from one another). In the jodedera, however, picking an easy target to steal from, for example, one that won’t fight back, being down low on the pecking order, is qualified as a fun pastime. In that case, taking other people’s possessions is part of the power game: “si te dormiste te fuiste” (if you don’t watch out, you’ll be stolen from). The ladrón is dominant, respected, and can be a little crazy. According to Wiz, a good ladrón never lets his guard down, is always in for a good hit, will defend his turf, and never rats on his own mates—at the CPJ these were phrased (by those who considered themselves ladrones) to equal the traits of a good prisoner. Following this logic, Marlon explained, “when the opportunity presents itself to rob something from someone, then, the ley de la gallada says you take it,” after all, “anybody would.”20 CPJ prisoners, however, also referred to a particular segment of the prisoner population as the gallada (literally, band of roosters). These appeared to be “those in charge” (los que mandan). Particularly, they appeared to be that segment of the prisoner population that could coerce others at will and impose their “law” while simultaneously possessing the prerogative to break it. Similar to the order that Rio’s favela traficantes impose, the prisoners of the gallada both dictated the rules and broke them: “[this] ability to produce order and disorder, to shift from what is ‘normal’ to a state of emergency where the rules are suspended, is constitutive of drug-trafficker power” (Penglase, 2014, 115), or in this case, of the gallada’s power. Though ladrones don’t steal from one another, the gallada could dispossess newcomers, for example. Upon inquiry, Wiz explained to the theatre facilitator that hypothetically: 20

Marlon, CPJ, 2015, group conversation.

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“If you’d come in [be imprisoned], I’d immediately check out what you’re wearing. If I like your pants you’re gonna give them to me, and I’ll give you a pair of my shorts. If I like your shirt, you’ll hand it over and I’ll give you a camisola (muscle-T),” he stands wide and laughs, “If I like your shoes, which by the way I like, you’re gonna wear my chinelas (flip-flops). And if I think you can get me money, I’ll try.” “What if I don’t want to give you shit?” the facilitator asks. “A turquearnos (we fight), ha!”

In this case, the appropriation of another man’s clothes follows a dynamic that fits in with the gendered practices of “testing” that prisoners subject each other to during initiation (such as the baile), to find out what the standing is of the new man they are to share a cell with. It also includes a (rather coercive) notion of sharing: a newcomer should not think he is “better than” anyone already inside, and must accept his challenger’s clothes in exchange for his own lest he be willing to fight to hold onto them—a kind of radical equality imposed in the cell that is nonetheless grounded on the inequality of the prisoner hierarchy. As Wiz’s final remark indicates, if you challenge those who wish to enforce this kind of initiation you better be up for a fight, because those you challenge are either the cell leaders or count on the gallada’s blessing. Ezequiel later explained, Sure, you can come in pretending to be the shit (el más chulo), but you’re likely to get your ass kicked by the whole cell si no bajas tu huevo (if you don’t tone down). If you manage to stay standing you’ll be respected, claro, but most kids just get the shit kicked out of them when they try to act tough.21

One afternoon after the 2015 prison riot at the CPJ, Marlon laid out the participatory dynamics of the jodedera. He explained: If you’re in the jodedera: aguantá (endure it). If you’re with them [the ladrones, los de la gallada], you’re gonna drink with them. If you’re with them, you’re gonna rob with them. Si ellos te hacen vuelo (if they run an 21

Ezequiel, CPJ, 2015, conversation.

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errand for you, i.e. do you a favor), you have to do them a favor. Ahí está el pedo (that’s where the problem is). If they do you a vuelo and you don’t do them a vuelo? Sos sapo (you’re a snitch). Why didn’t you do that vuelo? That’s why it’s better to see it all de larguito (from far away), as far away as possible. ‘Yeah man,’ [Marlon pretends to speak to a cellmate] ‘we know each other from the street pero yo caí solito (but I fell alone, i.e. was arrested alone). I was caught alone’ [he underlines]. So what if nobody gives me food? That doesn’t matter, I won’t eat. […] Why would I want to eat well for a second and then be all óshhh (screwed). […] Sure, you can go around en la loquera (literally, the craziness), te mata el calambre (it’ll take away your prison stress), time passes like this [Marlon clicks his fingers], but do you think you’ll be able to sleep well? You’ll be cagado (scared shitless) for going around in the vulgareo (similar to jodedera). Why do you think they have chuzos [shanks]? Because they’re cagados. […] Es el encierro (it’s being locked up). Confinement makes you fight about everything. […] So how do you make yourself feel better? Jodiendo al otro (screwing over someone else).

Interesting in Marlon’s reflection on the dynamics of the jodedera is that he sees it as “natural” given the circumstances of confinement. Marlon’s own “ladrón heart” (literally, as he is in prison for robbery) understands why they act this way. Prison is all about knowing how to aguantarla, how to endure the lock-up, the violence, the injustices. The jodedera provides relief from the daily reality of confinement. Smoking and having fun with the gallada, feeling backed by them, maybe getting on top of things yourself, makes time pass faster and relieves prison stress (“mata el calambre”). But Marlon warns that whatever they do for you, you’re expected to do for them. Their enemies (the authorities, the snitches, those they have crossed) become your enemies. There is no such thing as freeloading on others, and you cannot outsmart the gallada. For Marlon, it was this indebtedness that kept him from joining them. Moreover, even those of the gallada are not exempt of the logics of revenge. The violence they produce is believed to eventually take its toll on them too, a logic that is referred to as “la ley del hierro” (literally “the iron law” related to “he who kills by the sword, dieth by the sword” and frequently used as street/prison code for “what goes around comes around”). According to the same code, Marlon made it more than clear that even if he disagreed

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with how the gallada worked, he would never openly critique, much less snitch on them. In this way, he made himself respectable, and they left him alone. Others, like Wiz and Araña, made it quite clear that if they were going to endure prison time, they were going to do it from the top. It must be understood here that the gallada is not a particular gang nor a unison group, but rather groups of prisoners who “take charge” of things inside their cells. As such, they are the (violent) enforcers of prisoner order, but they are not a stable group of prisoners. Instead, the gallada is a segment of the prisoner population that is in flux as its members are released and new prisoners eventually become part of it. While the gallada engages in and endorses jodedera, some of its members may also manage the prison’s illicit economy and thus police the limits of the jodedera, too. They can exercise pressure to take a share of your food, your clothes or even extort you for money (on the basis of “we’re all equal and in here what’s yours is ours”), or leave you be as long as you don’t meddle in their business. You can fight to become a part of them or might have to fight in order not to be subjected to them. This way, despite their presence, some prisoners are able to escape their dominance, at least part of the time. Most prisoners participating in the community center programme, for example, would advise how “keeping to yourself ” keeps you out of trouble with both the gallada and the authorities. While this practice means they do not submit to the gallada, they do not challenge their power either. What is more, being able to keep to oneself can usually only be achieved on reputation or after going through an initial period of confrontation, as Joey did, in which an agreement or some form of mutual respect is established, often by abiding by the same practices as the gallada does. Araña, for example, held that he would not have enjoyed the respect that he did at the CPJ, if he would have acted “this way” (i.e. ‘changed’) from the beginning.22 Though at this point prison might seem exceptionally intimidating, which of course is to some extent, I hope to have shown that all of this violence has its own particular logic. There are particular actors who impose and dominate according to particular norms. Practices of violence or solidarity, while they are distributed differentially among the prisoner 22

Araña, former CPJ, 2016, private interview.

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population, ultimately depend on these norms. Not every prisoner will manage to get on top, nor will every prisoner be subordinated, but the way in which the hierarchy is constituted and enforced is very clear to all those locked inside. Contrary to the often arbitrary or corrupt allocation of privileges and administration of punishment by the authorities, this particularly norm-based and gendered order is largely perceived as fair in the way it clearly lays out the possible speed and level of ascent within the prisoner hierarchy (leading to privileges of a different sort). All prisoners acknowledge these internal power structures, and most subscribe to or even enforce them. The logics of prisoner violence have however become so engrained in the workings of the prison system that authorities often rely (or arguably depend) on these self-ordering principles for the distribution of scarce resources as well as for disciplining particular prisoners (especially newcomers), too. The story of authorities placing prisoners in particular cells to ensure they will have a “rough time,” for example, was related to me repeatedly. When I asked Joey if the police did anything about the initiatory beatings going on in the cells, he grinned, The police? They don’t do anything! […] They rather put you in a particular cell to ensure you get a beating. Like with guys that have done nasty stuff, they’ll put them in the worst cells.

The (purposeful) lack of confrontation with prisoner-on-prisoner violence on part of the authorities, or even its clear usage to their benefit, demonstrates how engrained these practices are in prison governance dynamics. As (part of ) the disciplinary function of the authorities is delegated to the prisoners, the de facto condition of co-governance is sustained.23 To maintain the upper hand in this system, however, the authorities deploy violence themselves as well. Yet for the system to work this is concealed and veiled in public secrecy, through the systemic denial of its occurrence.

23

Realizing that in this way they catered to the authorities, some CPJ-prisoners said that they stopped beating newcomers in their cell because they noticed that it was what the police wanted them to do, and argued that it went against prisoner code.

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The Heavy Hand of Authority There are two ways in which the authorities receive you at the penitentiary. The first is that they don’t beat you, they just shave your head, give you a number and take your picture. Second is that they beat and kick the shit out of you and throw you cuffed into the calabozo.24 They do this most of all with the dangerous guys, or those coming in on long sentences, so they understand that the officers are in charge of the prisoners and not the other way around (el funcionario manda al reo y no el reo al funcionario).25

Most prisoners were beaten upon their arrests and for a long time I thought this practice did not occur at the penitentiaries, as these operated under the ideological banner of re-education (claiming, in their institutional slogan, to be humanist). Yet when I asked Javi about what entering the SPR was like, he told me the above. His last point is pivotal: prison officers also use violence to make sure that prisoners understand who is in charge (quien manda). In this way, then, beating a potentially subversive prisoner can be understood as a governing practice. As it is recurrent and instrumental, it can be understood as a systemic aspect of the co-governance system. According to Javi, especially “dangerous” and long-sentenced prisoners are received with violence. These prisoners, who come in on high profile crimes such as first degree murder and organized crime, including (international) drug trafficking and armed robbery, are those prisoners who might easily attain a high standing within the prisoners’ own hierarchy due to their presumed knowledge of violence and/or the illicit economy. Given the weight of prisoner hierarchies it becomes vital for the authorities to clarify that, despite what these prisoners may see or hear, they are in charge. Beside “playing” with prisoner privileges by accepting bribes or imposing obstacles to “trabarle a

24

Calabozos are small, one- or two-person isolation cells where prisoners are kept when they are sanctioned. When in the calabozo you only get sun time once a week. Usually more than the amount of prisoners they were built for occupy these cells. 25 Javi, former SPR, 2016, private interview on WhatsApp.

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uno” (keep a prisoner stuck), extralegal force is the authorities’ foremost resource of demonstrating their advantage.26 In this way, the use of violence by authorities acts as a security clip of sorts on co-governance arrangements in place, to prevent the equilibrium from shifting too far in the direction of the prisoners. Yet it is a balance of extremes, as extralegal force is used directly to subject and subordinate prisoners. As such, it antagonizes, coercing prisoners into obedience, but also reveals to them their existential vulnerability. Just as the gallada is allowed to break its own rules, the authorities—through their use of extralegal violence—demonstrate that they too can break the laws that bind them, without any legal consequence. This leaves room to interpret the co-governance system as approximate to a state of exception, as “[t]he state of exception is an anomic space in which what is at stake is a force of law without law” (Agamben, 2005, 35). In other words, behind closed doors and in guaranteed secrecy, prison has all the preconditions to evolve and devolve into situations where law itself is lawless. That is not to say that life in prison is entirely unpredictable, but rather that its predictability is not provided by the rule of law. Instead, prisoners have carved out a space to provide a level of predictability for themselves and their fellow cellmates. Authority use of violence, in this sense, serves the purpose of disrupting the balance of daily life as much as it is considered by prisoners to be part and parcel of that daily life—a possibility always to be taken into account. Yet even though the use of physical violence as a disciplinary tool by prison authorities is against the law, it is not necessarily considered illegitimate: many believe that authorities should be able to “teach a prisoner a lesson” or to physically reprimand transgressions, especially when these transgressions negatively affect a particular officer or “the system” itself. Certainly, officers legitimize the use of force against prisoners who challenge their authority—much as the government at large has legitimized the use of force against protesters. It is pivotal to understand, then, that seeking social order and applying the rule of law are not the same thing (Parnell & Kane, 2003, 6). Numerous studies of policing 26

In this vein, extensive beatings were also used to reestablish el mando (command) after the 2009 riot at the SPR, the 2017 riot at the CPJ, and—as I have argued elsewhere—the protesting population during the 2018 uprising (see Weegels, 2018c, 2019).

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and prison governance have demonstrated that law enforcement does not necessarily occur in a law abiding fashion (Beek et al., 2017; Denyer Willis, 2015; Fassin, 2013, 2017; Gutiérrez Rivera, 2013). This manifests in the disdain or disregard of human or prisoner rights by police forces, special units and penal institutions across the globe—affecting particular intersections of gender, race and/or class disproportionately.27 In this sense, the deployment of violence by authorities in Nicaragua’s prisons is no exception. What is exceptional, perhaps, is that these disciplinary practices coexist with re-educational practices and ideologies. In that sense, the extralegal use of force against prisoners becomes telling of the discrepancies between the politico-ideological discourse (reeducation) and the reality of practice reflected in the use of an Agambean “force of law” rather than a Weberian “rule of law.” Following this logic, jurisprudence (such as prisoner rights) loses its practical standing. As they pay for their wrongdoing, prisoners need to aguantar (endure) the full weight of the “law” that is brought to bear upon them (“que les caiga todo el peso de la ley”). In a video clip sent to the newspaper Hoy,28 filmed by a prisoner with his cell phone, we can see how eight prisoners have been taken to stand against the wall outside their cell so their cell can be searched. There, the penitentiary officers, who outnumber the prisoners, order them to strip naked and face the wall with their hands on their heads. Two types of officers are present: white-and-green uniformed penitentiary officers, and dark blue uniformed guards. One of the officers, in white-and-green, proceeds to beat all of the (naked) prisoners, presumably with a baton or a doubled belt, while the dark blue officers stand grouped around the prisoners. The prisoner who filmed the scene from the bars of his cell across the hallway repeatedly states “See, see what they do to us, this is so you can see, you hear that [the whipping]? They’re beating them up, see? Look, so you see that we prisoners don’t tell lies.” 27 See especially work on Brazil’s police and prison system (Biondi, 2016; Darke, 2018; Denyer Willis, 2015; Penglase, 2014). I have argued that much the same dynamics count for Nicaragua (Weegels, 2018a; 2020b). 28 “Reos denuncian abusos en Penitenciario Nacional La Modelo,” retrievable on newspaper Hoy’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdQL2Kl_tIQ (published on 21 December 2015, last viewed 27 September 2020).

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While the threat and reality of authority violence is integral the way in which the authorities impose a force of law outside of the rule of law (that is, a state of exception), what is at stake in concealing this violence for onlookers is not the perceived legitimacy of a particular violent “incident,” but of that of the discourse surrounding the entire re-educational model. The ideologically incorruptible nature of the prison officer is paramount in the construction of this discourse. To keep it in place, authority abuses and authority collusion in prison’s illicit economies must remain concealed. Pivotal in this sense is that Nicaragua’s system of penal re-education is projected as a political project and as such anchored in the Sandinista state. Perhaps even more so than with the communitarian policing model, which I have argued elsewhere justifies the use of police violence against particular transgressors of “community,” the integrity and efficacy of the prison system is not to be questioned (Weegels, 2018a, 2018b). As I mentioned in the introduction, Nicaragua’s foremost human rights organizations – the independent Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (CENIDH) and Comisión Permanente de los Derechos Humanos (CPDH)—have been barred from accessing the prison system as of 2008, coinciding more or less with the return to power of Daniel Ortega, leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 2007. The number of reports of human rights violations at the hands of state authorities have only increased, however.29 Considering the purposeful politics of concealment and policing of access to the prison system, in combination with numerous denouncements of police abuse (533 in 2016 alone, rocketing to over 2,000 injuries, 325 deaths and 1,600 arbitrary detentions following the 2018 protests),30 authority deployment of violence against prisoners and 29

In 2015, for example, the state-organized Procuraduría para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (PPDH) held the Ministry of Governance responsible for obscuring prisoner deaths occurring, according to them, due to the lack of medical attention, torture, and suicide, at the rate of one death per month. See “Un reo muere cada mes en las cárceles de Nicaragua, según procurador de DDHH,” El Nuevo Diario, 26 February 2015; “Denuncian caótica situación de cárceles en Nicaragua,” AFP, 2 March 2015. 30 See for example the independent investigative report on the events that occurred between 18 April and 30 May 2018 (GIEI, 2018), the Interamerican Human Rights Commission annual report (2018, 424), and the more recent human rights report “Silence at any cost: State tactics to deepen the repression in Nicaragua” (Amnesty International, 2021).

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detainees, as well as anyone who is perceived to oppose their governance system, can be deemed systemic. Still, while prisoners protest by sewing their mouths shut, going on hunger strikes or rioting, there is little else they can do in the face of this systemic violence, and there is excruciatingly little popular support for them or their family members standing outside the jails with their cardboard signs denouncing the mistreatment of their loved ones. Those who do speak up wish to remain anonymous out of fear for retaliation, which is an omnipresent threat that government authorities mobilize to instill a profound sense of insecurity in those who dare to question the way power is exerted inside prisons.31

Conclusions In this chapter I explored the ways in which prison is co-governed by prisoners and authorities in Nicaragua. This co-governance system balances power relations between prisoners and authorities through a complex set of interactions, which result in more or less stabilized regulations around the use of violence and the management of different prison markets. Though analyzing the full extent of these arrangements goes beyond the scope of this article, I have analyzed violence and secrecy as the foremost regulatory and boundary-defining governance practices in place. The deployment of both violence and secrecy should be understood as integral to prison governance relations as prisoners and authorities use these both as disciplinary tools and means to demonstrate quien manda (who is in charge). The authorities and those prisoners “in charge,” then, are mutually constitutive of the surveilling, governing and (dis)ordering practices that organize prison life. While inside prison co-governance arrangements then provide significant space for prisoner movement, they are also the relational spheres for the articulation of the Sistema’s hybrid power. According to Sykes 31

Even though political prisoners and their family members receive more public support following the 2018 protests, many of them are subjected to constant police harassment and in-prison surveillance, including coercion to sign forms that state their loved ones are in “perfect physical and psychological conditions” and in which they vow not to denounce the prison system publicly (personal interviews with family members of political prisoners, October 2020).

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(1958) this “sharing” of power on part of the authorities pointed to the “defects of total power,” yet I would argue that in Nicaragua the authorities’ capacity to act outside, above, and beyond the law (in part by balancing or sharing their power with non-state political or criminal actors), fosters a level of control that does not disrupt the totalizing effects of power as the “force of law.” Given that prisoners participate in the emergence and maintenance of this state of exception too, we should consider it not just as a condition imposed from above, but also as a “political fact” articulated from below. This brings me back to the contingent and performative nature of prison—particularly to the acts that (de)legitimize both prisoner and state power and authority. As a carceral institution but also a state of exception, prison needs to be performed by both prisoners and authorities. On the legal end, the custodial regime requires a performance of obedience from the prisoners, and the prisoners require a performance of the basic guarantees of the law from the authorities. On this premise, prisoners and authorities establish a basic organization of daily life inside prison that provides basic tenets of security. It is in this light that re-education is performed both by prisoners and authorities as the legal purpose of imprisonment. On the other hand, however, the custodial regime seeks a control over prison life that exceeds the premise of the law and the limits of the legal. Similarly, prisoners seek a control over prison life that exceeds the limits of their confinement. It is in this extralegal sphere, largely veiled in public secrecy, that both sides perform acts of (de)legitimation toward one another in order to establish who is in charge. It is also here that the governance entanglement thickens—where the prisoner can perform his resistance to the Sistema, but where he is simultaneously unable to escape it, as the full weight of the “law” can come to be exerted on him if and when necessary. This points to an inherent paradox for resistance under a state of exception, as resistance itself becomes incorporated into the argument for the prolongation or expansion of exception. The current situation on the margins of the law of more than 140 imprisoned protesters and dissidents points precisely to this paradox, as well as the dangers of Nicaragua’s process of carceral hybridization.

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Co-Governance of Dialogue: Hegemony in a Brazilian Prison Vitor Stegemann Dieter

Introduction: The Global South and Penal Governance Brazil has the third largest prison population in the world (World Prison Brief, 2020) holding more than 720,000 individuals in its prison system (DEPEN, 2019) and their conditions are typically described as inhumane according to human right standards (Human Rights Watch, 1998; Zackeski et al., 2016). Its crowding rates are almost triple than those officially admitted (DEPEN, 2019) and houses a population that not only suffers from the excessive deprivations (CNJ, 2012), but also often suffer from institutional violence and contract otherwise preventable illnesses inside (DEPEN, 2019, 52–53). The overall picture has led the Brazilian V. Stegemann Dieter (B) ICPC, Curitiba, Brasil

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Sozzo (ed.), Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America, Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5_7

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Federal Supreme Court (2015) to define the prison system in a ‘state of unconstitutionality’. Studies have given increasing attention to the overall problems of the system (Pereira, 2017; Ungar, 2003) and the reasons for the Brazilian mass incarceration (Azevedo & Cifali, 2016; Fonseca, 2017). Yet, in this process, researchers have often failed to address how the prison culture, the prisoners and immediate authorities have reacted to adapt (Crewe, 2007), survive (Darke & Garces, 2017) and, potentially, transform (Avila, 2018) their own dire circumstances. Nevertheless, emerging studies on the Global South (Carrington et al., 2016) and on prison governance (Darke et al., 2017) have been increasingly addressing that gap. While this field has only recently emerged, it has already pointed to the limitations of understanding imprisonment in the Global South from abstract human rights standards (Jefferson, 2005) and the potential new forms of order (Darke, 2018) and control (Cerbini, 2017) that are far from the image of a prison simply ruled by coercion. This chapter intends to contribute to those emerging debates drawing from an ethnography in Brazilian prisons that, through the agency of inmates, prison staff and prison governors, has transformed the dominant governance culture creating a co-governance of ‘dialogue’. As my results point, this is a process that involves complex power relations between those agents. I argue that co-governance is the product of interactions between different spheres of prison governance that emerges as an output of power relations in prison from the bottom-up. While most studies have focused on the coercive dimension of prison (Foucault, 1995; Goffman, 1961; Scraton et al., 1991; Wacquant, 2008), I find that the emergence and development of co-governance should be understood in tandem with the need of the prison system to have the consent of inmates on its conditions of incarceration. In a dialogue with Gramsci, this is a hegemony (domination through both consent and coercion) that should be understood in terms of a project (penal politics), an apparatus (management or governance of imprisonment) and interactions of consent and coercion (relations between staff and inmates). The chapter is divided into five sections. I start with the debates on prison studies—with a focus on governance—in the Global North and South, arguing that power relations are at the centre of the debate and the

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theory of hegemony has potentials to innovate the field. Next, in Section “Order in ‘Southern’ Prisons: A Methodological Inquiry into the Culture of Prison Governance in Brazil”, I describe the ethnographic method undertaken, with a focus on the participant observation and interviews with inmates, staff and authorities. In Section “The Crisis of Authority: Prison Containment, Penal Treatment and the Dialogue with Inmates”, the results point to the experience of the ‘crisis’ of authority that staff is undergoing due to the changes in the inmate culture and the changes in penal policies. In the following section (Section “Hegemony and the Layers of Governance: The Project, the Apparatus and the Production of Consent”), I argue that we can identify three layers of hegemony (prison governance) in prison: the first one being the penal policies that determine the conditions and purpose of imprisonment—which in the field represents a policy of ‘containment’—; an intermediate layer of the management of prison governors in prison—in the field referred as a ‘penal treatment’ approach with inmates—; and, third, the interactions between prison staff and inmates characterised by a co-governance of ‘dialogue’, in which inmates put pressure on staff to have conditions of imprisonment changed and staff manages those demands according to principles of security, discipline and safety. I then move on to the conclusion reflecting on the interactive effects of these layers of governance and the attitudes of prisoners and staff to the academic debates on co-governance.

Prison Governance and the Production of Order In line with Gresham Sykes’s (2007) study of an American prison in the 1950s, classic criminological research on imprisonment gave significant importance to prisoner–staff relationships as a basis for the understanding of prison social order (Clemmer, 1958; Grusky, 1959; Schrag, 1954; Sykes’s 2007). Sykes’s (2007) found that the means by which order is produced lays in a constant set of informal negotiations through which custodians partially alleviate the pains of imprisonment suffered by inmates in exchange for their obedience (Hancock & Jewkes, 2011;

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Riley, 2002; Warr, 2016). Instead of an order based on the ‘official commands and decrees’, control is necessarily produced through ‘negotiations’ and ‘struggles’ (Darke, 2018; Garces et al., 2013; Sykes, 2007). In that sense, prison staff are far from impartial enforcers of order, the prison environment ‘corrupts’ and compromises their power (Jacobs, 1977; Sykes 1956), but this is the unavoidable reality behind the official governance (Crewe et al., 2015; Scott, 2015). Brazilian studies have also found these negotiations as pervasive arrangements that produce order with the contribution of inmates in the precarious conditions of prisons (Castro e Silva, 2008; Coelho, 2005; Ramalho, 2002). In sum, following Sykes, prison governance is far from impersonal. It is an informal negotiation enforced with and through the inmates. While Sykes’s arguments had a great impact on prison studies (Drake et al., 2015; Reisig, 2001), others have constructed narratives different from or against the notion that order is a product of negotiationsstruggles or that this is a positive form of governance. Critical approaches have argued that the great power gap between custodians and inmates is the key social arrangement that determines order from a top-down bureaucratic form (Crewe, 2009b; Foucault, 1995; Goffman, 1961; Mathiesen, 1965; Rhodes, 2004). Furthermore, others have seen the prison as a total institution suffering from a crisis of legitimacy that should be resolved by taking prisoners’ grievances seriously (Scraton et al., 1991; Sparks et al., 1996) and to take into account the imbalance of power within prison (Mathiesen 1974; Matthews, 1999; Scraton et al., 1991). In that vein, some have questioned the idea that informal negotiations with inmates is a fixed condition of imprisonment (DiIulio, 1991), positing instead for a control-security model (DiIulio, 1990; Useem & Kimball, 1991). In effect, since the 1970s Western-affluent countries have sought to increase forms of control that follow impersonal standards with the expansion of bureaucratic-legal accountability (Jacobs, 1977; Trulson & Marquart, 2009), spatial architectural-segregation (Hancock & Jewkes, 2011) and the development of ‘super-max’ prison facilities (Rhodes, 2004; Richards, 2008)—reforms expanded to the rest of the world, including Brazil (Buntman & Muntingh, 2013; Jesus Filho, 2013; O’Day & O’Connor, 2013; Wacquant, 2008). Despite those developments, critical research has argued that instead of creating a more

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legitimate system these changes have made prison power more insidious and elusive (Crewe 2009b; Mathiesen 1965; Rhodes 2004). Another set of critiques emerges from a Southern criminological perspective (Carrington et al., 2016). These studies have critically challenged notions in which the Global North sets the standards for order and the rest of the world appears simply as an extension or a ‘less developed form’ of Western-affluent countries. Thus, scholars are calling for a contextualised account of different prison climates (Martin et al., 2014; also da Cunha, 2003) in which localised solutions of prison order are not disregarded or labelled as ‘deviant’ simply because they diverge from Western-affluent canons. In this vein, a growing body of literature from the Global South has been focusing on the emergence of forms of co-governance in prison (Darke et al., 2017). A relevant reference to this argument can be found in Sacha Darke’s ethnography in a Rio de Janeiro lockup (Darke, 2014b, 2018). In an environment of understaffing, overcrowding and other deprivations, prisoners were necessary collaborators of governance. The few existing staff relied on a body of ‘trusties’ that supported the discipline and order of the staff. Far from being agents of disorder and violence, ‘trusties’ promoted a balanced equilibrium in which inmates collaborated to ‘maintain order and facilitate survival’. For Darke it is from the ‘conviviality’ of inmates—largely informed by their common cultural embeddedness—that order and survival are co-produced in prisons in the precarious conditions of the Global South. Seen from a Southern criminology perspective, the recent literature on prisons (such as the contributions in this book) contributes with more than a diverse set of localised narratives on the production of order. Nevertheless, they have paid less attention to power relations as struggles, and often neglect the conflicting ways by which struggles produce order. For instance, in Dias and Salla (2017) gang relations in Brazilian prison can be seen as an extension of the institutional violent order of prison to the non-affiliated prisoners; whereas in Darke and Karam (2016) the key to understand the under-resourced Latin American prison is the collaboration between prisoners and staff—providing agency and making

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inapplicable the concept of total institution in the Global South.1 In such accounts, while mass incarceration and inhumane conditions are frowned upon, the underlying assumption is of a prison order in which struggles are not inexistant, but already resolved by the informal prison culture and a prison policy that appears almost fixed or static (authoritarian or collaborative). In that sense, ‘Southern’ prison studies suffer from a relative underdevelopment of power relations within the prison and the disputes that exist between different projects of prison governance. Thus, the concept of power stands out in its relevance. Of course, Foucauldian theory has most famously explored the relations between power and imprisonment (Ignatieff, 1981; Matthews, 2014). Foucault’s classic exploration of the relations between discipline and domination in total institutions (Foucault, 1995) has been fruitful in debates on the forms of prison domination in Western-affluent countries (Cohen, 1985; Crewe, 2009b; Matthews, 1999; Welch, 2009) and in ‘Southern’ prisons (Cerbini, 2017; Ramalho, 2002). However, while these contributions have focused on the power-knowledge that produce domination in prison, they have not given the same attention to the conflicting tensions, struggles and agencies of prisoners, staff and authorities that often produce resistance and transformation (Garland, 1993; Sparks et al., 1996). The relations between the authorities and subordinate groups is of increasing significance to the understanding of the Global South due to the aforementioned debates on the emergence of prison co-governance (Darke, 2018; Macaulay, 2017). In this line of inquiry, this chapter ventures into the theory of hegemony (Gramsci, 1992) as a possible productive venue to further explore the agentic and interactive dimension between prisoners, inmate collectives, staff and authorities in prison.

1

It is worth noticing that the ‘defects of total institutions’ have been suggested by Sykes (2007) in his study of a prison in New Jersey. In effect, other prisons in the Global North have also relied on prisoners to maintain order (Trulson & Marquart, 2009) and the interaction between gangs and the institution are still pervasive in United States prisons (Lessing, 2017).

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In Gramsci, hegemony is a form of domination2 (Thomas, 2009) that seeks to attain the consent of the subaltern groups (Crehan, 2002; Green, 2011; Liguori, 2011). Following Gramsci’s (1992, 12), it can be initially described as ‘The “spontaneous” consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group’. More specifically, hegemony exists as a project of power that is dynamically constructed and reproduced in its apparatuses (Hoare & Sperber, 2016) to maintain subordination of subaltern groups (Ciavolella, 2014). But hegemony is always dynamic. Against a stricter cultural or post-marxist (Mouffe et al., 1979) reading of Gramsci (for a critique McKay, 2014) in critical philological Gramscian studies, scholars have underscored the integration between consent and coercion in hegemony (Boothman, 2008; Fontana, 1993; Thomas, 2009). Modern societies integrate uses of coercion to a purpose of consent and are constantly transforming and adapting their hegemony through the apparatuses of civil society and the State (Thomas, 2013)—such as schools, the media, churches, etc. (for our purposes, the prison system). The historical context that comprises both larger structural forces and the agency of groups and individuals around a particular hegemony is what comprises a hegemonic project and a set of apparatuses that seek to maintain hegemony over subaltern groups in determinate circumstances (Thomas, 2009). Therefore, establishing a dialogue with Gramsci’s theory of power, in which the Modern democratic State seeks the consent of subaltern groups, I propose to think with Gramsci but beyond him to reflect on

2 Against Perry Anderson (1976), much of the literature on Gramsci has seen hegemony as the development of domination, not the opposite of domination. This increasingly prevalent reading (Boothman, 2008; Fontana, 1993; Thomas, 2009) argues that hegemony seeks the consent of its subjects but maintains the threat of coercion and discipline. In other words, instead of an opposition—in which hegemony translates to consent and domination means coercion, both being different political projects of power—, hegemony and domination both rely on different degrees of consent and coercion. The difference between both concepts is that the fundamental orientation of hegemony is to obtain the willing cooperation of its subjects—‘consent’ and ‘coercion by consent’ (Thomas, 2009, 165)—, whereas pure domination seeks the coercion of the subjects for their cooperation (‘consent by coercion’). Furthermore, having hegemony means that domination remains a resource in times of crisis to re-establish the dominant project of power through force.

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prison order as a hegemony that is in perpetual struggle and transformation. My hypothesis is that prisons in Brazil need to be understood as more than environments of authoritarian coercion, they are constituted by a praxis of consent with prisoners, but this does not make them spaces devoid of coercion or struggles. In other words, can the practices, discourses and interactions of the Brazilian prison be better understood from the vantage point of struggles for hegemony? This leads to a reflection upon the degree of consent to maintain order and the parallels with Gramscian theory to the understanding of hegemony as a project (the politics of prison), an apparatus (the prison) and a set of groups (inmates and authorities)—responding to consent and coercion—to elucidate the understanding of power in its different moments to which corresponds forms of prison governance.

Order in ‘Southern’ Prisons: A Methodological Inquiry into the Culture of Prison Governance in Brazil In prison studies, ethnographies have been able to refrain from abstractmodelling to provide the ‘localised’ setting (Armstrong & Jefferson, 2017) in which experiences (Comfort, 2003; Cunha, 2014) and power relations occur (Crewe, 2015; Rhodes, 2015). This is especially relevant for the Global South, where it is necessary to understand prison in its power relations beyond distant abstract frameworks and closer to the immediate ways of governing prisons (Darke, 2018; Jefferson & Gaborit, 2015). In that vein our ethnography explores more than the discourses around prison, to include the shared practices and experiences that construct relations of power. The research was designed to understand the prison context in a State of Brazil—in the South with a total prison population of approximately 40 thousand prisoners—with authorities, immediate prison staff and prisoners in three prisons (two of them maximum-security units) and a police lockup. Fieldwork between October 2016 and April

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2017 consisted of different tools of data collection: participant observation, interviews (n = 52) and focus groups. After the collection of data, the material was organised, coded and then narratively articulated (Benaquisto, 2008; Katz, 2002). Important terms and concepts had to be adapted from colloquial Brazilian Portuguese to academic English. In the results section of this chapter all terms with inverted commas are concepts that were used in that native cultural context of participants (such as ‘ideology’, ‘the crime’, etc.), occasionally, when the circumstances demand, the Portuguese term is written next in brackets. Greater opportunities for participant observation emerged in one particular prison, the EOC (pseudonym) with approximately 600 inmates. The prison was relevant in the region for imprisoning the so-called ‘problematic prisoners’, especially those for violent crimes or lengthy sentences, and members of the Brazilian inmate group, ‘PCC’ (standing for ‘Primeiro Comando da Capital’). Inmates were isolated in their cells most of their time, with three hours of yard and strictly regulated visiting procedures a day on the weekend. Furthermore, security measures are greater: the ubiquity of CCTV cameras, frisking procedures, severe restriction on the circulation of inmates, disciplined dressing codes, reduced access to items brought by visitors, length of time in the yard, etc. My unparalleled access to the ‘deep’ parts of prison occurred due to a set of positive circumstances that allowed me to observe the interactions between prisoners and staff. While in the other prisons I had access to a separate part of prison in which I interviewed participants, at the EOC I could go much beyond that. The office where I was initially holding interviews was ‘deep’ within the prison, consequently I had the opportunity to move to some other spaces where officers were working (such as the wings in prison) and establish rapport. In addition I could engage in conversations with prisoners doing chores or those waiting for a meeting with staff. Slowly my presence in the corridors and open offices became more organic. As I interviewed more prisoners and met them in the halls, or as I had lunch with the staff, I built a relationship and could ‘hang around’ prison. This allowed me to circulate through parts of the prison without supervision—never the immediate spaces next to the prison cells or the

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yard. Considering possible security concerns, I used my best judgement to circulate, avoiding a breach of trust that could put me at risk. Overall, these conditions gave me a first-hand impression of the rapport between the staff and prisoners, which, added to my extended participation in the field, allowed me to triangulate (Flick, 2004) my impressions and the interviews at the EOC and other prisons with the interviews with ex-convicts and prison staff in the streets.

The Crisis of Authority: Prison Containment, Penal Treatment and the Dialogue with Inmates The perception of my participants is that one of the features that has changed the most in their prisons in the last years is the imposition of authority of staff over inmates. This is as a product of two large factors: a change in the culture of the penal department and in the prisoners’ culture. A major issue for the prison officers working in the ‘deep parts’ of prison [fundão da cadeia], is the feeling that their authority has been undermined due to the lack of support from the authorities. This is partly due to a change of governance culture from prison governors. The EOC deputy governor explains that from his experience there are two ways of governing prison: the ‘penal treatment’ governance and the ‘colonel’ governance.3 In the recent past most prisons were governed 3 As it will be further developed in this section, ‘penal treatment governance’ [administração de tratamento penal] is a form of governance in which the prison governors and other authorities within the hierarchy of prison seeks to attain order from inmates by having an attitude that is concerned with the improvement of the legitimacy of prison in the eyes of prisoners (such as being procedurally fair and showing an effort to attend the needs of prisoners when possible). A ‘colonel governance’ [administração de coronel] seeks order by distributing favours and instilling obedience among the prisoners (through the display of authority by staff ). In Brazilian history, the ‘colonel’ [coronel] is a reference to rural elites that acted as a local authority exerting political power through violence and the exchange of favours. The ‘colonel’ was a wealthy man that maintained a squad of gunmen, while protecting and distributing favours to those were on his side—establishing a rapport of dependency and fear. ‘We still have to consider personal favours of every description, from arranging jobs in the public service to the smallest acts of homage. It is under this heading that paternalism occurs, as well as its opposite: withholding

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through a ‘colonel’ way, but changes of government and other facts have altered the upper management of prison governors to increasingly favoured governors with what he deems a ‘penal treatment’ approach. My staff participants in the lower hierarchies of the EOC prison experience the change to ‘penal treatment’ as something that worsened their work. One typical narrative states that the decline in their authority is the fault of ‘human right groups’. Such staff describe their duties as being daily harassed in their stressful work. They suffer to maintain order with understaffing in dangerous conditions while ‘human rights groups’ focus their attention on prisoners’ demands. But there are also alternative views among the staff. Those interviewed on the outside and the more senior staff members refer to these arguments in the ‘deep jail’ [fundão da cadeia] as a ‘police mentality’. This other group of officers complain about prison conditions but see their work as one of mediating issues with prisoners. In their view, the ‘police mentality’ often causes problems due to the lack of tact with inmates. For these other staff, this mentality is not purely ideological but also connected to a preference for a more easy-going system in which they can issue orders without contestation. Participants also situate these two governance approaches within an overarching penal policy—that of ‘containment’ [contenção] of prisoners. All sort of issues in prison creates a great deal of stress for inmates that affect the security team. For the chief of security and the prison governors, the current inmate culture is not willing to simply accept ‘containment’—referred to the practice of being locked up under a subservient discipline. The ‘penal treatment’ approach of the prison governors tries to meet the demands of prisoners and fellow staff, which is contrasted with the ‘colonel’ attitude of governors that keep their office door shut without meddling too much in ‘deep’ parts of ‘jail’.

bread and water from one’s opponents’ (Leal, 2009, 14). Thus, those that benefited from them saw in the paternalistic patronage of ‘colonels’ a value for the community and a positive contribution to social order, to which the authority of the ‘colonel’ appeared indisputable. In that sense, as we will see there are parallels between the notion of the ‘colonel’ approach and the informal ‘negotiations’ found by Castro e Silva (2008)—and more distant connections with Sykes (2007) in which reducing the deprivations of captives was exchanged for their obedience to the personalised authority of custodians.

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Yet behind their approach as governors, a system of ‘containment’ is pervasive beyond a local governance culture. Despite managerial changes, ‘containment’ is the dominant culture of the penal department4 and the prison system. A suicide in prison allows me to understand this point. The day after its occurrence, the prison environment was different. The silence of the wings and the emptiness of yards and common spaces build a tension among the few prisoners in the corridors and workshops. A suicide in a prison cell (shared by around nine inmates) often could mean a homicide. Prisoners are tense. On the other hand, the staff appear much more relaxed than most days. As we converse about the suicide: Deputy governor:

“Wow, I feel angry when I hear the phone ringing, because I already know, when the phone rings I say ... ‘Omg, what is it now?” Chief of security: “Death! This time I thought it was an escape. Death would brighten the day, right? I thought it was an escape” Deputy governor: “I just know I thought: some bad shit happened” Me: “What is worse …? Is it an escape or a death?” Chief of security and “Escape, man!” deputy governor: Chief of security: Assistant: Chief of security:

“Escapes opens up an inquiry, right?” “Escape opens an inquiry, involves prison staff, there’s an investigation.” “Death, call the morgue because it is between them [prisoners], you understand?”

Entailed in the penal department philosophy of ‘containment’, an escape is motive to put the administration into scrutiny, while death is investigated by the police and remains as a problem between prisoners that does not affect as greatly the prison administration. In fact, 4

The penal department is the overarching administrative body of prisons attached to the State government.

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an escape attempt forced the prison governor to open an inquiry against a staff member that had been negligent, but the weird circumstances of the suicide were resolved with the visit of a forensic expert determining the cause of death. In a similar sense, the State government has been dealing with some of the overcrowding by installing cargo containers as prison cells. That means that even if the local prison governance culture may adapt and change from a ‘colonel’ approach—keen on making prisoners obey without contestation—to a ‘penal treatment’—responding to prisoners’ demands—, the larger culture of the penal department remains attached to its view of ‘containing’ prisoners as their main goal. A ‘containing’ penal culture is different from a wider ‘rehabilitative’ [re-educação] penal policy, which is in tandem with a transformation of practices of control. A practical demonstration of these changes of prison policy culture that affect the authority of staff is the reduction of prison workshops (called ‘sectors’). Prison staff posit that the lack of workshops has undermined their authority because the shortage of resources damages their capacity to manage prisons properly. Prison workshops gave prisoners more time out of their cell, a wage—however meagre—and allowed them to progress their sentencing conditions to better prisons faster. Common prison staff argue that prison ‘sectors’ were used in a trade-off for social control—improving their authority on the custody of prisoners. Ex-convicts and inmate participants were aware of this trade-off and hold a great deal of contempt for prisoners that work in the ‘sectors’. However, prison staff seem to also believe that the provision of rehabilitative activities—especially in the ‘closed’ prison regimes5 —gave the institution more legitimacy with the individual prisoner. Yet the ‘sectors’

5

The Brazilian legal system divides prison regimes in three: ‘closed’, ‘semi-open’ and ‘open’. Prisoners are sent to each prison according to the length of their sentences and the gravity of the crime, they then progress to other prisons as they do their time without disciplinary sanctions. There are many types of ‘closed’ prisons, such as hyper-max units, special rehabilitative units, jails in police precincts, units for prisoners on remand, etc., and sometimes they are mixed with the other regimes (combining semi-open or open regimes). In the field however, a ‘closed’ prison can gain a particular meaning, which is the condition by which the authorities (prison governor and staff ) govern the prison. In this ethnographic sense, in a ‘closed’ or ‘more closed’ prison, inmates spend more time in their cells and have more security constrains; whereas in an ‘open’ ‘more open’ prison, inmates have more liberties within prison.

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were slowly dismantled due to prison disturbances (on the part of prisoners), strikes (on the part of staff ), disruption (upon the discovery of corruption schemes) and, most importantly, the lack of proper funds to maintain the activities. The ‘sectors’ usually remaining in ‘closed’ prisons are four: the ‘cleaning’ [faxina] (a group of inmates that clean and distribute food), the ‘warehouse’ (that controls stocks of non-perishable goods), the ‘craftwork’ (to which prisoners could sign up, buy the materials and work by themselves in their cells) and the ‘school’ (5 to 10 students once or twice a week). In the relatively recent past many other prisoners found activities such as the kitchen, artistic activities, professional trainings, gardening and even industrial shop-floors within prison, among other possibilities. My staff participants stress that the reduction of ‘sectors’ mostly happened in the average ‘closed’ prisons. In effect, some special prisons constructed to house a small number of well-behaved inmates and other ‘semi-open’ prisons actually are better equipped and provide all sorts of rehabilitative programmes. Yet in the majority of common ‘closed’ prisons, the larger culture of ‘containment’ lacks the interest in effectively investing in those activities and there is very little in terms of ‘rehabilitation’. The problem of course is that the reduction or lack of workshops backfires proper ‘containment’ in the long run because it undermines an important part of prison control over inmates—the trade-off with staff and greater legitimacy of prison. As a prisoner at the EOC prison argued: Why is the prisoner in prison? To comply with a measure that will reeducate [reeducar] or rehabilitate [ressocializar], right? But what do we have here to rehabilitate ourselves other than hunger and cold?

A third element that affected the control of staff over inmates is the reduction of time spent in prison (speeding parole and a progression to ‘open’ prison regimes) and the lesser effect of official disciplinary sanctions—both criminal policies created to manage the increasing overcrowding. Authorities interviewed share a similar assessment of the prison: its nearly reaching an unsustainable peak of overcrowding. In the

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last decades, legal changes and a culture of imprisonment have dramatically increased the flow of people at the ‘entrance door’ to prison—more arrests, more convictions and longer sentences. Instead of following the trend of building new prisons to deal with the ‘entrance door’ of prisoners, current administrations have created a local regulatory reform and a judicial cultural change that opens the ‘back door’ of prison in the form of early releases. A new policy of shortening sentences (which only affects those already convicted not the sentencing standards) is creating a constant change of prisoners and leaving prison staff alone to deal with the overload of arrivals and departures. In order to reduce overcrowding, authorities rely on extra work from prison staff to deal with the greater in-and-out flow of prisoners. This has been undermining the relations between the staff union and the upper authorities. The extra work from staff is the solution to which they need to rely in a situation in which they cannot expect larger structural changes in the sentencing standards or in the problem of policing and crime. As they see it, their reform of ‘opening the back door’ does put pressure on staff, but it is one of the few available ways to deal with their problem of worsening prison conditions from an administrative and criminal justice perspective: the excess of convictions, the increasing length in sentencing, the limited capacity to expand the prison system and the increasing overcrowding. Finally, a fourth element that plays into the crisis of the authority of the prison system is the increasing reliance on prisoners and their families to maintain the system working. Together with the State, the family is an essential provider of everyday goods. Penitentiaries differ significantly but, in general, the State provides little: a grey pair of tracksuit pants, a white t-shirt and flip-flop sandals (if available in their size). Other goods that should be provided by the State are scarce. Prisoners call the lack of access to goods and the pains that follow incarceration in those circumstances the ‘suffering’ or the ‘oppression’. The ‘suffering’ is the psychological experience of being deprived behind the walls of the prison with limited clout for change. In theory, families could help out by bringing a ‘parcel’ [sacola] with some goods in their visits. Nevertheless, a simple visit from a family member demanded to overcome what they feel as substantial bureaucratic measures from the

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penal department and the prison unit. Such measures are imposed to maintain control over prison (avoiding illegal goods, riots, violence, etc.) Bureaucracy effectively produces a lot of strain in addition to being time consuming and costly to overwhelmingly poor working-class families. The experience of inmates is that imprisonment means the limited catering from the government and a terrible quality of goods with great impediments to bring support from the outside. This is not a matter of pure lack of resources in the context. Scarcity could be partially alleviated with the support of their families, but even when families have the means and the willingness to help out, they are often unable to do so in a significant way due to bureaucratic impediments: the prison unit maintains a closed list of type of items and the quantity they can bring in (according to staff and prisoners, utterly insufficient). It also requires interviews in different parts of the region, background checks, a plurality of documents, limits the people who can visit (and greatly restricts the number of them), etc. Among the few things the unit provides, prisoners describe a ‘rancid’ toothpaste, a toothbrush, a bar of soap to wash clothes and a disposable razor, each of these items, only once per month. New towels seem to be absent from the State’s inventories. Toilet paper is, for prisoners, a luxury, rarely seen and not offered by the prison system. Prison cells are considerably cold during winter and excessively hot in the summer. Cells accumulate mould, the latrine clogs frequently, they have no warm running water, no electric sockets and must share cells with prisoners sleeping on the floor. Not to mention the complaints about the awful quality of the food—and its meagre quantity. The quantity and quality of goods is so meagre that the prison partially subsists due to the outside. As one prisoner shared: It will never be enough, if you weigh the packed meal here, it will be 300 grams [11 ounces] at most. It’s one at lunch, one at dinner. [...] actually as they say, they don’t feed us, they just let us survive. You feel me?

But this puts great pressure onto families and prisoners themselves, as he later continues:

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[T]he prisoner has the right to be close to their families because they meet the needs that the State lacks, a parcel with groceries [sacola], hygiene material, clothes, towels, etc. and that is in the guidelines, not perks, just our rights. However, since […it] can only be delivered on weekdays and we cannot make paid purchases, if our wife has a registered job today, she can’t bring a parcel on weekdays. She may lose her job, if she loses her job… do you have a child? […] you only know what you’re capable of when you see a child of yours asking for food.

The reliance on families is such an important feature of prison that one of the most relevant classification is between inmates that ‘suffer’ prison more or less: those that have family support and those that do not. In fact, some participants preferred to stay in substantially worse ‘jails’ [cadeias], with less ventilation, more overcrowding per cell (up to 50 prisoners) and no open yard, if that meant their family could make an occasional visit. According to them, while conditions in ‘jails’ might be significantly worse, they are often closer to the neighbourhoods of their families and have less bureaucratic barriers for food and other products. In that vein, it is the PCC, common prisoners and family members that constantly brought up the issue of their precariousness conditions to the prison governors and ‘human right groups’ to pressure the government. Social workers in prison share their perception of this process. According to them, the prison used to produce many goods that supplied some of the needs of prisoners, such as soap and food, however these services either closed, were outsourced or privatised. Individual prisons can offer less to inmates and the immediate prison authorities are incapable of resolving the problem of shortages in goods, so prisoners turned to the PCC to voice their issues to the outside. The PCC grew to articulate the demands of prisoners and increasingly became the organised mediator between families and the authorities. Governments need to consider the voice of families and they need to reduce friction with prisoners in order to have less disturbances. Prison officers argue that up to the mid and late 2000s their authority over prisoners has been undermined due to the changes caused by the ‘ideology’ of the prevailing prison gang, the PCC. A major cause of their diminished authority is the collective behaviour of prisoners. While in

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the past they had to deal with a plurality of gangs creating disorder in prison, the fragmentation of inmates favoured institutional control. This form of authority has been partially undermined as prisoners seek accountability from the staff ’s actions. In the eyes of officers acting in the ‘deep’ parts of prison, this has created a negative expectation that their decisions are questionable. To some extent now their acts need to be backed by convincing arguments, which must flow through the complex prison regulations and their relations with management. Thus, there is a general feeling that they are left to their own devices in their duties against a collective organisation of inmates. However, despite the complaints of prison staff, it is noticeable that there is also a hidden, but important positive aspect to this change in the culture of prisoners. It created two venues to produce order: one through the individual rapport with prisoners; and the other, through the PCC as a collective representative of inmates. This appeared as a feature of imprisonment in regions where the PCC ‘predominated’. For them, the PCC appears scattered through prison units and organising inmates. Yet this is not a universal phenomenon. The organisation of the PCC has mostly affected one type of prisoner—the prisoners coming from the ‘world of the crime’ [mundo do crime],6 representing those from more marginalised backgrounds and active in criminal activities (theft, drug dealing, etc.). Thus, prisoners have not remained passive in face of the State negligence; they have reacted by organising themselves. Nevertheless, the austerity of the State affects more than the organisation of inmates, it affects the daily work of the security team and their rapport with inmates. I observe in the work of the security team of the EOC prison how local prison staff must cope with the structural problems of living conditions and security caused by such austerity policies. The practice of accepting prisoners to have a ‘dialogue’ about issues in the ‘deep jail’ is part of a governance culture that was marginal in the times of the ‘gangs’ [quadrilhas], but it is increasingly becoming important to deal with PCC 6 In the Brazilian prison and streets culture, the term ‘the crime’ [o crime] refers to a culture of (self-labelled) ‘criminals’. Therefore, the native use of ‘the crime’ leads back to a group of individual, sharing the same field (marginalised, deviant street culture or the prison culture) with a shared meanings and common cultural understandings.

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prisons. For some officers, the chiefs of security, staff and inmates often have to ‘dialogue’ about the problems of the prison. The general rule is that PCC prisoners became the first to come for a ‘dialogue’ with the administration on behalf of inmates. Yet ‘dialogue’ also means going into the ‘deep jail’ [fundão da cadeia] to understand the needs and demands of prisoners. I could observe the security team in their office making efforts to establish as much rapport with the inmates as possible. Most prisoners meet with them to deal with individual problems, but inmate leadership also discusses collective issues with the chief of security, for instance, the entrance of a television, changes in the food menu or the allocation of an inmate to their cells. The collective pressures of the inmates through the representatives (often PCC members) structurally pushes the security team to ‘dialogue’. The government does not provide the adequate tools for this ‘dialogue’. Given its failure to address the precarious conditions of prison, it leaves the practical problems to each prison governor, their chiefs of security and the staff most immediately dealing with prisoners. In a focus group, the prison staff argue that in order to have security and control over the inmates, they must build rapport and ‘dialogue’ with prisoners. Just like in the prison environment, they do not see this as a ‘negotiation’ [negociação]. They insist that the ‘conversations’ they establish with prisoners is not the same as ‘negotiations’ that used to happen in the recent past. As explained by a chief of security: The word ‘negotiate’ [negociação] sounds quite strong [laughter] see, well, I’m going to talk about my experience. For you to have control of the unit’s discipline, we have to talk [conversar]. If you don’t talk, you won’t get anywhere [... In the past it was different]. For example, if the prisoner was committing a misdemeanour, you would enter [the cell] or in the yard, or in the wing, you would see the prisoner and lead him to the little room [salinha, suggesting beatings or extortion]. You don’t do that today, why not? Why do you lack the will? No. Because they close you off and you don’t. Because at that time the wing on average at [prison] revolved around what, 132, or 120. An average of 130 prisoners, I got tired of doing that. [Pointing to the other prison staff] [Him] for sure too. Today you’ll never do that, because due to the ‘voice of the Command’ [prisoners of the PCC] they go, they close you. ‘No... wait, sir, let’s talk’.

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I mean, the conversation would go up there to the inspectorate to find out what was his sanction, the conversation will start there.

In other words, these ‘conversations’ or ‘talks’ are not understood as ‘negotiations’. These informal arrangements mean a willingness of the security team to balance the pressure of inmates and the precarious conditions of the system through ‘dialogue’. In the current system, inmates have the opportunity to ‘converse’ with the chief of security to seek solutions to their daily problems. While the dominant system in the recent past—with an inmate society socially fragmented—directed the security team to use less ‘dialogue’ and more ‘negotiated’ attitudes, the advent of the PCC made possible the formation of an ‘understanding’ between the authorities and prisoners. But for both prisoners and officers this is a matter of push-and-pull between a more lenient regime or a tougher ‘containment’ stance (more ‘open’ or ‘closed’ prison). The strain from both staff and prisoners is felt during the daily activities of both groups, although they do talk and seek compromises, there is a deep despise from one to the other. Common culture among prisoners sees officers as that which causes their ‘oppression’, they are untrustworthy, corrupt by nature and abuse their power. The average staff sees inmates as disobedient, irritating, whimsical and a danger to their lives outside. In such context, surely an ‘understanding’ between the extension of ‘containment’ is possible, but it is always unstable, it is constantly mutating. ‘Dialogue’ with inmates—and especially those where the PCC is present—does have positive effects on the short and medium term both on security and order, but is, ultimately, felt as a heavy burden for the authorities.

Hegemony and the Layers of Governance: The Project, the Apparatus and the Production of Consent Results in the previous section showed the inmate/prison interactions that shape relationships from the bottom-up. They indicated a ‘crisis’ of governance affected by the recent changes in the inmate culture and the

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penal politics that constrain social arrangements in prison. A positive framework to understand these results is the dimension of power, which in my view, due to the dynamics of struggle, can be explored beyond a Foucauldian lens. In this sense, a dialogue with Gramsci (1992) is useful due to his theoretical contribution to understand power in modern societies—that is, his theory of hegemony.7 Hegemony is a framework of the power relations that shape interactions between the State (including the apparatus in civil society) and its subalterns, in which the former seeks the consent of the latter to a determinate project of domination—seeking consent without abdicating the use of coercion (Boothman, 2008; Fontana, 1993; Thomas, 2009). Criminology has often neglected a dialogue with the radical and critical though of Gramsci (among a few notable exceptions: Hall, 1991; Stephenson, 2015) and has not yet considered the implications of his thought to understand imprisonment. Nevertheless, in a dialogue that follows the steps of recent developments in Gramscian philological studies (Boothman, 2008; Frosini et al., 2004; Thomas, 2009), there are significant contributions that allows us to understand the tensions and struggles around imprisonment in modern democratic societies through the guise of hegemony. Establishing a dialogue between those contributions and my findings, I analyse prison order as a project by which the hegemonic apparatus (prison) within a particular institutional context seeks the domination (using coercion and consent) of its subaltern groups (prisoners). Drawing from this framework and the literature on prison governance, I argue that the interaction of the hegemony of the prison system with the organisational power of the PCC has shaped a specific form of inmate and staff governance: a co-governance of ‘dialogue’.8 In a theoretically oriented perspective, hegemony situates the 7 It is worth pointing out that this use of hegemony differs from the predominant approach in the Brazilian criminological literature, such as Dias (2011). There, it is often connected with the adjectives of ‘economic’ and ‘political’, drawing from Norbert Elias’s (1996)—which refers to the reasons of wars and the struggles between States, therefore military force, domination and sovereignty. Gramsci uses hegemony as a Modern form of power associated to the production of consent in the apparatuses of society—not a concept of a sovereign force over a territory or people. 8 ‘Dialogue’ [diálogo] here follows the meaning given by participants in the findings. Cogovernance means co-production of order between inmates and authorities. In contemporary

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emergence of ‘dialogue’ as a product of a project of domination (a penal politics) and an apparatus (the prison) that establishes a relation of coercion and, more importantly, consent with subaltern groups (prisoners) in which their organisation puts power relations under strain. With this framework in mind, I find three levels of power relations and governance that materialise a political and cultural hegemony of the prison system (Table 1). The first level is constituted by a project of hegemony set around policies of imprisonment, in other words, the general framework in which the prison is projected and by which prisoners are expected to undergo social conformity. A second intermediate level of managerial power within the prison, in which the concrete apparatus of prison must be governed. Third, a base level of rapport between immediate authorities and inmates, in which the interactions seek to attain the consent of prisoners—but this is a key moment of tensions and struggles. In a dialogue with Gramscian thought I suggest that the hegemony of the Table 1 Hegemony, prison governance, actors and alternative ideological models Type/level of Hegemony of an apparatus

Layer of governance

Key actors and power holders

Ideological alternatives

Hegemonic project

Prison Policies

Government & Judicial system

Hegemonic apparatus

Prison governance

Prison governors & specialists

Production of consent and domination

Interactions of order (informal governance or co-governance)

Prison staff with the inmate culture

‘Containment’ ‘Rehabilitation’ or ‘Custody’ ‘Colonel’ or ‘Police mentality’ ‘Penal Treatment’ ‘Negotiation’ ‘Dialogue’

studies the plurality of ways it has been used (Akoensi, 2014; Darke 2018);Weegels, 2019) has expanded the term, in which it often means the informal arrangements between staff and inmates that produce order in precarious settings—in which, with the exception of the precariousness, is not distant from Gresham Sykes’s classical study on prison. In my view, considering the contemporary uses, the term co-governance can be translated as the interactions and arrangements between staff and inmates that produce order on the prison-floor—the interactions that can exists in non-hyper-maximum units, as seen from below rather than top-down.

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prison system (its governance) needs to have a certain degree of social conformity from prisoners (see Carrabine, 2005; Sparks et al., 1996), which occurs through the interactions of those three levels creating both the structures and the agencies that adapt, resist or transform them. The first level comprises the wider penal policies that determine the number of prisoners, the length of imprisonment, the conditions of control and the general living conditions in prison. In other words, the hegemonic project to which an apparatus is established (the prison and its conditions) and a purpose for the social conformity of prisoners. In the findings, we have seen that in ‘closed’ prisons the State has moved towards a governance culture that emphasises the ‘containment’9 of prisoners rather than their rehabilitation. Although there are practices of rehabilitation ongoing in more ‘open’ prisons—which house a part of the prison population—, prison staff found that in the conventional ‘closed’ prisons, larger state politics have favoured the internment (Birkbeck, 2011) of prisoners. While the government has invested in the prison system as a means to deal with crime through mass incarceration (affecting prison construction and overcrowding), it has also reduced its investment in the conditions that enable rehabilitation (see Coelho, 2005; Ramalho, 2002). These policies affect the authority of prison staff because they dismantle a plurality of means by which officers can exert individualised control over inmates. For example, the increasing flux of prisoners makes it difficult to establish rapport between inmates and staff, and the reduction of ‘sectors’ and other ‘perks’ they could distribute to those who submitted to their authority. Furthermore, the consequence of expanding imprisonment with less investment in prison conditions is that the government expects the system to do more with less. Yet these costs do not disappear. Instead, they are outsourced to the inmates, their families and the voluntarism of prison officers. This further fosters social exclusion, marginalisation and the reliance of prisoners on the good will 9 ‘Containment’ here is used in relation to the usage in the field, not the term containment as theorised by Wacquant (2009) for whom, generally speaking, containment speaks of a state policy of ‘hemming in’ the problems and the dangerous classes in the ‘hyper-ghetto’ and in the prison. Although there are possible parallels between the idea in the field and Wacquant’s concept, ‘containment’ means the reclusion of prisoners to the prison and to their cells until they serve their sentences without offering much in terms of activities.

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of the immediate authorities to overcome their needs. This reflects an enhanced form of deprivation that, as other studies show, most of the prison population already experience on the outside (Jefferson, 2014; Moore, 1978; Wacquant, 2009)—something that some have theorised as an ‘expansive notion of confinement’ in the Global South (Jefferson, 2014, 46). The practice of incarceration through ‘containment’ punishes inmates by intensifying the experience of deprivation. Therefore, there are important differences between the prisons examined in this research and the goals of prison reformers in the late eighteenth century (Ignatieff, 1978), the panopticon ideal that Foucault found in the nineteenth century (Foucault, 1995), the therapeutic approach of asylums during the postwar period (Goffman, 1961; Mathiesen, 1965) or the psychological power of the 21st medium-security British prison (Crewe, 2009b; see also Rhodes, 2004). Findings underscore a project of adapting prisoners to the institution through the ‘sufferings’ or the ‘oppression’ (as prisoners name the experience of imprisonment) of scarcity and deprivations, instead of focusing on correcting the soul through moralisation, labour and therapeutic programs or a meticulous operation that seeks to maximise docility and utility. Nevertheless, this is not a pre-modern form of punishment. The ‘oppression’ or the feeling of ‘sufferings’ is a form of punishment that is quite distant from the hard and visible violence typical of punishment in the tortures and abuses of late eighteenth-century Europe—such as the spectacle of the scaffold (Foucault, 1995)—or in the nineteenthcentury fields of Brazil—the whippings and floggings of slaves (Zaffaroni et al., 2011). Asserting that there is no project of discipline equivalent to the reformers of the nineteenth century or a model of prison akin to the Global North, in my view, is not to say that the Brazilian prison lacks a democratic project (Holston, 2008), neither is it backwardly pre-modern (Birkbeck, 2011), nor it maintains control through sheer coercion (Wacquant 2008).

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Surely, it is a general form of slow violence10 —that ‘occurs gradually and out of sight’ (Nixon, 2011, 2)—present in all forms of prisons in both the Global North and South. Yet the project of prison punishment through ‘containment’ appears to differ from the aforementioned projects of discipline—especially when taken into consideration that super-max and medium-security prisons in the Global North often add psychiatric/therapeutic interventions, are less precarious and more intensely reduces contact of the prisoner with the outside (Crewe, 2009a; Mathiesen, 1965; Rhodes, 2004). In the ‘containment’ discussed here, punishment is experienced through the creation of a deprivation as artificial barrier to the outside (of work, leisure, consumption, etc.), while demanding from the outside to pay for those inside. The contacts of inmates to the outside plays a major role in surviving the scarcity of imprisonment (Dieter & Freitas, 2020). Importantly, precariousness is not simply a product of Brazil being a poor or ‘failed’ State. State authorities are not passive, but rather actively producing precarious conditions—State neglect is an active feature. The ‘sufferings’ or ‘oppression’ within prison mean more than removing opportunities for work and leisure; it also artificially fosters deprivation, while demanding from the prisoners and their families to use their own resources to alleviate their deprivation. The artificial barrier from the outside through bureaucratic measures—justified due to security concerns—is a built-in feature (an active neglect from the part of authorities) that instils deprivation while also demanding from prisoners to mobilise their own capacities (to overcome their precarious condition). As a result of these contradictory signs, prisoners feel the psychological strain of poverty in prison as a soft power (Nye, 1990), that is a quite efficient way of subordination. The critical 10

Violence is often thought of as immediate and explosive, but Nixon (2011, 2) claims for the need to engage with ‘a different kind of violence, a violence that is neither spectacular nor instantaneous, but rather incremental and accretive’: slow violence. Since its inception, the original use of this term to understand the impact of environmental changes to the poor (Nixon, 2011) has been expanded to understand the effects of patriarchy on women (Christian & Dowler, 2019), State and racial relations (Ward, 2015), border control (Bugge, 2019), housing dispossession (Pain, 2019), etc., and it is appropriate here to contrast forms of punishment, such as the floggings of slaves in nineteenth-century Brazil (the fast or spectacular violence); to those Modern pains of imprisonment that prisoners experience coming from the precarious conditions they are constrained into living.

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research in the field has pointed the possible political-economy consequences of imprisonment (Melossi & Pavarini, 2018; Wacquant, 2009; Zaffaroni et al., 2011), the pains of imprisonment or the idea of less eligibility (the ‘deterrent principle’ in Rusche & Kirchheimer, 2003, 6). These might be a common, or combined, feature in both wealthier and poorer countries, but the different form by which order is produced points that there is an ethico-political consequence as well. Results suggest an unequal strain being experienced in the Brazilian context of research. By intensifying scarcity, the prison gets inmates to be more discipline and proactively cooperating, because they need help from the authorities to see their minimal conditions met. The conditions of prisoners do not ameliorate in their daily-lives depending on their attendance to therapeutic programmes, neither if they simply behave with discipline: they must seek out their families, talk to prison officers (demanding, cooperating, etc.) and organise with other prisoners to overcome deprivations (Cerbini, 2017), while the penal system is increasingly creating barriers against these. In sum, the ‘oppression’ or ‘suffering’ is more than a bodily pain of scarcity or precariousness, it involves a proactive dimension in which survival means socially conforming to a project of subordination. Thus, the ‘sufferings’ or the ‘oppression’ are an integral part of the discipline of ‘containment’ in the local context. In practice this hegemonic project needs the proactive engagement of inmates to overcome the conditions of imprisonment. The passive consent to order (selfimposed discipline) is connected to having the benefit of visiting rights and some of the conditions of imprisonment relaxed, but they must also actively engage with the system of authority as the legitimate channel to ameliorate their pains. The contribution of inmates to their own condition of subordination allows the system at a large scale to exist, because it is otherwise incapable of managing the flux of prisoners given its limited resources (also Darke, 2018). This might appear paradoxical, but in the daily practices of authorities and prisoners we see hegemony in operation: the modern form of domination manages to attain the proactive engagement of subaltern in their own conditions of subordination. A willing agency from the part of the inmates for their survival (or even their resistance to the ‘sufferings’) produces the outcome of reproducing the

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system of domination.11 In this aspect I argue these appear as different forms of subordination to those in the Global North (Crewe, 2009b; Mathiesen, 1965; Rhodes, 2004; Ugelvik, 2014). Prisoners at the EOC feel their poverty and subalternity to the prison and need to act against the constant push of barriers in prison that enhance their ‘sufferings’ or their ‘oppression’ to survive. The psychological experience of ‘sufferings’ further enhances the poverty, neglect and subalternity in prison to which the lower echelons of the Brazilian working classes are already subjected in society—but at a higher intensity and artificially produced. Second, the intermediate level of governance is one where local prison governance affects power relations in the prison. Despite Gramsci never adequately addressing prison relations in his writings, we can establish a dialogue with his concept of the hegemonic apparatus of civil society—such as the family, schools, etc.—to reflect on the prison as also needing an important degree of consent from prisoners. As we have seen, the operationalisation of the prison apparatus to obtain social conformity works in different ways depending on the type of prison (‘closed’, ‘open’, ‘for problematic prisoners’, etc.). Some of the literature in the Global North has argued that psychological and therapeutic programmes can be seen as a form of soft power abcdefgh12 because they seek to obtain the social conformity of prisoners through narratives of personal responsibility (Crewe, 2009b; Shammas, 2014). In different ways, ‘minimum security’ and ‘open’ prisons with progressive administrations in the Global South also rely on a narrative of self-responsibility to mobilise inmates to develop their own rehabilitate activities (Darke, 2014a; in this book; Avila, 2018; Avila & Sozzo, in this book). However, in conventional prisons, where the ideal of rehabilitation through labour or therapy has been dramatically reduced, governance does not simply return to a form of authoritarian hard power (King & Morgan, 1982). 11

As we will see later, this reproduction is not static. Through the praxis of prisoners (their organisation) and the engagement of staff, reproduction is a process of producing crises. In the contradictory dynamics of hegemony, prison order creates struggles straining and sometimes transforming structures. 12 Crewe (2009b, 81) argues that power in medium-security prison (in Britain) from the 1990s onwards operates with softer forms of power than the hard power of ‘physical constraint, force, threat and deprivation’. For Crewe (2009b, 108), soft power means ‘the coercive potential of incentives, in the sense that […] they were effective levers for ensuring prisoner compliance’.

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Instead of maintaining prison in relentless lockdown, prison governors and other prison authorities (such as the security team) must resort to other forms of governance to produce consent—such as embedding fatalism (Carrabine, 2005), negotiating rules (Sykes, 2007; Symkovych, 2018) or distributing other forms of privileges and internal hierarchies (Akoensi, 2014; Marquart & Crouch, 1984). This is especially relevant for prisons in the Global South that, under a more conventional ‘closed’ regime, have abdicated on providing substantial activities for prisoners. Rather than dismissing these forms of governance as ‘deviant’, relative to Global North standards (Jefferson, 2005; Jefferson & Gaborit, 2015; Martin et al., 2014), from a Gramscian perspective, it is possible to understand how the prison apparatus resorts to different forms of soft power (Nye, 1990).13 On the level of the management of the prison apparatus, the practices of prison governors were categorised either as ‘colonel’ or ‘penal treatment’ governance. Whereas a ‘colonel’ managerial approach embodies an authority expecting obedience to the hierarchy of prison; the ‘penal treatment’ approach seeks to produce an experience of incarceration that is more adaptive to ease the pains of ‘containment’ through meeting the demands of prisoners and fellow staff. At a first glance, the idea of ‘colonel’ governance appears to reflect Wacquant’s view of penal policies in the Global South as a ‘dictatorship over the poor’ (Wacquant, 2008), in which imprisonment in Brazil is sustained through pure coercion (torture, exploitation and intimidation in horrendous prison conditions). However, against Wacquant’s proposition, which glosses over any form of interaction for legitimacy and consent, I find that both a ‘colonel’ 13

Despite Crewe’s (2009b) insightful analysis of soft power in a medium-security prison (see footnote 12), soft power has a more general meaning stemming from international relations studies which has more resonance with Gramsci’s theory of hegemony (Jacob, 2017). In that field of study, Nye (1990, 166) argues that this form of power ‘occurs when one country gets other countries to want what it wants—might be called co-optive or soft power in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants’. A country must have its form of hard power, but convincing subordinate countries might be done through cultural influence, political values or foreign relations—‘Co-optive power - getting others to want what you want - and soft power resources - cultural attraction, ideology, and international institutions - are not new’ (Nye, 1990, 167). Similarly, hegemony for Gramsci means seeking that subaltern groups consent to a certain order (‘one gets others to want what it wants’) through more than cultural influence.

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and a ‘penal treatment’ approach are well adapted to the notion of hegemony. ‘Colonel’ or ‘penal treatment’ approaches simply use different sets of mechanisms to attain the consent of—most, if not all—prisoners. While the ‘colonel’ approach sought consent through the distribution of ‘perks’ to prisoners that behaved in accordance with the hierarchy of authority, the ‘penal treatment’ approach seeks consent by finding an ‘understanding’ with staff for the inmates’ collective discipline. At this intermediate level, prison governors are not passive agents of larger penal policies and can significantly affect prison conditions. Yet there is an interesting practical contradiction in the development of this level of governance in the prison apparatus. ‘Penal treatment’ is a possible alternative to deal with the underlying problems and discontents of a ‘colonel’ governance—the abuse of power, corruption, violent disturbances, etc. Yet, precisely because it does not transform penal policies, a ‘penal treatment’ is also useful to the governance of the apparatus. A ‘colonel’ governance amplifies the authority of staff, while increasing the importance of the character of prisoners to survive in prison (the capacity to establish good connections with staff and other prisoners, the efforts to gain ‘perks’ and resources in prison, etc.). Meanwhile, ‘penal treatment’ relies on the collective agency of prisoners to use their shared culture of survival in prison, while creating the problem of reducing the experience of authority for the immediate prison officer. This is a contradiction of the ‘penal treatment’ approach: in order to reduce the disturbances, it relies on the organisation of inmates and the lessening power of the immediate staff to re-establish the authority of the apparatus. This is at the core of the perceived ‘crisis’ of imprisonment for participants. Many staff appear discontent and boycott the attitudes of the prison governor (and the security team) while inmates increasingly put more organised pressure to meet their demands. An important part of the prison staff remain unsympathetic to this approach, finding their working conditions and their authority in crisis. In other words, the project of ‘containment’ substantially undermines the idea of ‘penal treatment’ as a model that could resolve the problems set by the penal policies of upper authorities. Finally, there is a last layer of governance experienced in the rapport between security team, the ‘deep jail’ staff and the prisoners. As I have

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argued some of the criminological literature (DiIulio, 1990; Useem & Kimball, 1991) took a managerial approach to prison governance. Indeed, results indicate the relevance of that field of decision-making in producing order. Yet the findings in this chapter also show that beyond the larger penal policies and the decisions taken by wardens, governance also depends on the interactions that occur between inmates and prison officers (Castro e Silva, 2008; Sykes, 2007) and these interactions are embedded in power relations that make consent possible towards a type of management and penal policy. Interactions here are not fully autonomous of the larger penal policies or the managerial governance approach, but neither is their sole product. In effect, this is the layer from which co-governance (Castro e Silva, 2008; Darke, 2018) can emerge and ultimately affect the two other layers of prison hegemony. The contributions of Gresham Sykes (2007; in Brazil see also Ramalho, 2002)—both on prison governance and inmate culture—are of particular relevance to this level. According to Sykes (2007, 41– 42), the prison officer relies on informal negotiations in order to attain obedience from the captives without the use of violence. Thus, prison order is produced by a very personal exchange between the keepers and captives of prison. In my fieldwork, staff distinguished the form of producing consent in two large periods. First, a previous more traditional system called a ‘negotiated’ co-governance, in which order was produced by distributing ‘perks’ to gangs and inmates in exchange for obedience. In this case, the staff was reliant on an unequal distribution of power between different groups and inmates and they favour those that submit to their authority with privileges and resources. This form of co-governance resembles other models of prison order in the international prison research (Antillano, 2015; Marquart & Crouch, 1984; Morelle, 2014; Tritton & Fleetwood, 2017) and Brazil (Brandão, 2011; Lourenço & de Almeida, 2013; Santos, 2019) that might comprise fostering negotiated arrangements with prison hierarchies to reproduce control between prisoners themselves. This was called a ‘negotiation’ by the participants, understood as an exchange in which each subject (staff vis-à-vis prisoners) knew their limits.

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Similarly, in an ethnography of a penitentiary in Rio de Janeiro, Castro e Silva (2008) finds that order in prison is also understood as a ‘negotiation’ in the field, or how they conceptually define it, the ‘negotiated violence’ [violência negociada]. The ‘negotiated violence’ is a cornerstone of the culture of informal ‘negotiations’ found as the basis of prison order. It meant avoiding to engage in physical violence with prisoners—trying to talk out the problem first—but it occurred in certain circumstances in which prisoners intends to avoid a collective punishment against their cell or avoid a formal sanction that could restrict their benefits, and therefore, depending on the gravity of the offence, accepts (or asks for) a beating from a prison officer as an alternative punishment (Castro e Silva, 2008, 120–122). The beating is exemplary to other prisoners, instilling discipline, and this way both the prisoner and officer save face. According to his ethnography, the violence means there is an asymmetry of hierarchy, but one on which prisoners also have some bargaining power over arrangements in prison (the ‘negotiation’ of order). ‘In other words, negotiated violence was only possible because both sides had instruments of power that guided this “negotiation”. If things went according to plan (“a man’s deal”), the “situation” ended after the punishment was carried out’ (Castro e Silva, 2008, 129). A ‘negotiated’ order differed from an ‘arbitrary’ violence, because in the latter the consent (on either part) was not possible. Interestingly, prison officers also called their order a ‘co-governance’ [gestão compartilhada] (Castro e Silva, 2008, 111) in which the informal interactions (in a grey legal area) between the culture of inmates and the culture of staff produce consent. In a second form of co-governance in this research, the staff is in ‘dialogue’ with inmates and inmate leaders seeking to produce a common ‘understanding’ by which inmates are expected to show ‘respect’ to staff. In this case there is a homogenisation of interests among the prison population through the representation of the PCC (Biondi, 2010). This form of co-governance of ‘dialogue’ resembles other findings in which inmate collectives and groups limit the hierarchical power of prison authorities while seeking to ameliorate some of the deprivations they experience (Darke, 2018; Narag & Jones, 2017). The current ‘dialogue’ form of co-governance here entails an arrangement acknowledged by

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the intermediate managerial level and more in tune with prison regulations. In this case the ‘privileges’ are not personalised distribution of goods and conditions but relates to the problem of ‘opening’ and ‘closing’ prison—according to the pressure of prisoners and their collective disciplined behaviour. Thus, the interactions that ground the co-governance of ‘dialogue’ are more concerned with the larger consent on the general conditions of the prison regime than to paternalistic benefits. Co-governance emerges only at the bottom level of prison order (the level of staff-inmate interactions) seeking to produce consent with impacts beyond that level. In both a ‘negotiated’ or ‘dialogue’ forms of co-governance, the order produced seeks the consent of both groups. But with the ‘predominance’ of the PCC and the change in inmate culture, staff feel the interactions with inmates—the arrangements that produce order—are less characterised by ‘negotiations’ (Coelho, 2005; Ramalho, 2002)—which they understand as connoting hierarchy, goods and privileges to a few—and more by a ‘dialogue’ (or an ‘understanding’) experienced as a tug-of-war between a more ‘open’ or ‘closed’ prison. Through ‘dialogue’, social conformity is produced by taking into account their collective voices with the risk of giving prisoners excessive power. Both ‘negotiation’ or ‘dialogue’ can be framed as co-governance— due to the elasticity that the term has acquired in recent Global South literature (Butler et al., 2018; Macaulay, 2017; Morelle, 2014; Tritton & Fleetwood, 2017; Weegels, 2019) and the experience in the field [gestão compartilhada] (also Castro e Silva, 2008)—, but the first is paternalistic, while the second reflects a co-governance produced through an ‘understanding’ seeking the consent of the subaltern group as a collective. However, while seeking the consent of inmates, these forms of cogovernance concede some power to prisoners while also re-establishing their subalternity. In Gramsci, hegemony is an interactive process (a praxis), in which a hegemonic project—through its apparatuses—achieves the consent of the subaltern groups (Ciavolella, 2014). Rethinking Gramsci according to the interactions of the prison, we can see how a ‘dialogue’ cogovernance transforms consent. It gives the subaltern some power over the decision-making of the apparatus, but also demands from them their discipline to ‘containment’ measures, an acceptance of their precarious

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conditions—which they themselves must overcome—and the acknowledgement of the authority that ‘dialogues’. Thus, ‘dialogue’ affects the apparatus beyond the informal cultural level. From this level of interaction, between staff-prisoners, we can understand how the other layers of governance (the upper and intermediate levels), appear more clearly in crisis. As we have seen, the authority of prison officers and the forms of dealing with the conditions of deprivation by the authorities are perceived as in ‘crisis’. The ‘dialogue’ arrangement of power does not fully empower prisoners to transform the penal project of ‘containment’— although escapes and riots may happen—, but it puts ‘containment’ into tensions that the ‘penal treatment’ approach is incapable of resolving and risk breaking with the veneer of a peaceful order. In sum, the subjects that are experiencing prison order are constantly changing and transforming the meaning and form of power relations from within prison: this is at the core of prison hegemony (its project, apparatus and praxis). In a parallel with a Gramscian approach, consent is produced from below (in the prison-floor) in a relationship of struggles between the ‘integral’ apparatus (the prison in its dimensions of power) and the subaltern. Such domination is not static. The struggles that underpin these interactions are transforming the hegemony of imprisonment and the project of subordination that the penal system tries to instil.

Concluding on (Co-)governance and Hegemony in Prison I started my theoretical reflection with the insights from prison studies in the Global North into the different forms of prison governance that are negotiated with inmates (Jacobs, 1977; Sparks et al., 1996; Sykes, 2007; Trulson & Marquart, 2009) or administratively influenced and controlled (DiIulio, 1990; Liebling, 2004; Mathiesen, 1965; Rhodes, 2004) by immediate staff (Crewe et al., 2015), upper management (DiIulio, 1990; Jacobs, 1977; Useem & Kimball, 1991), non-custodial specialist staff (Crewe, 2009b; Mathiesen 1965; Rhodes, 2004) and other established institutional structures (Goffman, 1961; Hancock & Jewkes,

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2011). In this process, frequently the ideal model (DiIulio, 1990) of governance structures are reified in an abstract standard to which the (perceived as) deviant ‘Southern’ prison is constrained (Jefferson, 2005). However, way too frequently, ideal governance practices of prison in Western-affluent countries provide a mould that is far from humanising or improving rehabilitation in the Global South (Armstrong & Jefferson, 2017; Martin, 2014). Prison studies in the Global South have emphasised the emergence of other forms of governance that provide highly localised solutions to the harsher prison deprivations typically found outside nonaffluent Western countries (Armstrong & Jefferson, 2017; Bandyopadhyay, 2010; Cerbini, 2012; Darke, 2018; Jefferson & Gaborit, 2015). ‘Southern’ prison studies increasingly find forms of informal governance and co-governance that often diverge from Global North governance practices with degrees of internal (Castro e Silva, 2008; Darke, 2018) and external (Macaulay, 2017) legitimacy. In this vein, not only the research on ‘Southern’ prisons—as a qualitatively distinct product—is a recent discovery, but also demands new lines of inquiry into the other forms of governance in the Global South (Darke, 2018; Macaulay, 2017) and the reasons for their emergence (Darke 2018; Martin et al., 2014). Yet, the debates on the global patterns of governance have often been in little dialogue with each other (Macaulay, 2013) and only give localised attention to the dimensions of power in these emerging forms of governance (Cerbini, 2017). In order to further inquiry into power and the potential governance transformations occurring in the prison apparatus through the interaction of inmates, staff and authorities, I propose to draw from the theory of hegemony. In this vein, I establish a dialogue with Gramsci’s theory to argue that prison hegemony can be understood through three different layers of governance that translate to a project (prison policies), an apparatus (the prison system) and the interactions (staff and inmates) that produce consent (see Table 1). An aspect of this argument contributes to the debates on governance by distinguishing layers of governance and their possible interactions— the upper penal projects of control are not detached from the inner

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informal interactions within prison. The three layers that can be distinguished are: (1) a hegemonic project, (2) a hegemonic apparatus and (3) the production of consent. These different layers of governance situate the power differential in a determinate project and the establishment of an apparatus in which those interactions gain meaning without depriving prison officers or inmates of agency. 1. The ‘containment’ prison policies are characterised by a reduction in activities for inmates and the development of punishment through the experience of exacerbated deprivations (the ‘sufferings’).14 This hegemonic project (this form of controlling inmates) is under stress due to its extensive use by the criminal justice system. 2. At the intermediate governance of the prison apparatus, two ideal models or styles of governance (a ‘colonel’ and ‘penal treatment’) define the activities of staff around the reproduction of forms of authority and the organisation of prison conditions. The ‘colonel’ management seeks the obedience of prisoners and an acknowledgement of their subalternity; while the ‘penal treatment’ sees the authority of staff as stemming from their ability to ameliorate prison conditions and reduce confrontations with prisoners. 3. Finally, the interactions between prisoners and staff produce hegemony in a bottom-up fashion. At this level, two different cogovernance arrangements stand out: the ‘negotiations’ based on the distribution of ‘perks’ and of a hierarchy of groups to reproduce control; and the ‘dialogue’ in which consent is sought through a common understanding with the ‘carceral masses’ as a collective ‘body’—experienced as a tug-of-war by the prison staff. Overall, the interest of authorities is to reproduce the project of hegemony, yet we must also underscore that each governance solution further develops inherent problems—contradictions, limits, tensions, etc.—so that hegemony is experienced as in ‘crisis’ The difficulty in attaining

14

Among other things, the current ‘crisis’ of ‘containment’ comprises mass incarceration, the deterioration of prison conditions for staff and prisoners, a great flow of prisoners and the lack of rehabilitative attention at their more conventional ‘closed’ regimes.

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consent permanently is at the heart of the current ‘crisis’ of prison governance. With few exceptions, prisons in the Global South and North need more than coercion to function. Co-governance is a dimension of that interactive production of subordination through consent. And yet, it often produces the group organisation and the resistance that leads hegemonic projects into ‘crisis’. Occasionally power relations become more visible, authority is not recognised (King & Morgan, 1982) and inmates react (Sykes, 2007) against their position of subalternity (Scraton et al., 1991; Thompson, 2016). From a Gramscian perspective, the prison can be seen as a particular apparatus in Modern societies of maintaining hegemony, always at the risk of losing it. Thus, we can return to some reflections raised earlier, in which hegemony (as a critical form of domination in Gramsci) helps us understand prison order and its different forms of governance in the Global South. Are we still reliant on the image of Brazilian prisons as authoritarian containment that lack legitimacy? Or does the image of the prison from the Global North needs to be replaced by something fundamentally different—where the survival of precarious conditions, are marked by a collaboration between the interests of prisoners and the authorities? If Brazilian prisons can be seen as a proxy to Latin American prisons or to the current debates on imprisonment in the Global South, then we can think of this prison order contributing to understanding power in tandem with the Global North. Strikingly different is that the precariousness of prison conditions (wellbeing and understaffing) does lead to different forms of maintaining order—in our case I identified the possibilities of ‘negotiations’ (of ‘perks and privileges’) or ‘dialogue’ (over conditions of imprisonment). Nevertheless, forms of producing consent in prison are also strategies of power that share common points of conversation with prison studies at a global scale. Less than sheer lack of control (Adorno & Salla, 2007), competing violence (Holston, 2008) or authoritarian coercion (Wacquant, 2008), we find substantial order in prisons (comprising similarly a slow violence and a soft power). When the order produced with inmates is seen merely as an output of precariousness and violence, we lose something in that representation.

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The EOC prison may not be the ideal model of total institution, but neither are most prisons in the Global North (Farrington, 1992; Ignatieff, 1981). Prisons share a fundamental component of competing interests for power—the production of control, order and conditions is always a political and cultural factor, between authorities and prisoners. Thus, observing the interactions—conversations, bureaucratic arrangements, compromises, rehabilitative programmes, etc.—of this order is crucial to understand how power is exerted. However, the idea of the ‘collaboration’ between authorities and prisoners should be taken more carefully. The ‘dialogue’—or even an ‘understanding’—are occurring in a hegemonic setting where authorities and prisoners struggle around different interests—where they seek compromises, but do not give up on their interests. The struggles for power in ‘Southern’ penal apparatuses have not disappeared simply because prisoners need to survive in precarious conditions and the understaffed staff accept the inmate’s leverage of power. Struggles are rather set in a different stage, one of reducing or increasing their ‘containment’ to prison—to what extent can the prison staff use inmates to subordinate them? To what extent can prisoners resist the power of the penal institution? Those are key questions that are constantly being addressed within the walls of a Brazilian prison. Therefore, debates and concepts produced in the Global North, such as ‘negotiation’ (Sykes, 2007), ‘control-security’ (DiIulio, 1990), ‘legitimacy’ (Sparks & Bottoms, 1995), ‘discipline’ (Foucault, 1995), etc., are still useful to discuss aspects of imprisonment in the Global South. Yet not as imported categories, neither as a pure opposition. The political and cultural dimension (hegemony) of prisons in the Global South merits an understanding that neither discards nor uncritically incorporates these discussions. Instead, as hegemony allows us to see, the ‘Southern’ prison, compared to those in the Global North, develops in uneven and combined ways, where both have much to learn from one another. In sum, co-governance has been the centre of a promising debate on new developments of prison order in the Global South (Macaulay, 2017). The plurality of ways in which this concept has been used allows us to reflect upon it as the interactions that produce order in formal and informal ways. Hegemony takes us a step further. It helps us understand

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that these interactions are co-producing order but not without struggles and which may benefit the authorities—to facilitate subordination—or prisoners—to oppose domination. As such it works as a reminder of the deep overt and covert struggles occurring in the prison setting that are not fully resolved with managerial changes and improvements on the interaction between inmates and the immediate staff. The prison system, its humanitarian challenges and its transformations are necessarily a part of the debate that must also include the wider projects of power and the purposes of imprisonment in the society without neglecting the agency of prisoners towards or against prison order. Thus, if hegemony is a component of penal power in Modern democratic societies (including the Global South), our reflections here invite us to think what comprises the counter-hegemony of imprisonment, and the extent by which a Southern criminology can provide not just a conversation with the Global North but a global contribution to counter-hegemony.

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A Decolonial and Depatriarchal Approach to Women’s Imprisonment: Co-governance, Legal Pluralism and Gender at Santa Mónica Prison, Perú Lucia Bracco Bruce

In the last few years, research about prisons in the Global South has started to analyse the power dynamics between prison staff and prisoners. This scholarship gives an account of forms of inner organisation and negotiatory practices which demonstrate the diversity of governance structures, which differ from those described by research experiences in the Global North. It has opened our understanding about prisons, particularly in the Latin American region, by acknowledging the complexities of political and social dynamics of imprisonment in the South, distancing from simplistic definitions of prisons that focus on their precariousness and deprivations. However, most of the research has been done in men’s prisons. Thus, with this chapter, I join the effort of scholars who are L. B. Bruce (B) Research Group in Forensic and Penitentiary Psychology, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Lima, Peru e-mail: [email protected]

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engaged with the decolonisation of criminology and prison studies and emphasise the need to introduce a gender-epistemology that seeks to depatriarchalise them. This chapter is based on an ethnography in Santa Mónica, a women’s prison in Lima, Perú; to introduce a gender perspective not only implies a focus on women’s experiences but also highlights the need for a feminist analysis of prison and imprisonment. Following Hannah-Moffat (2001), I propose that governance is always gendered. In particular, I argue that Santa Mónica functions through a co-governance with prisonerdelegates who have the role of intermediaries or “interface brokers” (Long, 1999, 1). Furthermore, I analyse how social life is moulded by formal and informal intertwined legal systems, creating what De Sousa Santos (2002, 2006) defines as a “hybrid legal system”. Thus, prison is a site of “interlegality” (De Sousa Santos, 2002, 243) where national law and customary law superimpose and interpenetrate the subjects’ actions and minds. I base my analysis on the empirical data produced during a six-month ethnographic study at Santa Mónica prison. I attended the prison four days a week for six months and engaged in a systematic participatory observation of prisoners’ daily activities. In addition, I organised Group and Individual Reflective Discussions (Montero, 2006) with art-based/visual-method techniques, which allowed the creation of an open dialogue with women prisoners about the intersections of punishment, imprisonment and gender. In this chapter, I start by defining Santa Mónica as a patriarchal warehouse prison (Irwin, 2004). Then, I present a brief theoretical perspective about decolonisation and depatriarchalisation in dialogue with recent studies of prison. Moving into the analysis of Santa Mónica, through examples of situations of prison’s daily life, I describe how the cogovernance and the hybrid legal system functions. Finally, I conclude on the importance of recognising different types of political and social organisations, not only as the result of errors or of failed development processes in the Global South but also as an alternative configuration that may lead to the reconfiguration of how we conceptualise prison and imprisonment. In the same line, I highlight the importance of acknowledging women prisoners not only as moulded by patriarchal structures

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but also of recognising the ambivalences and the possibilities to organise and engage in semi-autonomous actions while imprisoned.

Santa Mónica: A Patriarchal Warehouse Prison In the last thirty years, national governments in Latin America have engaged in a populist punitive attitude towards crime (Sozzo, 2016). As a consequence, the region has become the “new mass carceral zone” (Darke & Garces, 2017, 2), propelling an exponential increase in the penitentiary population and the reproduction of warehouse prisons (Irwin, 2004) in the region, and contributing towards overcrowded prisons with precarious and inhumane living conditions. Despite the fact that the inhumane conditions are consistent in men’s and women’s prisons in Latin America, by introducing a feminist epistemology it should be acknowledged that imprisonment experiences are different. Furthermore, prisons cannot be seen as gender-neutral institutions. Globally, feminist scholars have long maintained that prisons are a state-sponsored and patriarchally managed establishments, where women’s needs and experiences remain unidentified, or are subsumed within policies that prioritise the needs of a majority male prison population (Carlen, 1983; Heidensohn & Silvestri, 2012; Moore & Scranton, 2014). Latin America is not an exception. Over the last four decades, Latin American feminist scholars have denounced the undignified imprisonment conditions of women prisoners, which include the hindering of their human rights and the invisibility and neglect of women prisoners’ needs in comparison to an overwhelming male penitentiary population (Aniyar de Castro, 1986, 2002; Azaola, 1995, 2005; Del Olmo, 1998; Lagarde, 1992). Santa Mónica can be defined as a patriarchal warehouse prison. The prison opened in 1952 with a capacity for 250 women. It was imagined in accordance with so-called modern principles, focussed on rehabilitative values including re-education and re-adaptation to society (Boutron & Constant, 2013). At the time I conducted my fieldwork, Santa Mónica had a capacity for 450 women and there were 707 prisoners. Thus, it had 57 per cent overcrowding (INPE, 2018). In line

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with what feminist criminological research has demonstrated in prisons globally, in Santa Mónica the alleged resocialisation is based on stereotypical gender roles. Hence, education and labour activities in women’s prisons tend to reproduce and discipline women into the performance of traditional femininity (Carlen, 1983). Formal workshops focus on the reinforcement of habits and occupations traditionally “assigned” to women, including cooking, cleaning and the manufacture of arts and crafts or fashion. In reference to the penitentiary population in Santa Mónica, of the 707 prisoners, 58% have been sentenced while 42% are on remand, 21% have been sentenced to between 1 and 5 years and 22% between 5 and 15 years. The statistics show that 51% were imprisoned for drug-trafficking,1 20% for robbery, 5% for homicide, 3% for extortion, 2% for kidnapping, 1% for sexual-related crimes and 18% for “other crimes”. According to the statistics report, women prisoners are a group comprised of mostly young and middle-aged women, who are predominantly poor, unemployed or underemployed, single and likely to be caring for young children and who were engaged in mostly non-violent crimes, particularly associated with drug-trafficking offences (INPE, 2018; INEI, 2016). With regard to authorities, Santa Mónica operates with a Main Director, an “Alcaide” (chief of security), a Chief of the Treatment Area and a Chief of the Administration Area. I will not give a detailed report of the prison staff, but just to offer some numbers, there are between 20 and 25 security staff (it depends on the day and the numbers include external and internal security), and seven psychologists each day.2 There 1

To understand the huge increase in Latin American imprisonment in general and that in Perú in particular, scholars have insisted that it is necessary to look at the impacts of the American “War on Drugs” (Ariza and Iturralde, 2019; Diaz-Cotto, 2005; Norton-Hawk, 2010; Reynolds, 2008). As a regional phenomenon, there is a high percentage of women imprisoned for drugrelated crimes. Mexico (44%), Colombia (48%) and Brazil (60.6%) also show high percentages of women imprisoned for drug-related crimes (Institute for Criminal Policy Research, 2016; WOLA, 2016). In Perú, 55% of women are imprisoned for drug-related crimes and are overrepresented in this offence category in comparison to men (17%) (INPE, 2018). 2 The psychologists work in Santa Mónica from Monday to Friday. Given the number of psychologists in Santa Mónica, each psychologist gives professional attention to approximately 100 prisoners. Their responsabilities include periodic psychological evaluations, group therapy, individual therapy, counselling, organisation of institutional events, creation of psychological

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has been an association between the ratio of staff and prisoners and state’s capacity to govern prisons in Latin America. In the next point, I introduce scholarship that has started to analyse governance in prisons in the Global South, particularly Latin America.

Towards a Decolonial and Depatriarchal Analysis of Prisons in the Global South The academic hegemony of the Global North has generated significant contributions to criminology, but has tended to universalise criminological phenomena around the globe (Carrington, Hogg, Scott et al., 2019; Carrington, Hogg & Sozzo, 2016; Martin et al., 2014). Mainstream criminology generally reproduces a “universal” view of the prison. As Sim (2009, 9) suggests, the idea of an alleged modern prison has been “taken for granted”: in other words, the conceptualisation of an institution with top-down logic that its legitimacy lies in its capability to inflict pain and fear into the lives of the confined. Following this scheme, Martin et al. (2014, 3) explain that prisons outside the context of Europe, North America and Australia have been analysed in terms of “the” prison. This idea assumes that there is a traditional and modern model of prison which resembles what the authors defines as “Western prisons” (Martin et al., 2014, 4).3 Therefore, prisons located outside the Global North tend to be defined by their deficiencies (Martin et al., 2014). They have been perceived as too complicated, too dangerous, not sufficiently developed or lawless spaces (Bandyopadhyay et al., 2013; Garces et al., 2013).

reports for the prisoners’ trials, administration tasks and daily “emergencies”, among others. I was not able to establish the “ideal” number of prison staff needed for Santa Mónica, but taking into account the expectancy of “resocialisation” and the prison’s overcrowding, it is evident that the staff have a high rate of work overload. 3 Neither do I want to homogenise the “Western prison”: arguably there are also very many different prisons in the West/North. In this case, the term is used to reference a political binary and the power relationships that have been constituted between the North and the South, Western and Non-Western.

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In line with the concept of “coloniality of knowledge” (Dussel, 2000) introduced by decolonial authors, Southern Criminologists problematise the Global North/Global South power dynamics in the construction of academic knowledge. Hence, recent studies recognise prisons in the Global South, particularly in Latin America, as negotiation sites: complex environments that operate within oppressive circumstances, and yet can contribute to the reproduction and/or development of unique forms of subjectivity and resistance (Darke, 2013; Darke & Karam, 2016; Hazathy & Muller, 2016). In the last few years, there has been mounting literature regarding governance dynamics in Latin American prisons. These ethnographic studies demonstrate that prisons would not be able to operate without the active participation of the imprisoned subjects, which replaces the bureaucratic administration and establishes order within prison (Antillano, 2017; Garces et al., 2013). Studies conducted on male prisons in Brazil (Darke, 2013, 2019; Nunes & Salla, 2017), Venezuela (Antillano, 2017; Birkbeck, 2011), Honduras (Carter, 2014), Nicaragua (Weegels, 2017) and Perú (Pérez Guadalupe, 1994; Postema et al., 2017; Veeken, 2000) introduce the varied dynamics of self- and co-governance of prisons, and highlight the activeness and inner organisation of prisoners (in some cases violent and coercive) to try to fulfil their basic needs and live in more dignified conditions. Nonetheless, the majority of research about governance has been done in men’s prisons. Following Renzetti (2018), I suggest that the academic disciplines exist within a patriarchal system. Therefore, mainstream criminology is still one of the most masculinised social fields (Britton, 2000), and gender is not a concept that has always been discussed in research about punishment (Bosworth & Kaufman, 2013; Howe, 1994). In response, to engage with a feminist perspective in criminology and prison studies not only implies a focus on women as offenders and prisoners but it also means to engage in a gender-specific critique of punishment using a gender-aware epistemology and analytical framework (Howe, 1994). Moreover, following decolonial feminist María Galindo (2015), I propose that it is not possible to decolonise without simultaneously depatriarchalise. Galindo links colonialism and patriarchy to give an

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account of domination practices, and how we need to engage in a permanent process of sabotage and disobedience. This means permanently questioning our common sense in order to reconceptualise the role of women in Latin America and theoretical concepts, which may lead to the construction of new utopias and horizons of struggle (Galindo, 2015). Therefore, as already mentioned, feminist criminologists have discussed prison as a patriarchal institution that propagates disciplining, focussed on perceived notions of “adequate” femininity and womanhood, and also seeking the refeminisation of women prisoners (Antony, 2007; Bosworth, 1999; Carlen, 1983; Hannah-Moffatt, 1995, 2001; Lagarde, 1992). As relevant and necessary as such research has been, it offers a partial understanding of women in prison. I do not seek to minimise patriarchal inequities, but I aim to highlight that women prisoners are, at the same time, active subjects and wilful agents (Bosworth, 1999; Fili, 2013). Therefore, seeking to engage in what Galindo refers to as a sabotaging process, I question partial, rigid or static conceptualisations of the prisons and women prisoners, to focus on the ambivalences, paradoxes and contradictions of women’s imprisonment experiences.

Santa Mónica’s Governance and Legal Systems Recent scholars who are analysing governance dynamics in Latin American prisons, discuss the constitution of formal and informal orders, and the existence of informal dynamics of survival as a way to cope with mass incarceration and overcrowded environments (see for example: Prison Service Journal: Special Edition Informal Dynamics of Survival in Latin American Prisons). This valuable debate opens up the possibility of describing prisons’ dynamics and understanding them in relation to how prisons operate in the Global North. Yet, I will try to go one step further and propose to question the separation of orders, to highlight their intermingled dynamics in everyday life and in the penitentiary actors’ (authorities, prison staff and prisoners) minds and acts. The prison’s formal order is generally associated with its capacity as a state institution to accomplish the penitentiary regime and its

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inner norms, as well as maintaining control and authority within the prison (Pérez Guadalupe & Nuñovero, 2019). This definition refers to the prison as a state confinement institution with written regularised procedures and normative standards that determine a prisoner’s formal institutionalisation (Martin et al., 2014). On the other hand, scholars who analyse prisons’ dynamics in Latin America usually refer to the informal order to discuss prisoners’ collective organisation, and how prisoners co-administrate the institution by substituting or complementing the responsibility of the state (Antillano, 2015; Darke, 2013, 2019). In everyday praxis, it is not possible to observe such binary distinctions between formal and informal orders. Furthermore, I argue that the conceptualisation of prison as a site of multiple order is linked to the presence of multiple legal systems and that can be analysed through a legal pluralist perspective. For example, Darke (2019) suggests that most Brazilian prisons operate within a multi-layered normative order, based on the intersection of bureaucratic regulations and organically produced rules of conviviality, based on the informal collective organisation and the interpersonal relationships with prison staff. Following Antillano’s conceptualisation (2015), I propose that orders and their normative-legal systems (national and customary laws) are intertwined and operate interdependently. In fact, I refer to Santa Mónica as a site co-governance where orders are interdependent and linked to what De Sousa Santos (2002, 2006) has defined as a hybrid legal system. By suggesting Santa Mónica operates through co-governance, I do not intend to refer to constant cooperation or to the lack of conflicts, but to acknowledge the interdependency of both alleged separated orders. Thus, interdependency or complementary status does not exclude hierarchies, conflict or confrontation. As Navarro and Sozzo (2020) suggest it resembles more a continuum between contestation and collaboration. In this section, I introduce the figure of the delegate, as an intermediary or an “interface broker” (Long, 1999, 1). Then, I refer to the coverage of prisoners’ basic needs, and how this provides one concrete example of how co-governance operates in Santa Mónica. Finally, I will analyse the hybrid legal system in Santa Mónica, which is used strategically by prisoners, prison staff and authorities.

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The Delegates: The “Interface Brokers” of Prison Santa Mónica has three pavilions (A, B and C) divided into 8 blocks (1A, 1B, 1C, 2B, 3B, 3A, 3B, 3C). There is a General Delegate of all the prison, and each block also has a General Delegate, a treasurer and seven delegations: Cleaning, Food and Microwave, Disciplinary, Telephone, Judicial, Health, Culture and Sports. The General Delegate of Santa Mónica and the General Delegates of the block meet systematically with prison authorities, and they are the ones who negotiate and inform the penitentiary population about the decisions taken in these meetings. Furthermore, the Block’s General Delegates and the Treasurers handle the block’s budget and organise the internal chores, such as the cleaning of common areas, with the participation of all prisoners. The election of delegates is a subtle negotiation between the authorities, prison staff and prisoners. There is not a homogeneous way to do it, as it may have some variations between the blocks. Candidates are usually selected by the authorities, and when choosing a prisoner, they take into consideration their disciplinary records, previous delegates’ opinions and prisoners’ views. Then, the candidacy is presented at the block’s general assemblies to be publicly legitimised by the population. In that sense, the prisoners vote to accept or reject the candidate. Nonetheless, the rejection of a candidate is not always direct and explicit. Sometimes a delegate is accepted but not necessarily legitimised by the prisoners. Consequently, prisoners will agree to the candidacy in front of authorities but will operate to discharge her. Other prisoners will not follow their norms and criteria, and conflicts will arise. Indeed, without prisoners’ legitimisation, they will engage in acts to demonstrate the delegate is not capable of creating a good conviviality inside the block, and there will be no other option than to propose new elections. Authorities expect them to act upon their role (without explicitly threatening their power), but, interestingly, it seems delegates do not gain any formal recognition for their work. In Santa Mónica, to be able to apply to penitentiary benefits, women prisoners must attend educational or labour workshops. Their attendance provides them signatures that demonstrate their positive motivation towards resocialisation. Their role

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as delegates does not provide them with any signatures. In fact, formally, they do not have flexibility regarding the attendance of the mandatory educational or labour workshops, creating a double burden (triple if they are mothers and have their children inside prison). Informally, given their interpersonal relationship with staff and authorities, delegates may have more flexibility to not attend the workshops or to move more freely inside prison. However, these possibilities are not formalised, but they may or may not occur depending on the staff-delegate relationship and may vary over time. Consequently, although delegates have an essential role in prison’s co-governance, their authority and the structural conditions to engage in their role are fragile and ambivalent. Despite that fact, I refer to the delegates as “interface brokers” (Long, 1999). Using Long’s definition, delegates are intermediaries that are needed when lifeworlds or social fields intersect. As the author (1999, 3) suggests, interface brokers are subjects capable of manoeuvring between actors, and in his words, “creating room for manoeuvre implies a degree of consent, a degree of negotiation and thus a degree of power, as manifested in the possibility of exerting some control, prerogative, authority and capacity for action, be it front- or backstage, for flickering moments or for more sustained periods”. The delegates must be able to negotiate with the authorities and create strategies to keep a sense of equilibrium of power between the authorities’ need for order and security, and the intention of maintaining or improving prisoners’ well-being.

Co-financing Prisoners’ Basic Needs Regarding the basic economic living costs of imprisonment, in overcrowded men’s prisons in some contexts of Latin America, research suggests that prisoners mandatorily pay a quota to obtain a cell or a bed. If they do not have economic resources, it is likely they will sleep on the corridor floor or be expelled from the pavilions (Antillano, 2015; Pérez Guadalupe, 2000; Weegels, 2017). The prisoners in Santa Mónica made a clear distinction between a male prison and Santa Mónica. As one participant identified: “In here we don’t have to pay for the cell or the mattress. In a men’s prison, you have to pay to be accommodated […] In

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here everybody, mandatorily, has a place to sleep and food to eat. There is no quota for that ”.4 In the case of Santa Mónica, the state provides some of the prisoners’ basic needs for rest and nourishment, but prisoners themselves, organised by the delegates, have to cover the labour and the inputs needed to properly maintain the blocks and pavilions. To cover the block’s expenses, prisoners pay a weekly quota to their block´s Treasurer.5 Additionally, there is a rotational system of two prison services that allows each block to produce more income. Each week a block is responsible for: (a) the rental of chairs and tables on visit days and (b) selling boiled water to prisoners. With these incomes it is possible for each block to fulfil their cleaning expenses, the maintenance of the bathrooms, painting of the pavilions, the decoration of the blocks and cells (for example, the possibility of buying curtains for cells or Christmas decorations for the corridors) and to purchase collective goods such as microwaves, televisions or DVD players (which are installed in the block’s corridors). The prison, as a state-governed institution, would not be capable of funding the women prisoners’ basic needs during imprisonment. Co-governance implies the consolidation of an informal-legitimised economic organisation among prisoners and the co-coverage of their basic needs. The financial resources produced due to the informallegitimised organisation are not used to cover individual needs, but to ensure prisoner’s collective basic needs of cleaning, maintenance and nourishing. In any sense, this argument intends to minimise the precariousness in imprisonment living conditions in Santa Mónica. It aims to recognise the semi-autonomous role of prisoners in co-governance and to

4 Women prisoners get money from their visits, from their informal work inside prison (for example, some prisoners outsource their cleaning duties, and other prisoners are contracted to do them), and work in formal labour workshops. There are two different types of labour workshops: working autonomously and working for a private company. Some prisoners engage in creating goods (shoes, clothes, bijouterie, etc.) and services (hairdressing, food, and kiosks) and selling their products inside prison and outside prison through their external connections. On the other hand, in the last years, private companies are also contracting women prisoners to produce their goods. In Santa Mónica, women work in a jean and a leather company. 5 The participants mentioned different quota amounts which oscillated between 1.5 and 20 soles (USD 0.40 and USD 5.5) weekly. It is plausible that the quotas vary per block.

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make visible their labour and the economic resources they must provide to live in more dignified conditions.

Interlegality in Santa Mónica: “God May Forgive Sin, but He Does Not Forgive a Scandal” In her approach to analyse social life and conflict solving, Griffiths (2002, 2005, 2011) questions the rise of the nation-state paradigm of law, which refers to sovereignty embodied in a single site represented by governmental nation-state institutions. It is important to recognise the plural legal conditions within a space and how dynamic legal systems coexist, and official and non-official rules coexist and shape societies (Griffiths, 2011; Moore, 2015). The legal systems are always in negotiation and are always being remade (De Sousa Santos, 2006; Moore, 1973, 1978). De Sousa Santos (2002) states that in sites where multiple legal systems coexist, the boundaries are porous and there is a creation of interlegality which produces a hybrid legal system. Consequently, in everyday life, the legal systems are lived in an interactional and intersubjective manner, and because of that, they superimpose, interpenetrate and are mixed in individuals’ minds and actions (De Sousa Santos, 2002). In Santa Mónica, both nation-state and customary law regulate the wide range of spheres of the legal and social life of prison, providing agreements and mechanisms of social regulation that enable conviviality. To explain the hybrid legal system in Santa Mónica, I will refer to a popular Peruvian saying mentioned by a participant while describing everyday life in prison: “God may forgive a sin, but He does not forgive a scandal”. By extrapolating the saying to prison life, the participant stated that in Santa Mónica subtle transgressions were allowed (the sins), but not open, public and conflictual ones (the scandals). The sins and the scandals. In Santa Mónica, authorities and prison staff “prefer not to look” (Cerbini, 2017, 34) at the subtle transgressions of prisoners, and “are inclined towards a liberal atmosphere within the prison” (Bandyopadhyay, 2010, 404), until they perceive the dilution

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of their authority and “tighten the rope” (Bandyopadhyay, 2010). Also, prisoners accept some of the staff actions that hinder their rights to secure access to services and goods, until they believe they are systematically abusing their position. In research conducted in the San Pedro prison in Bolivia, Cerbini (2017) suggests that the absence of surveillance, classification and schedules and the concept of prison as a modern disciplinary apparatus is not a loss of control by the authorities but a demonstration of their power. By “not looking” at the open transgressions (which include the use of drugs and the presence of women), an alternative governmentality and normative system in prison is installed that transforms an alleged panopticon into an “anti-panopticon” (Cerbini, 2017, 31). The transgressions of the prisoners at Santa Mónica are not as open as those described by Cerbini in San Pedro but are closer to subtle sins. Globally, prisons, as patriarchal institutions, have tighter control of women prisoners (Antony, 2007; Bex, 2016; Bosworth & Kaufman, 2013; Moore & Scranton, 2014), which explains how explicit transgressions of the nation-state’s laws are more permissible in men’s prisons than in women’s prison. Then, the sins that authorities and prison staff “prefer not to look” at are generally associated with informal-legitimised labour actions that prisoners engage in to earn economic resources to fund imprisonment expenses. For example, inside their cells, some prisoners prepare dishes of salads, with vegetables their family bring them on visits, and sell them to four regular clients. The objective is to be distanced from possible scandals that inevitably break the tense calmness in Santa Mónica and oblige the prison staff to make use of the nation-state law to “ tighten the rope” to restore their authority (Bandyopadhyay, 2010). The scandals are open and public transgressions of the formal law, particularly those referring to the consumption of drugs, alcohol, mobile phones, the use of physical violence and the engagement on open homosexual encounters. These actions occur in Santa Mónica, the main problem is when it became public, gossips or rumours appear, and the authorities and prison staff feel the need to restore their authority. As a consequence of any of these activities, and in the name of security, prison staff will conduct requisitions or transfer prisoners to other institutions.

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On the other hand, as Bandyopadhyay (2010) explains, the acceptance of sins is not only done by authorities and prison staff but also by prisoners. At the Central prison in Kolkata, India, something similar to that in Santa Mónica occurs: prisoners are willing to accept some living conditions within the prison and willing to forego some of their rights without denouncing the authorities or prison staff. Prisoners strategically resist the hindering of their rights, theoretically defended by the nation-state law in the Code of Criminal Execution, to face imprisonment to secure the access to materials, services and visits. For example, Juana works in the Tailoring and Confection workshop, and she and the other members have had to pay the maintenance staff several times to connect the lights inside their working space. Juana allegedly pays to cover the “administration costs”. She knows it does not formally fall to her to pay for those expenses, and that it is plausible the maintenance staff are making a profit out of her, but she prefers to pay. If not, she confronts the possibility of encountering difficulties with bureaucratic processes about permits that authorise the entrance of the materials she needs to create her products. Similarly, Johana narrated that one day she defended a new prisoner from a “bullying” situation from security staff. After this situation, Johana recalled that during a visiting day her mother was waiting for her, and as an act of vengeance for defending the new prisoner, the same security officer did not allow her to cross the gate into the main patio, alleging she had not heard Johana was called to approach the visiting area. Johana preferred not to say anything because she did not want her mother to be mistreated the next time she came to visit her. Despite the fact that prisoners are in a position of less power inside prison, and they arguably have to endure more long-term hindering of their rights, there are also opportunities in which they will formally complain when they perceive a staff member has committed scandals. Proof of this argument is the reports of mistreatment by security or treatment staff to the prison authorities, human rights foundations or the national media. For example, during my fieldwork in Santa Mónica, a prisoner was elaborating on a discourse about the systematic economic abuses imposed by the staff (such as Juana’s experience, mentioned above) and was planning to call the radio to denounce it. Despite the fact that

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she had accepted the same situation many times and knowing her actions would have formal and informal repercussions, she believed a “line had been crossed ”. Prison is a zone of negotiated practices where everyone, to different degrees, gains and loses something in this kind of interaction. In the case of Santa Mónica, prison is a political society that resembles a “site of negotiation and contestation” (Chatterjee, 2004, 74). In summary, in this “culture of lenience”, prison staff “prefer not to look” at subtle transgressions performed by prisoners, and simultaneously, prisoners accept irregularities, arbitrary or disrespectful treatment which hinders their rights as a strategic resistance. As Bandyopadhyay (2010, 404) concludes, “this realm of negotiated practice is a preferred zone of interaction for the prisoners and warders who gain something from such practice”. Interlegality as a strategy to maintain adequate conviviality. The hybrid legal system not only moulds the relationships between prison staff and prisoners but it is also useful to understand how prisoners solve conflict inside the blocks. The processing of disputes is not only related to nationstate law but is also connected to other aspects of social life (De Sousa Santos, 1977). In the case of Santa Mónica, disputes among prisoners are generally solved among themselves, trying to avoid the interference of authorities and prison staff. Prisoners try to create a smoother and easier conviviality inside their blocks and maintain the perception of the block as a disciplined one, to diminish the possibility of requisitions or formal sanctions that will have repercussions in their formal judicial processes. Also, if a requisition occurs, prison staff will not only take drugs or mobile phones but will also confiscate other prohibited goods (for example, small amounts of fruit or vegetables) that normally they “prefer not to see”. In that sense, the construction of an adequate conviviality provides individual emotional safety to prisoners but also maintains a common platform where it is possible to strategically transgress the nation-state law—to enact sins—without calling attention to it. Prisoners prefer to prevent conflicts or settle their disputes among themselves, with delegates as intermediaries. Only if the conflict becomes a scandal , in other words, if it explodes or is systematically persistent, will they include prison staff (particularly treatment staff ) and/or the authorities.

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The disputes are not always solved in the same way inside the blocks. However, in general terms, prisoners have a vast repertoire for resolving conflicts and mainly manage three levels of denunciation that move from using customary law to national law. The denunciation can be made: (a) to delegates, (b) to security staff and (c) to treatment staff and/or the authorities. The first level of denunciation or call for intervention is directed to the delegates, especially the block’s General Delegate and Disciplinary Delegate, and makes use of customary law, of the verbal norms and agreements constructed by the prisoners and solved through social interactions. Delegates assume the role of “dispute preventers” (De Sousa Santos, 1977, 11) trying to observe conditions that may potentially create a conflict to solve them beforehand. For example, each block has a television in the corridor, bought with their communal funds. The programming is chosen at the block’s general assemblies, conducted by the block´s General Delegate, where generally all the assistants sign an official act. Isabel, the General Delegate for a block, recalls that one day, a couple of prisoners decided to change the channel to watch a different programme. She approached them and asked if they had asked the other prisoners if they could do that. After hearing the question, a third woman responded, “They didn’t ask me”. The women in question responded that the programmed show was not being transmitted at the moment. Isabel recalled that she had to intervene and negotiate a practical and partial solution: only while the original programme was “on holiday” could they change the channel. As Isabel mentioned, “I didn’t want to say anything to them, but if I didn’t do it, one thing would lead to another and problems would start. As women say here: they would have eaten them, shoes and everything ”. Delegates assume the role of dispute preventers who remind the other prisoners of the procedures and normative standards inside the blocks to maintain peaceful conviviality. If the delegates do not intervene, the problem escalates and may require the intervention of the authorities and staff members. As seen, Isabel makes use of the agreements but is also flexible enough to creatively transform or bend the norms to find a solution to the problem. General and Disciplinary Delegates also act as “dispute settlers” (De Sousa Santos, 1977, 11) and make use of the customary law when there

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are conflicts among prisoners. For example, if a conflict arises between cellmates, the delegate can rearrange the cells, to move the allegedly “conflictive” prisoner to a different cell, the common room or to relocate her in the corridor. Mainly, conflicts between cellmates occur because one of the prisoners does not “respect the other’s space” (e.g. by inviting other women over), personal goods get lost, they are involved in sexual activities while the other is in the room or are engaged in illegal activities. In that sense, delegates take into consideration the social interactions, closeness or conflictual relationships among prisoners to create an order and social structure inside their blocks. The second level of denunciation involves the inclusion of the security staff and may be solved using customary law or nation-state law. This level is approached when conflicts among prisoners are not circumstantial but start to become systematic, and the delegate is not able to put a stop to it. Unlike treatment staff, security staff have 24-hour shifts and have a closer relationship with prisoners, which may result in a more colloquial and trustful interaction with some prisoners. Nevertheless, it is critical to recognise that participants clearly distinguish which security members are more flexible and empathetic than others, and in that sense, know what shifts are more permissive or, as they recall, “less problematic ”. Depending on which security staff member is on duty or the level of the conflict, there are two possible paths. On the one hand, the security staff member will make use of the customary law and will make a “call of attention” to the allegedly “conflictive” prisoner to soothe the situation and put a quick end to the conflict. On the other hand, the security member may use the national law and notify a treatment member and/or authority figure, which attracts a significant possibility of the prisoner getting a notification on their formal legal file. Finally, the third level of accusation is the explicit use of the national law and approaching the treatment staff and authorities directly. Generally, this denunciation occurs when there are acts of physical, systematic psychological violence or the misuse of money from delegates. Depending on the level of conflict, this kind of denunciation could lead to being evaluated by a council which includes the Prison Director, the Chief of the Treatment area and the Chief of the Security area. To penalise prisoners, the authorities constrain their telephone calls,

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send them to the “calabozo” 6 to “meditate” on their actions or transfer them to a different institution. Consequently, the prisoner will have an “unfavourable” evaluation on their legal file. For example, Isabel, the General Delegate of Santa Mónica, remembered a situation when a delegate was accused of misusing money: […] there was a transfer, and we were only a few on the pavilion. Yessenia was the delegate at the time and told us we should distribute the money among us because we were only a small group. She committed that imprudence, and after she proposed everybody asked for their part [...] She said that the new people could not benefit of that money, that it was better to start from zero, as she has seen in other prisons, that it was fair. Some say that it was fine, but others change their mind. Then the transferred women where returned to Santa Mónica, […] a scandal arose in the pavilion. […] Then, the authorities found out and passed Yessenia to Council, she was sanctioned without phone calls for a month [...] Yessenia went to the Direction with the other prisoners who were also delegates to say everything was alright, but the psychologist was there and told her “you have done this, this and this” Researcher: So the psychologist knew before, but didn´t accused her. Isabel: Of course, they [women prisoners from the block] told her. People didn’t stay quiet and accused her.

In the example above, we can see two characteristics of the interlegality in Santa Mónica: first, how prisoners include authorities and treatment staff when they regard a dispute as drastically affecting their inner organisation and the (mis)use of their money. Isabel narrated a critical situation that initially the prisoners tried to handle themselves, and when this was not possible, it was taken to the formal council; second, how prison staff (and not only prisoners) make use of the hybrid legal system. In this case, Isabel also recalled that the psychologist knew about the problem before the denunciation to authorities but had “preferred not to see”, or 6 El Calabozo or Meditacion (meditation) refers to solitary confinement in prison. It is interesting how penitentiary actors have different names for it which indicates opposed significances. Prisoners refer to it as El Calabozo, the pit, which symbolically associates it with an emotionally overwhelming, dark, lonely and violent space. In contrast, the authorities and staff refer to it as Meditacion, which presumes a different objective and emotional fluency. Indeed, it is symbolically intended to be a space of calm and introspective reflexivity that leads to personal transformations.

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in this case “not to say”, until it was a scandal and converted into a public debate. The categorisation of three levels of denunciation is given here to obtain a theoretical order that offers an understanding of the different disciplinary processes and dispute settlements inside Santa Mónica, and as an example of how interlegality operates. In everyday life, they are not as separated but work according to the everyday social dynamics of prison. Given the flexibility of the norms and procedures, agreements and the dispute settlements will vary depending on the block’s population, the delegates in charge and the prison staff responsible for the surveillance of a particular block. In addition, the dispute settlement also depends on the nature of the social interactions, the bond created between the persons involved and the (mis)trust or the closeness among them. What lies beneath it is how an interlegal system operates in conjunction with the procedures and norms from the nation-state law and customary law. Prisoners learn the “ways of prison” (Bandyopadhyay, 2010), and I am not referring to prisoners’ social life or sub-culture, but to the idea that they must know how to create a balance between obedience and subtle transgressions, which allows the authorities to maintain distance from the pavilions, and at the same time enables prisoners to engage in semi-autonomous actions inside them.

Conclusions Colonising processes in knowledge production occur in the social sciences (Castro-Gomez & Grosfoguel, 2007) and mainstream criminology (Carrington, Hogg, & Sozzo, 2016; Martin et al., 2014); they impact on the way we understand how prisons operate outside the context of Europe, North America and Australia by seeing them primarily as “data mines” (Carrington, Hogg, & Sozzo, 2016, 2). Therefore, as a way to deconstruct the concept of “the” prison, I propose an engagement with decolonial and feminist epistemologies, acknowledging prisons not only as the result of errors or of failed development processes in the Global South but also aiming to recognise prisoners’ roles, organisations and semi-autonomy while imprisoned. The

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idea is not to present prisons of the Global South as an “exotic, exceptional specimen among others” (Bandyopadhyay et al., 2013, 28). In fact, this perspective may add reflections to the process of questioning how we approach prisons and imprisonment globally and follows the importance of creating a debate between theories from the Global North with epistemological perspectives and experiences from the Global South. This chapter contributes to the understanding of governance and legal pluralism in the gendered context of prison. As observed, there is a reconfiguration of the traditional power dynamics of imprisonment. In that sense, in Santa Mónica, there is a constant negotiation between authorities, staff members and the penitentiary population that is concretised through the figure of the delegates. There is a transition from “governing of ” to “governing with” that involves (usually in a surreptitious way) dialogue and flexibility, but without denying tensions, conflicts and the struggle for power. This perspective also enables recognition of the multiple orders and legal systems in Santa Mónica, which leads to analysing public institutions in Perú in general and prisons in particular as sites of legal pluralism. In that sense, following a decolonial perspective, the lens transforms prisoners’ participation as not only a response to the state’s abandonment but also as a different configuration of governance. In other words, more than centring the analysis on the precariousness of the modern nation-state, it is possible to recognise other forms of political and social organisation. However, the validation of a different form of organisation may become problematic. For example, the delegates, despite their legitimacy, have an ambivalent and fragile authority, and they remain in an almost invisible grey area in prison governance. This issue arguably stems from our ultimate aspirations as Peruvians to have so-called “modern” institutions that are allegedly scientific, progressive and a reproduction of European ones (Aguirre, 2009). Finally, the chapter wanted to show women prisoners as active subjects during their imprisonment. I do not intend to create a binary division that dichotomises prisoners between victims and agents (Fili, 2013). On the contrary, my aim is to question “the conventional binaries between coercion and freedom, victimhood, dominance and equality” (Munro, 2013, 239) that highlight the interplay and ambivalences between both

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perspectives as central to understanding women’s lived experiences of Peruvian imprisonment.

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Evangelical Wings and Prison Governance in Argentina Lorena Navarro and Máximo Sozzo

Introduction An “evangelical wing” is an area of cells within a male prison in certain provinces in Argentina which has a peculiar hierarchy among the inmates and a set of rules, dynamics and activities legitimized through religion. This area enjoys considerable autonomy from prison officers and authorities. However, the limits to such autonomy become evident in different ways and at different moments. L. Navarro (B) National Council of Scientific and Technological Research, Santa Fe, Argentina e-mail: [email protected] L. Navarro · M. Sozzo Faculty of Social and Juridical Sciences, National University of Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Sozzo (ed.), Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America, Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5_9

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The first evangelical wings emerged in the country during the 1980s. Since then, its number multiplied, particularly in some provincial prison services. There are now some Argentinean male prisons in which the majority of wings are “evangelical”. This phenomenon has an increasing complexity and acquires a peculiar importance in terms of the articulations it generates with regard to prison governance. This chapter approaches this specific question of the governmental dynamics in and around the evangelical wings in Argentinean male prisons. To tackle it, we conducted fieldwork in a men’s prison in Santa Fe city, in which 6 out of 10 wings are “evangelical”. Data collection took place from November 2018 to April 2019. Altogether, eleven in-depth interviews were carried out to inmates who were or had been accommodated in one evangelical wing in particular. Out of the total number of interviewees, seven belonged to the evangelical wing hierarchy, three were living in that wing but did not define themselves as “members of the church”, and one had been expulsed from it. Likewise, nine interviews were carried out to prison officers and authorities working at this prison: five junior officers and four chief or senior officers. From the starting point of our fieldwork we also discuss the growing social sciences literature on this type of spaces inside prisons that has been produced in Argentina in the last years (Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 2017; Algranti, 2012, 2018; Andersen & Suarez, 2009; Andersen, 2012, 2014a, 2014b, 2015; Bosio, 2017; Brardinelli, 2012; Daroqui et al., 2009; Krmpotic & Vallejos, 2018; Manchado, 2014, 2015, 2016a, 2016b, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2018, 2019; Míguez, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2013; Montero, 2018; Navarro, 2020; Nogueira, 2017; Rosas, 2014; Tolosa, 2016a, 2016b; Vallejos, 2017). The first section of this chapter briefly addresses the process of multiplication of evangelical wings in men’s prisons in certain Argentine jurisdictions from the 1980s onwards, pointing out some conditions that have played a role in its development. Then, based on the empirical observations made in the prison studied, we describe the characteristics of the prisoners’ hierarchy within an evangelical wing, indicating their different positions and roles. In the third section, we analyze in detail the different strategies and practices—proactive and reactive—of order maintenance within this type of area. Finally, the last part of this

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chapter addresses different crucial dimensions of power dynamics in and around the evangelical wings, as a scheme of co-governance: the dislocation of the exercise of power from state agents to non-state agents, negotiation practices and collaborative and confrontational relationships between these two types of agents. In this way, we seek to make a contribution to the understanding of the evangelical wings in Argentina—but also in other Latin American countries where similar phenomena have been observed (Marín Alarcón, 2016; Duno-Gottberg, 2021)—in relation to the question of prison governance. And in turn we hope to contribute from this case study to the broader debate on the various forms of participation of prisoners in power relations in Latin American prisons that this book addresses.

Multiplication of Evangelical Wings: Process and Conditions In 1987, in the context of the transition to democracy, the first “evangelical wing” was established in an Argentine prison (Prison Unit No. 1) in Buenos Aires province.1 Its establishment was closely linked to an individual initiative. When in 1983 a riot broke out in that prison, Juan Zuccarelli, a young evangelical, offered to mediate between the inmates and the prison authorities, but his offer was dismissed. In view of this, that same year he applied to join the Prison Service of Buenos Aires province, and started to work as a junior prison officer at that very same prison. His efforts—in his dual role as a guard and an evangelical activist—bore fruit and he succeeded in having a special wing created with a whole set of specific rules in order to accommodate inmates of the evangelical faith.2 These evangelical wings multiplied rapidly in the 1 Argentina is a federal state, with one Federal Prison Service and 23 provincial Prison Services. Buenos Aires Province has the biggest provincial Prison Service, with 45% of the national prison population in 2019. Federal prisons housed in that year 14% of the prison population of the country. They are followed by the Prison Services of Córdoba and Santa Fe Provinces, with 10% and 6%, respectively, of the prison population of the country in the same year. 2 Before then, evangelical ministers used to visit some prisons in Buenos Aires province, but they did not have any special prerogatives; they just went there during visiting hours on the

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same prison. In 1989, Zuccarelli was ordained an evangelical minister and was recognized by the authorities of the Prison Service of Buenos Aires province as the person responsible for the evangelical worship practice (Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 87–92; Brardinelli, 2012, 15–18; Krmpotic & Vallejos, 2018, 57–59; Vallejos, 2017, 288–290). Since then, evangelical wings have proliferated in Buenos Aires province, always in male prisons. By 2013, Algranti and Brardinelli (2013, 70) estimated that 30–50% of the wings in these prisons were evangelical. One of the most significant outcomes of this development was the creation of Prison Unit No. 25, an “evangelical prison” within a prison facility complex. It was opened in 2002 and its first Governor was Daniel Tejeda, who had started to work with guard-minister Zuccarelli in 1990. Guards and inmates—regardless of whether they defined themselves as “evangelical” or not—agreed to abide by a regime in which religion played an essential role for the construction of prison order. Tejeda was in charge of this pilot experience until 2005, when he was replaced by another evangelical prison officer, Daniel Suarez. Due to different problems, Prison Unit No. 25 was eventually turned into a prison for over 60-year-old inmates with health conditions in 2010, thus putting an end to this peculiar experience (Krmpotic & Vallejos, 2018; Vallejos, 2017). In Santa Fe province, the first evangelical wing was established as late as 2001 in Prison Unit No. 1 for men (Manchado, 2016b, 66; 2017a, 199; 2019, 18).3 Since then, these wings have also proliferated in this jurisdiction. At present, approximately 45% of the wings in male prisons are “evangelical” (Manchado, 2019, 18). In Prison Unit No. 2 for men, located in Santa Fe city, where we conducted our fieldwork and as we already mentioned, 6 out of 10 wings are “evangelical”. It is no coincidence that recent estimates about the expansion of this kind of wings in prisons located in these two Argentine provinces are weekly visiting days. There have been records of these visits since the mid-1970s (Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 93–95; Brardinelli, 2012, 17). 3 Likewise, in this province evangelical pastors have also visited prisons on weekly visiting days without any official special permits since the mid-1980s at the least. Early in the1990s, one pastor managed to persuade the authorities of Prison Unit No. 1 to grant him an additional day and a place to organize his activities (Manchado, 2016b, 65; 2017a, 196–198; 2019, 17–18).

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imprecise. This is due to the fact that often times these wings are not formally recognized by prison authorities. Thus, it is possible to meet prison authorities—as we did during our fieldwork—who simply deny the existence of this kind of wings in a certain prison, sticking to formal language when it comes to naming the different areas. But it is impossible to deny their currently strong presence in the prisons of these two jurisdictions, where this phenomenon has been studied more thoroughly by the social sciences in the last years. This expansion of the evangelical wings has been triggered by two different kinds of processes. First, the growth of Pentecostalism in social life, which manifests itself in a substantial increase in the number of worshippers, who mostly are part of the working class (Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 110–111; Frigerio, 1994; Míguez, 2001, 2002, 2012; Semán, 2001; Wynarcyk, 2009). From the transition to democracy in the 1980s onwards, some religious leaders, spurred by the evangelizing zeal of their religious doctrine, started to visit prisons to offer spiritual guidance to people deprived from their liberty, due to their growing relationship with the inmates’ relatives outside. Although at first these efforts faced some opposition from prison authorities, they gradually gained greater acceptance through different means until they crystalized in cooperation and articulation agreements and relations (Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 87–94, 109–127; Brardinelli, 2012, 14–20; Manchado, 2016b, 64–67; 2017a, 195–200; 2018, 102–103; 2019, 17–19). This greater acceptance goes hand in hand with another key process: a significant increase in incarceration rates in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, especially as of the mid-1990s. In 1996, the incarceration rates in both provinces were 74 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants and 49 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively. In 2005, said rates went up to 169/100,000 and 70/100,000, which meant a rise of 128% and 43%, respectively, in one decade. After reaching a plateau, they experienced another significant increase especially in the last five years. In 2019, the rate was 256/100,000 in Buenos Aires province and 184/100,000 in Santa Fe province, a rise of 51% and 163%, respectively, in a period

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of fifteen years.4 As a consequence of this fast and steep increase in the incarceration rates, problems such as overcrowding and the deterioration of prisoners’ living conditions worsened, and multiple kinds of violence and the undermining of order became commonplace in many correctional institutions in both regions, albeit to a different extent and periodization (Sozzo, 2007, 107–108). Under these circumstances, the evangelical wings were regarded by some political and prison authorities as a viable alternative to deal with this concatenation of problems that had sparked off a serious crisis, since it proved to be a relatively effective resource for the construction of order in male prisons (Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 101–104, 145–151; Andersen & Suarez, 2009, 1, 15, 16, 19; Brardinelli, 2012; Daroqui et al., 2009, 2, 9 ; Manchado, 2016b, 65–67; 2017a, 198–199; 2018, 103; 2019, 18–19). These two macroscopic processes did not translate into an automatic and immediate multiplication of evangelical wings, though. This outcome has been made possible specifically in these two provinces thanks to a series of struggles and negotiations involving different stakeholders, namely political and prison authorities, prison officers, evangelical pastors and inmates. The centrality of this mediation can be illustrated by the fact that although these two macroscopic processes affected the entire country, there was not a similar development in the federal prisons. The absence of evangelical wings in this prison service poses a very interesting question. It could be linked to different reasons. First, the fact that the increase in the incarcerated population at the federal level was strongly correlated with the construction of facilities, especially during the first wave in the 1990s and 2000s, which reduced overcrowding and overpopulation to some extent (Hathazy, 2016, 173– 178). Secondly, another factor may have been the adoption of “care and separation units” by prison authorities to accommodate those inmates who have, from the official viewpoint, co-existence problems in regular wings, as a “solution” to help maintain order. The precise date when such measure was first implemented is unknown but it was regulated in 2013

4 In both provinces, these rates do not include the number of prisoners held in custody at police stations. These were very large numbers during the 1990s and 2000s but experienced a strong decline in the last years.

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(Andersen, 2015; García, 2019). Thirdly, the presence of prisoners’ “representatives”—at least in certain federal prisons—acting as interlocutors and mediators between inmates, guards and authorities could be regarded by prison authorities as a fairly effective and already existing mechanism to help maintain order. Last but not least, the development of evangelical wings may have been blocked by the widespread conception of the Federal Prison Service as a strong bureaucratic institution—in comparison with provincial prison services—which means that its authorities avoid any change that may be considered as a “loss of control” over the life of the inmates (Hathazy & Muller, 2016, 122). Even more, we still do not know whether evangelical wings have had the same degree of development as in Santa Fe and Buenos Aires in the rest of the provinces in Argentina.5

Hierarchy, Positions and Roles in the Evangelical Wing In the evangelical wings of the prison we studied,6 there is a hierarchy among the prisoners which bears several similarities with those described in the literature about this kind of wing in other prisons in Argentina (Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 185–203; Andersen, 2014a, 205–210; Andersen & Suarez, 2009, 11–12; Manchado, 2015, 284–285; 2016a, 43–44). Those who have different positions in this hierarchy assume 5 For example, in Córdoba province the Prison Service denies the existence of evangelical wings, as it happens officially in other jurisdictions. From the data we have gathered through conversations with different researchers and activists who work in prisons there, we conclude that there would be two evangelical wings in two prisons within the Correctional Facility Complex No. 1. Each of them would accommodate between 25 and 30 inmates, whereas each prison houses approximately 1200 inmates. This seems to be a very limited development. The novelty is that there would be an evangelical wing in the prison for women in this same complex (Prison Unit No. 3), with a similar number of female inmates; there is no such thing in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe. 6 The “outside” church “in charge” of the religious wings in this prison is neopentecostal. Neo-Pentecostalism is a branch of evangelical Protestantism that appeared in Argentina in the 1980s, transforming some Pentecostal doctrines, adapting them to the cultural configurations of popular religiosity and the social needs of the poor sectors in the country (Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013; Miguez, 2002; Semán, 2001).

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diverse roles and are subjected to relations of command and obedience among them. At the top of the hierarchy is a man who, paradoxically, is neither an inmate in the evangelical wing nor a Prison Service staff member, but he is recognized as an authority by those who do live in this wing. He is Pastor L., an evangelical minister who leads a church near the prison, and who has done evangelistic work in the prison for two decades now (Bosio, 2017, 7). He is referred to as the “external” pastor to differentiate him from the “internal” pastor, a position filled by a prisoner. The external pastor plays a key role in determining who can hold the position of internal pastor as well as other important positions within the evangelical wing hierarchy. Besides, he develops the general guidelines about the rules that inmates must abide by, and the different religious practices to be held in this area of the prison. He also has a say in decisions and actions aimed at maintaining order in the wing, as he is frequently consulted about this matter by the internal pastor. He discusses issues concerning the evangelical wing with correctional authorities, not only at this specific prison but also with the authorities of the Prison Service Directorate of Santa Fe Province. Finally, he is in charge of collecting “tithes” and “offerings” paid by the inmates housed in the evangelical wing, and uses this money to support the external church as well as to buy things and make improvements in this area of the prison.7 An inmate who did not define himself as a “member of the church”, though he was housed in this evangelical wing, said to illustrate the relevance of this figure: “…The external pastor is like a custodial manager in here, a 7 A tithe literally means a fixed ten percent (10%) to be paid by the inmate out of the money he receives from the Prison Service as remuneration for the work done at the prison or as public relief if he does not work. Unlike tithes, an offering is voluntary and the amount is determined by the worshipper. Only in very few cases will an inmate in the evangelical wing be exempted from paying these donations, namely, when he has no relatives to visit him and he is paid the lowest remuneration inside the prison, or when he must use this money to help a relative who is ill. Prisoners do not handle money inside the prison. To pay the tithe and offerings they must follow the same steps as when they want someone from the “outside” to withdraw money that belongs to them. First, they must fill out a form created by the Prison Service with their particulars, the information about the beneficiary and the amount to be transferred, and then they sign it. Then, the beneficiary—always the external pastor, in the case of the tithe and offerings—withdraws this amount of money in a prison office. Evangelicalism collects tithe and offerings in every evangelical wing and the external pastor is in charge of collecting it on a monthly basis.

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governor”. And the Security Supervising Officer of the prison described: “He has direct access to high-ranking officers, he speaks directly with the Governor, or the Prison Service Directorate authorities”. The internal pastor also holds a high-ranking position in the evangelical wing hierarchy. Unlike in the case of Buenos Aires province (Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 124), according to the data we have gathered, prison authorities do not seem to participate directly in the decision of who should be appointed to that position; this decision is made by the external pastor. The inmate who becomes an internal pastor must have a religious background, which means that he has ascended the evangelical wing hierarchy ladder and may hold that his life is a successful testimony to religious conversion. A wing “leader” interviewed mentioned the requirements an inmate must meet to become an internal pastor: He must prove that he is consecrated to God, devoted, free from sins, addictions and vices; his life story must be testimony to the transforming grace of God.

In the case of the wing we studied, it had taken the internal pastor two years to reach that position.8 He should also be held in considerable respect inside the prison world for his knowledge of the dynamics of this context as well as for his previous criminal career “outside”. The Security Supervising Officer of this prison said in this regard: He must be very clever, very sharp. In general, they are very quick-witted and street smart, as they have already been imprisoned, they are very smart, they can recognise problems; they can anticipate whether there will be a problem or not.

This second aspect associates his role with that of “representatives” in regular wings within prisons in Santa Fe province. Our understanding

8

This would confirm the observations made in other Argentine prisons about the relative ease of upward mobility in the hierarchy of these evangelical wings (Manchado, 2015, 286; 2016a, 43–44), which could be linked to a general trait of Pentecostalism as a religion (Semán, 2010, 28–29).

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of this other figure is still in its early stages.9 It has experienced different levels of importance and formalization throughout time and at different correctional institutions (D’Amelio, 2019, 25, 36, 42–46), and by the time we conducted fieldwork, it was declining rapidly in the male prison in the city of Santa Fe. Anyway, the crucial difference between the internal pastor and the “representative”—according to our work and the research previously conducted in Santa Fe province—apparently lies in the fact that the former does not resort to direct physical force when performing his duties, although this obviously does not preclude other forms of coercion (Manchado, 2016a, 48, 52–53; 2017b, 180; 2019, 22–23),10 and that he remains in his place for longer than the representative in regular wings, whose position has always been more unstable.11 The internal pastor sets out the rules to be followed by inmates housed in the evangelical wing taking into account the general guidelines laid down by the external pastor, and establishes the duties to be fulfilled by prisoners in different hierarchical positions and the faults or offenses for which anyone could be punished. Rules at the evangelical wing are partially similar to those formally imposed by prison authorities, for example: physical violence among inmates or disobedience and lack of respect for prison officers and authorities are forbidden. But there are other rules that deviate from those formally prescribed, such as those that prohibit inmates from being absent from worship practices, or from disobeying or showing disrespect for the evangelical wing authorities. These rules aim at fulfilling two objectives at the same time. First, to bring order that materializes in the absence of conflicts among inmates housed in the evangelical wing, especially of a violent nature. This in 9 For an exploration about the “limpieza” (cellblock runner) in the prisons in Buenos Aires province, who seems to have things in common with the “representative” in Santa Fe prisons, see Míguez (2007, 34; 2008, 146–148), Ángel (2015), Andersen (2014b, 266–270), Galvani (2010, 6–7,12,14), Montero (2018, 6–7, 15–16), and Nogueira (2017, 98–101). 10 In the context of Buenos Aires province, some authors have pointed out that direct physical force is still exerted by internal pastors in evangelical wings—though maybe less frequently or to a lesser degree—and in addition to other forms of coercion (Andersen, 2012, 200; 2014b, 272; 2015, 6–7; Daroqui et al, 2009, 9). 11 In recent times, the stability of “internal” pastors in the male prison in Santa Fe city seems to be even higher than the stability of its Governors, who have been changed after short periods in office.

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turn results in the absence of coercive measures by the prison officers and authorities and in positive evaluations about the inmates that would enable their eligibility for parole or temporary release from prison. And secondly—guided by the Pentecostal worldview—to promote conversion, the abandonment of “worldly life”, a “change of lifestyle” produced by the prisoner’s embracement of religion that keeps him from reoffending in the future. This also gives a paradoxically new religious zeal to correctional work that has been progressively secularized along the history of the modern prison in the country, as in other places of the world (Sozzo, 2007, 88–93). Following the guidelines established by the external pastor, the internal pastor also organizes the religious practices and the roles to be played by the different hierarchical positions in these activities. But, on top of religious practices, he also organizes general activities related to the wing daily routine, ranging from fridge organization to cleaning chores. The internal pastor is assisted by two lower-ranking members of the evangelical wing hierarchy—“leaders” and “collaborators”.12 “Leaders” may be defined as “middle management” (Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 192–193; Manchado, 2015, 284–285; 2016a, 43; 2018, 10) subordinated to the internal pastor but with some decision-making power over those under them in the evangelical wing hierarchy. There are between 5 and 10 leaders in the evangelical wing under study. They are inmates with a certain religious background and a high level of compliance with rules and religious dogma, who demonstrate great respect for the internal pastor. As one of them put it: “We must set the example, we are testimony [of religious conversion]. We care for testimony”. Leaders are appointed by the internal pastor after consultation with the external pastor. “Collaborators” have a more “peripheral” position (Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 189; Manchado, 2015, 284–285; 2016a, 43; 2018, 10) and although they share “identity traits” for being “members of the church”, they have a more flexible attitude toward religious practices and 12

In the evangelical wings of the male prison in Santa Fe city, there also exists another figure, “el segundo” (“the second”) or “second pastor”, who is immediately under the internal pastor. In general terms, he is the right hand of the internal pastor, his person of utmost confidence. In the wing under study, this position was vacant.

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rules, and are usually regarded by the internal pastor or the leaders as persons in the process of religious conversion. In the evangelical wing under study, there are 20 collaborators. Some of them are taking their first steps in religious matters, whereas others had already been leaders but had fallen in the hierarchy for different reasons. For example, the internal pastor told us about someone who had smuggled a mobile phone, which is prohibited by the rules of this area within the prison. And under these two categories are the inmates who neither define themselves as members of the church nor are they regarded as such by the rest. In the evangelical wing under study, they account for around 70 percent of the population. They must participate in religious services but not on a regular basis. Some of them do not care much about showing interest in conversion. Despite this, as long as they do not get involved in serious disorder, their stay in the evangelical wing is not questioned.13 One of the leaders said in this regard: God always has a bunch of lost children, 40 out of 100 people, it is not the whole lot. But if somehow they abide by the rules of Christianity, if they are obedient, respectful, or even if they have vices and sins… God is working on them, He does not abandon them; someday they will make the decision to submit completely.

Strategies to Maintain Order Different strategies are developed to maintain order which are basically implemented by the prisoners in the higher echelons of the wing hierarchy, though in certain cases prison officers and authorities may also be involved. 13

Previous studies mention the word “ovejas” (sheep) as the term used to refer to the people in this position within the evangelical wing structure (Andersen, 2014a, 185; Ángel, 2015, 45; Manchado, 2015, 284–285; 2016a, 43; 2017b, 182; 2018, 104). But we have not recorded the use of this term in our field work. As far as “non-church members” are concerned, some are referred to as “refugiados” (“refugees”), to make specific reference to the fact that they have come to the evangelical wing seeking security because they have had conflicts in other prison areas, a category which has also been recorded in previous research (Andersen, 2014a, 209, 225; Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 59–60; Algranti, 2011, 56; Manchado, 2015, 292; 2016a, 57; 2017b, 183; Rosas, 2014, 13–14).

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On the one hand, there are proactive strategies aimed at preventing rules from being broken and prisoners housed in this wing from getting involved in conflicts, especially of a violent nature. One of the most important consists in deciding which inmates are taken to the evangelical wing. The internal pastor plays an essential role in deciding which prisoner is taken to his area, regardless of whether he is a newly arrived prisoner—“ingreso” (a “new admission”)—or an inmate being transferred from another wing in the prison where he can no longer stay for various reasons—ranging from a change in his legal status from accused to convicted to his participation in a violent conflict. On Thursdays, when new admissions arrive at the male prison of Santa Fe city, the pastors are allowed to go to the holding cells where they are put or, if there is no room left there, to the corridors where they stand handcuffed to the bar of an elevated window waiting to be taken to their wing. In this context, the pastors interview the “new admissions” and try to determine whether they have a serious conflict with someone already housed in their own wing. If there is no conflict, the newly arrived may request or be offered by the internal pastor to be accommodated in the evangelical wing. This agreement is then approved by the prison authorities who ask the “new admission” to sign a document stating his consent.14 Something similar happens when an inmate is transferred from another wing. Nevertheless, the prison authorities may not approve of this agreement between the internal pastor and the inmate, or they may force the internal pastor to take an inmate against his will. This does not happen very often but we have been told stories during our interviews. A senior prison officer told us the following so as to reinforce his decision-making power: The final decision whether an inmate is taken to a wing or not is ours. If they say everything is ok but I say no, he isn’t taken there. It they tell me don’t put’ him in the wing but I say yes, under my responsibility, he is taken to the wing. We always take responsibility, we have the final say.

14

Even though being taken to an evangelical wing is presented as a voluntary decision, it is important to point out that there are limited options since a large number of the wings in this prison are evangelical. Besides, gaining access to a regular wing seems to be more difficult because the inmates housed there usually resist to receive “new admissions” due to the overpopulation problem.

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In the process to be admitted to the evangelical wing, there is frequently an important step called “the practice of forgiveness”, which is imbued with a deep religious connotation. When an eligible candidate has had problems with an inmate housed in this area which are not particularly serious in the internal pastor’s opinion, both prisoners are asked to talk and ask one another for forgiveness, and reconcile so that they can live together in harmony. Now, if the inmate already housed in the evangelical wing is unwilling to offer or ask for forgiveness, he is threatened with expulsion by the internal pastor; this means that on many occasions this forgiveness results from coercion. This is what the pastor in the space under study told us in this regard: Sometimes an inmate doesn´t want to forgive another. We have seen this happening here. ’Well, if you don’t forgive him, you will have to leave and he will get in’, and he said, ’no, it’s ok, come on, because you gave me a chance’; because everybody has been given a chance. I haven’t met a single one who hasn’t had some kind of problem with somebody else, if not in this church maybe in another; yet everybody is given a chance, come what may.

Another key preventive strategy consists in keeping the inmates housed in the evangelical wing under permanent surveillance, mainly to gather information about the social relationships inside the wing in order to prevent violent conflicts from flaring up. This is achieved through conversations held by the internal pastor himself with the inmates. In his words: We, as God involves a change of life, we speak to the heart of the people. When we speak to someone, we know how he feels. I am the pastor, I walk around and see the guys, see their faces; when they feel upset, when they feel fine, when they want to fight.

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But leaders also have an active role in this task, and in certain cases so do collaborators, and even inmates who are not “members of the church”.15 This also means that everyday interactions are closely monitored by those who hold high-ranking positions in the evangelical wing hierarchy. A collaborator said in this regard: -If you can sense a tense atmosphere, see strange moves, exchange of glances... You can anticipate who is going to get into trouble with whom. Besides, because a prisoner is predictable. -For those who know… -Of course, we already know. You can tell by the way they are dressed, if they are wearing a jacket… ’Why are you wearing a jacket in this hot weather?’ You can tell by their gait, their looks. In here, we use the expression ‘hay movida’ (feelings are running high).

And an inmate who was not a member of the church pointed out: -Everything… the pastor watches over everything, all the time. And if not him, the leaders. -What do they pay attention to? -Everything… who does drugs, who doesn´t, who does this or that.

This constant surveillance is also aimed at monitoring compliance by inmates housed in the evangelical wing with religious and non-religious activities organized by the internal pastor. Special attention is paid to compliance with the schedule, for example, making sure that inmates get in their cells before the official lock-up time, so that gatekeepers can proceed to lock them up, or that they get on time to religious ceremonies, especially the most important ones held at midday and in the evenings. When the likelihood of a violent conflict is detected at an early stage, another preventive strategy to be deployed is a sort of mediation that involves the high-ranking positions in the evangelical wing hierarchy. 15

In some interviews critical comments were made suggesting that some inmates act as informers of the internal pastor, and they are called “infiltrados” (“infiltrator”) or “alcahuetes” (“grass/snitch”).

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This is connected with a distinguishing feature of this type of blocks, as observed by Míguez (2013, 14–15) and Algranti and Brardinelli (2013, 63–65), which consists in engaging in dialogue.16 In this case, the internal pastor or the leaders try to speak with the parties involved in an attempt to reach a solution to pacify the situation. And only if this does not work out, do they respond with a reactive measure of a punitive nature. An inmate who was not a member of the church said in this regard: Here if the pastor knows that two people have a conflict, he tries to make them talk, and he evaluates the situation to see if everything is ok; if the conflict cannot be resolved, he tries to transfer one to a different church to prevent the conflict from flaring up.

And a collaborator said: When there are two people [arguing], the leaders move in to separate them, and when someone wants to meddle in, they tell him, ’stay out of this brother, can’t you see we’re trying to calm them down?’; they don’t tell him, ’mind your own business, jerk!’, that kind of abuse is no longer used, just love.

Finally, there is a preventive strategy linked to the allocation of informal rewards that aim at influencing the behavior of those housed in the evangelical wing, and in many cases they are successful. There are instant and deferred rewards. First, especially in the case of some high-ranking members within the hierarchy, these rewards translate into a concrete possibility of “tangible” improvements in their living conditions in the prison, such as having a cell of their own or being able to leave their wings frequently to visit other sectors in the prison. Secondly, for the far larger universe of inmates, the reward is “living in peace”; a fact that, in the eyes of many inmates housed there, is guaranteed 16

During fieldwork we have recorded instances in which dialogue was used to neutralize potential conflicts, without the mediation of the high-ranking positions in the hierarchy, by appealing to religious justifications. A collaborator said in this regard: “In the past I liked being armed, now I don’t. For me the best weapon is the Bible and peace in your heart, and engage in dialogue”.

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by the regime of the evangelical wing by comparison with the regular wing, as evidenced by the reduced rate of conflicts of a violent nature. Thirdly, for many there is a real chance of a “penal” reward because their stay at the evangelical wing usually contributes to their positive evaluation by prison authorities and officers, which makes them eligible for temporary release from prison and parole (Manchado, 2017b, 193– 197; 2018, 107). Fourthly, for some of those housed in this wing there are also “emotional” and “spiritual” rewards related to religious conversion, improvement of health and wellbeing (especially in the case of addictions) and better family relationships (Manchado, 2017b, 189–191; 2018, 107). Finally, and also for the converts, there is a potential “economic” reward that does not necessarily materialize during confinement but afterward, by which they may get a job in the future and build a life free from crime thanks to the networks of the church outside the prison (Manchado, 2017b, 191–193; 2018, 107). On the other hand, besides these preventive strategies, there is a series of reactive strategies of a punitive nature to deal with infractions to the rules detected by the evangelical wing hierarchy. These informal disciplinary measures are similar, to some extent, to those imposed by prison authorities—temporary solitary confinement or transfer to another wing—although they are not necessarily intended to punish the same kind of behavior. Then, there are disciplinary measures peculiar to the evangelical wing, such as warnings and the performance of religious practices. Within this framework of informal disciplinary measures, there is no room for direct physical force, although there are coercive measures that eventually threaten the inmate with the loss of the chance to remain in the evangelical wing and enjoy the potential or actual rewards which are related to it. Leaders play a key role in the detection of an infringement of the rules and the imposition of disciplinary measures, but it is the internal pastor who decides the kind of disciplinary measure to be imposed, after consultation with the external pastor if the infraction is serious. Prison officers and authorities do not partake in the decision about disciplinary measures, but in certain cases their participation is central to their implementation. The internal pastor exercises a high degree of discretion in deciding the disciplinary measures to be imposed, which means that similar infractions committed by different inmates

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may be treated differently. Whereas this discretion is regarded as a source of flexibility with positive outcomes by some of the inmates, some others think it is illegitimate, especially when it translates into harsher disciplinary measures, as evidenced by the accusations of “arbitrariness” recorded during our fieldwork. In the event of minor infractions—for example, having a disrespectful behavior toward a guard or an evangelical authority, listening to worldly music out loud or smoking marijuana in public—especially when committed for the first time, the disciplinary measure amounts to a warning. The internal pastor or one of the leaders speaks with the person, warns him of the negative consequences of persisting in that behavior and tries to persuade him to abide by the rules of the evangelical wing. One of the leaders said in this regard: Many times, we basically tell them the way things should be done, or we ask them why they are doing things wrong. Sometimes they are doing things wrong because they are facing some problems with their family, their marriage or the case. When people have problems, they get in trouble; if not, they are at ease.

“Discipline” is usually exercised over those who repeat relatively minor infractions. In this case, the punished inmate is referred to as “disciplinado” (“the disciplined”). Being disciplined basically means having to perform some extra religious practices together with, in certain cases, cleaning chores in the evangelical wing. A leader described: We have a discipline system in the church. The names of those being disciplined for different reasons are written on a blackboard, and they will have to do different activities during the week. One day they are called and gathered in groups, we try to explain to them what God’s discipline involves, and then they leave. Another day, they meet to pray and praise; another day, they clean the wing… these are the activities to be done by those who have committed an infraction.

In the event of more serious infractions, as defined on a case-by-case basis and at the discretion of the internal pastor, an inmate may be held in solitary confinement in special cells in another area of the prison. The

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period of time is defined by the internal pastor not straight away but a posteriori, thus leaving the possibility of being transferred to another wing open. The internal pastor informs the official guards of the evangelical wing that a prisoner needs some time to “reflect” in a solitary confinement cell. Sometimes, the internal pastor escorts the inmate in question—together with a guard—to the cell. Then, when and if the internal pastor deems it appropriate, he goes to the cell and tells the inmate that solitary confinement time is over and that he may return to the evangelical wing. In any case, this period of solitary confinement is not officially recorded by prison administrative staff as a formal disciplinary measure but as an instance of “segregation for self-protection”. Unlike the other informal disciplinary measures, this requires the active involvement of prison guards and authorities. An inmate who did not define himself as a member of the church said in this regard: -You mentioned there are certain rules, such as to attend worship activities, not to listen to music… what happens if someone breaks those rules? -Well, he is segregated, they have him segregated. And he is placed in “buzones” (“the hole”) and may spend weeks there, then they see if they give him a chance. -To come back to the block? -Yes, to come back or go to another evangelical wing. -Is the punishment imposed always the same? -No, not always; sometimes they transfer you directly to another evangelical wing; sometimes they don’t, sometimes you are placed in solitary confinement.17

Finally, the most serious disciplinary measure—that may follow solitary confinement or not—is expulsion from the wing. Once again, the boundaries between infractions punishable with this measure are blurred 17

We have already conducted empirical research into this dynamic related to the use of solitary confinement cells by the internal pastors of the evangelical wings in this same male prison in Santa Fe city, and we interviewed pastors, prison officers and authorities, and inmates in solitary confinement cells. One of the officers we interviewed said that the imposition of these informal disciplinary measures accounts for 80% of the use of solitary confinement cells (in 2014) (Ghiberto & Sozzo, 2016, 133–138).

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and muddled. As examples of these infractions, we can mention physical fighting but also repeated and minor non-compliances with the rules. The internal pastor usually asks for the external pastor’s advice before making this decision. His answer to a direct question in this regard was: And the problem for which they can no longer stay in the wing is when they are so stoned or drugged out that they would respect no limits, or something went missing and everybody looks at the junkie. So for safety’s sake, he is transferred to another wing. Or if we see that he is too stoned, he goes to “buzones” (“the hole”) until the effect wears off and then he either returns to the wing or is transferred to another wing.

The people with whom we talked during our fieldwork were highly critical of the arbitrariness with which the internal pastor of the wing under study imposed especially this kind of disciplinary measure. This long extract of a conversation we had with a person expelled from the unit under study is worth reproducing: Look, I used to live in the first cell upstairs and this bloke wanted me to leave that cell. I was on my own. He wanted me to leave the cell and move downstairs. […] So when he told me he wanted to put another person in that cell, kind of forcing me to leave, I refused and we argued. Then I asked the guard if I had to leave the cell and he said that I didn´t. So what did this dude do? He told me, ’aha, you will leave the cell by hook or by crook’, and a few days later the same guard, the fatty, told me, ’get your stuff because we are going to get you out of the wing for safety’s sake’, and well, I was transferred there, handcuffed and all that. And they told me that I was being transferred because I didn’t get along with a guy who was in the hole and was coming to the wing. I remember they told me, and everything was ok with that guy; he already lived in our wing […] Because that’s what pastors do, they get you out, they get you in, and they screw you up. And that bloke made up that story to get me out. Obviously, the following day after work I went to fetch a couple of things and railed at him, reproached him for getting me in trouble with the police and asked him what kind of pastor he was. And he denied everything before the police. Why would the officer lie to me, just get me out on a whim?

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And even a collaborator in the wing said something similar: In the wing I am housed, the pastor makes up stories against the boys. He has to pretend to be a pastor, but he is not. So, some people argue or he feels envious or jealous and he resents them. So, he goes there, speaks to the authorities, the senior officers or the officers and he tells them, ‘so-and-so doesn’t get along with such-and-such, please get him out’.

During our fieldwork nobody mentioned anything about prison officers or authorities partaking in the decision-making process relative to this strongest measure, although they are likely to have some degree of influence because the expelled inmate must be accommodated in another sector in the prison, and this problem should be tackled by the prison administrative staff. Anyway, according to the extracts we have just reproduced it is evident that prison authorities and officers cooperate so that the measure may be implemented.

A Co-governance Assemblage? Dislocation, Negotiation, Cooperation and Confrontation From this description of the production of order in the evangelical wing emerges a picture in which certain prisoners—essentially the internal pastor, but also the leaders and collaborators to some extent—seem to govern other prisoners beyond the reach of the state agents. Therefore, it would be tempting to appeal to the idea of “self-governance” to interpret what is going on there in terms of power relations. Actually, this term has been incidentally used by some authors with reference to the evangelical wings in provincial prisons in Argentina (Algranti, 2012, 29; Andersen, 2015, 1, 8; Manchado, 2014, 91). The idea of “self-governance” has been recently introduced in the literature on prisons in Latin America to make reference to different situations in which apparently prisoners establish relations of power inside the prison, while prison authorities and officers step back and exclusively guard the borders between the inside and the outside worlds (Antillano, 2015, 2017; Antillano et al. 2016; Cerbini, 2012, 2017; Darke, 2013;

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2014; Macaulay, 2017; Skarbek, 2020; Sozzo, this volume; Weegels, 2017). However, even in the most extreme examples of this kind in Latin American prisons—as evidenced by the consolidation of prisoners’ organizations like Primero Comando da Capital or Comando Vermelho in Brazil (there is a vast literature on the subject, see the chapters by Nunes Dias, Salla and Alvarez and Dieter Stegeman in this book)—some decisions and actions by state agents are essential to the day-to-day prison governance. In some cases, they take place within a context of collaborative relations with the highest reaches of the prisoners’ hierarchy: for example, the frequent smuggling of drugs and firearms in the prison requires the cooperation of (at least some of ) the prison officers and authorities (even the police) in charge of guarding the borders between the inside and outside worlds. In some other cases, state agents’ decisions position them in relations of confrontation with the highest reaches of the prisoners’ hierarchy, such as, for example, when armed operations are carried out by riot squad officers inside the prison precisely to generate a change in the balance of power among the prisoners, as recorded by different social researchers who have worked in these contexts and situations. From our point of view, this complex dimension of the roles played by state agents—which may be more or less prominent depending on the different situations—could be obscured by the concept of “selfgovernance”. As far as the evangelical wings are concerned, the impact of state agents’ actions and decisions is perhaps more evident than in other cases where certain prisoners assume governance roles in Latin America, because among other things they affect only some, not all, sectors within the prison, thus creating an “inside-outside” dimension within the boundaries of the prison context—as Manchado (2019, 20– 26) has rightly pointed out—this means recognizing that the exercise of governance by some prisoners over other prisoners is somehow subjected to a kind of geographical boundary line. First, we should bear in mind that it is the prison authorities who approve, though not through a formal procedure, the daily functioning of the wing in accordance with the patterns of evangelicalism. In the prison under study, this is the result of a process of negotiation with the

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external pastor; and throughout the last decade, there has been a significant increase in the number of blocks turned into evangelical wings, just like in the case of the prisons of this province more generally, as we pointed out in the second section. In our fieldwork, we have not learnt of a single case in which an external pastor’s proposal to turn a block into an evangelical wing has been turned down by the prison authorities; however, we cannot dismiss the possibility that this actually happens or may have happened.18 Further and more specific research should be conducted into this matter to shed light on this dynamic through in-depth interviews to stakeholders specifically involved in this kind of negotiation. However, the experience of the rise and decline of an “evangelical prison” in the province of Buenos Aires briefly depicted in the second section is a clear example of the constraints that may hold back the expansion of evangelicalism in prisons, and of the way in which prison authorities may certainly block it.19 Secondly, many decisions and actions affecting the daily functioning of the evangelical wing made by the highest reaches of its hierarchy are supervised by prison officers and authorities who may contest and reverse them—though oftentimes this does not happen—thus creating a situation of tension and confrontation to a greater or lesser extent. In the previous section we mentioned this, especially in connection with new admissions and the imposition of disciplinary measures such as solitary confinement and expulsion. But there is a wide range of other everyday dynamics within the evangelical wing that trigger control measures by state agents, oftentimes implemented by the lowest reaches of its hierarchy such as “celadores” (gatekeepers). It is no coincidence at all that many of these dynamics are related to people or things crossing the boundaries of the evangelical wing. For example, every time the internal pastor or the leaders have to leave the evangelical wing for some reason, like on Thursdays to visit the “new admissions” or celebrate a worship 18

We have heard stories about people who oppose having the wing where they are housed turned into an evangelical wing. This opposition, especially when voiced in a collective and public way, may be a variable taken into account by prison authorities when it comes to approving whether a certain block is turned into an evangelical wing or not. 19 See, in general terms and in this same sense, Brardinelli and Algranti (2013, 303; 2017, 185) and Manchado (2016a, 56, 58; 2017b, 200; 2019, 23).

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service in another evangelical wing; whenever it is necessary to introduce into the evangelical wing goods bought with the money collected through tithes and offerings; when inmates housed in the evangelical wing submit claims related to their cases that require decisions and actions by the prison administration staff or when inmates leave the evangelical wing to attend educational, labor or recreational activities.20 In all these situations, the decisions taken by the highest reaches of the evangelical wing hierarchy may be contested and reversed by the prison officers and authorities. And this happens, though not very often. Besides, there are other control measures implemented by prison authorities and officers inside the evangelical wing and aimed at its population. Whereas some of them are mild and routine, such as the daily opening and closing of the cells or the headcounts performed during the day, some others are sporadic and potentially more controversial, such as searches. Although they do not take place too frequently and are sometimes agreed by the internal pastor, they must be done regularly. When these different situations arise, in the microphysics of everyday life the governance role of state agents re-emerges and becomes tangible.21 In line with Sykes’ ideas in his classic book The Society of Captives (1958/1999), the reality of the evangelical wings demonstrates the fictional nature of total control by state agents of the sequestered life inside prison,22 and makes evident, as the American author stated, a real dislocation of part of the exercise of power from captors to captives. As clear examples of this stand out the establishment of rules, the hierarchy and the specific activities, as well as the preventive and reactive strategies to maintain order implemented inside this kind of wing in the

20

Unlike what has been registered in evangelical wings in other Argentine prisons, where they are required to devote their time exclusively to worship practices or are imposed severe restrictions to other types of activities, inmates in the evangelical wings at the prison under study are not required to quit labour, educational or recreational activities performed outside the wing (Manchado, 2015, 293, 297). 21 Similar observations have recently been made by Manchado (2019, 25–27). 22 We have recently discussed the utility of Sykes’ work to analyze the reality of evangelical wings in Argentine prisons (Navarro and Sozzo, 2020). For a more general consideration of the work of this classical author and Latin-American prisons, see Sozzo (2020; this volume).

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prison under study, which we have described in the previous sections.23 However, this dislocation has limits because, as we have just highlighted, state agents can make use of different resources and measures to govern the prisoners housed in these areas whenever they decide and circumstances so permit. This dislocation in the exercise of power can be exclusively seen as the result of a “top-down” dynamic, as the term “outsourcing” used in some works on evangelical wings in Argentina seems to suggest (Andersen & Suárez, 2009, 15–19; Andersen, 2012, 199–201; 2014b, 252, 258, 260; 2015, 2; Daroqui et al., 2009, 2). In this perspective, it is the state authorities who transfer these governance roles to the highest reaches of the evangelical hierarchy, because it is instrumental in achieving their goal of maintaining prison order.24 Besides, this interpretation gives the impression that evangelical wings are instruments fully controlled by those who set them up, that is, state authorities.25 Undoubtedly, this “top-down” transference effectively occurs in this kind of wings in Argentine prisons. However, it is essential not to lose sight of the “bottom-up” dynamic—and also “outside-in”—that has contributed to generate this dislocation as an outcome. From the viewpoint of those who foster their establishment but do not form part of the Prison Service structure—that is, external pastors and inmates— evangelical wings may be considered a “conquest” whose creation and operation demanded and occasionally still demand overcoming certain resistance and obstacles mounted by prison authorities and officers. By 23

As Sykes also pointed out, this dislocation does not grant the same roles (and benefits) to all prisoners in the prison governance. As we have seen in the previous sections, the complex hierarchical structure of the evangelical wing assigns different tasks (and rewards) to the inmates who hold different positions: the internal pastor, leaders, collaborators and non-church members. We also analyzed the key role played by a stakeholder who does not live in the prison or belong to the Prison Service—the external pastor. This complex assemblage is established informally with the consent of prison authorities and guards, who make sure that this is not mentioned in the official records or given an official name. 24 It has been suggested that “outsourcing” is not exclusive to evangelical wings because it also takes place in regular wings, making reference to the role of the “limpieza” (cellblock runner) in the province of Buenos Aires (Andersen, 2014b, 266–270). 25 In other works, we can find the concept of “delegation”—or even “outsourcing”—although it is not clearly connected with a strong conception of evangelical wings as a mere instrument of the state authorities (Algranti, 2012, 30; Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 45; Manchado, 2014, 91; 2015, 295; 2016a; 56; 2017c, 15).

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rescuing this dynamic, it becomes evident that there are limits to the instrumentalization of evangelical wings by state authorities, which is undoubtedly always aimed at but is not always necessarily achieved. From our viewpoint, transfer and conquest may be regarded as the two sides of the same complex process, which has gained significant strength in contemporary prisons in Argentina precisely because it has succeeded in putting together the “top-down” and “bottom-up”, the “outside-in” and “inside-out” components.26 In the evangelical wings, negotiations between guards and inmates clearly play a significant and inevitable role to maintain order. Previous social research into this kind of blocks in Argentine prisons has described this feature and, in some cases, it has explicitly mentioned the term “negotiation” (Algranti, 2018, 562; Krmpotic & Vallejos, 2018, 51, 57, 64; Manchado, 2019, 14–15, 27; Vallejos, 2017, 291, 296).27 As we said, the establishment of an evangelical wing is in itself the result of a process of negotiation between the external pastor and the prison authorities. Negotiation is also present on many other crucial occasions in connection with the preventive and reactive strategies to maintain order we described in the foregoing section. For example, the decision concerning new admissions to the evangelical wing and the imposition of disciplinary measures such as solitary confinement or expulsion. These negotiations do not eliminate structural imbalances between guards and

26

Sometimes when discussing the establishment and expansion of evangelical wings, it is suggested that this dislocation of the exercise of power from the guards to the inmates has taken place quite recently. However, references to a past time when prison staff exerted effective control and surveillance of what happened inside the wings cannot be substantiated with solid historical data, and pose the risk of conveying a mythical picture of the situation. The work of Neuman and Irurzun in the 1960s (1968, 45–61) introduces a series of elements precisely in the opposite direction. For a generalization along the same lines about prisons in Latin America, see Birbeck (2011, 315–316). Anyway, this is a subject to be more thoroughly researched in the future. 27 The idea of “reciprocity” has been previously used in some texts on evangelical wings (Manchado, 2015, 295; 2016a, 50–56; 2016b, 71–72; 2017a, 182; 2017b, 200–201)—thus rescuing previous exercises to analyze the relations between inmates and guards in Argentine prisons, but without making reference to evangelicalism (Míguez, 2007, 28–35; 2008, 149– 163)—to analyze the relations between the hierarchy of this kind of wings and the prison authorities and officers. Algranti and Brardinelli, for their part, have coined the expressions “intra-prison transactions” or “intra-prison transaction complex” as they paid special attention to the idea of “earning some profit” (Algranti & Brardinelli 2013, 32; 47–49, 152–158).

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inmates, but it would not be an exaggeration to say that, in certain situations, such imbalance is somewhat redressed, especially when the internal pastor includes the external pastor in the process. Throughout our fieldwork, we have heard different stories by “celadores” (gatekeepers) who felt impotent and resentful about being often overruled by the internal pastor with the help of the external pastor during negotiations, which ended up involving the highest reaches of the Prison Service and resulted in decisions and actions they considered inappropriate. As we moved upwards in the prison hierarchy, though, the stories presented an opposite view and emphasized the capacity of state authorities to eventually impose decisions as illustrated in several remarks reproduced in the foregoing section. Finally, these relations of power marked by dislocation—between transfer and conquest—and by permanent negotiation—between guards and inmates—entail a continuum of relations between both parties, ranging from collaboration on one end to confrontation on the other one. Some researchers who work on prisons in Latin America have recently described some situations—to some extent as an alternative to the idea of “self-governance”—as a regime of “co-governance” between guards and inmates (Avila & Sozzo, this volume; Bracco, 2020, 45– 50, 95–128; Bracco, this volume; Darke, 2018, 139–197, 279–321; Skarbek, 2020; Sozzo, this volume; Stegemann Dieter, this volume; Weegels, 2019; Weegels, this volume). In fact, this term—or similar expressions such as “shared governance” or “joint management”—has also been used in connection with evangelical wings in Argentine prisons, although incidentally in most cases and without defining the scope of its meaning (Algranti, 2018, 562; Algranti & Brardinelli, 2013, 44–46, 2017, 181; Andersen, 2014b, 259, 262; 2015, 2; Manchado, 2015, 295; 2018, 102; 2019, 21–22). This concept certainly helps avoid the problems posed by the idea of “self-governance” mentioned above, but it may lead us to think that the relations between guards and inmates are only of a collaborative nature. Cooperation between both parties can certainly be observed on a constant basis. This is strongly promoted by the sermons— supported by the evangelical ethics of obedience and respect—being constantly preached by the hierarchy of this kind of blocks. There are many examples of this, which have practical and symbolical purposes,

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among which we can mention: the fact that the internal pastor and leaders make prisoners get in their cells before the official lock-up time thus facilitating the gatekeepers’ duties; or when the internal pastor makes the decision that an inmate should be held in solitary confinement and informs the gatekeeper, who opens the wing so that both punished and punisher may leave it and make together, escorted by an officer, all their way to the confinement cells; or when the internal pastor shares with the gatekeeper (and vice versa) information about a newly arrived at the evangelical wing relative to his “broncas” (grudges) and “boletas” (obligations of revenge); or when the prison authorities ask the internal pastor to welcome an inmate transferred from another sector because he has had a conflict there and the pastor accepts. On many occasions while conducting fieldwork, we have come across references to this cooperation—including some criticism of the proximity with the prison staff that entails—voiced by inmates and prison authorities alike. However, there are also situations of tension and confrontation, as we have already mentioned (Manchado, 2016a, 54–55, 58; 2017c, 15–17; 2019, 15, 28). When the internal pastor’s decisions are contested by the prison guards and authorities, situations of tension and confrontation crop up, and the matter may be resolved in favor of one party over the other depending on the circumstances, in the context of a process in which the conflict may or may not escalate as times goes by. In some cases, the internal pastor may come to the conclusion that insisting on the contested decision is not worth the effort and that it is better to give up. But he may also decide the opposite—thus generating new instances of dialogue with the prison stakeholders involved or with other ones— and involve the external pastor when he deems it necessary, thus opening up other possibilities of negotiation as mentioned before. For example, we have recorded in our fieldwork several stories about a recent change in the attitude of this prison authorities toward the imposition of solitary confinement by internal pastors. They have adopted a more restrictive attitude, which has spurred tension and confrontation. This gives this assemblage of prison governance a certain level of instability and fluidity. Only if this aspect is included within the scope of the concept of cogovernance, will it become pertinent to understand the phenomenon

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of evangelical wings in some provincial prisons in Argentina. Therefore, shared but also potentially contested governance.

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Navarro, L., & Sozzo, M. (2020). Pabellones evangélicos y gobierno de la prisión. Legados de Sykes para pensar la construcción del orden en las prisiones de varones en Argentina. Cuestiones Criminales. Cuadernos de investigación: Apuntes y Claves de lectura, 3(3), 177–226. Neuman, E., & Irurzun, V. (1968). La Sociedad Carcelaria. Depalma. Nogueira, G. (2017). El orden indecidible configuraciones del confinamiento social en una cárcel del conurbano bonaerense [Doctoral dissertation, Universidad Nacional de San]. Martín, Argentina. Nunes Dias, C., Salla, F., & Alvarez, M. C. (This volume). Governance and legitimacy in Brazilian prison: From Solidarity Committees to the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) in Sao Paulo. Rosas, J. (2014). Prácticas espirituales y formas de sociabilidad en contextos de encierro. Las ceremonias religiosas en el pabellón evangélico de Unidad Penitenciaria Nº 48 de José León Suárez [Conference presentation]. 3° Jornadas de debate y actualización en temas de antropología jurídica. Universidad Nacional de San Martín, San Martín, Argentina. Skarbek, D. (2020). The puzzle of prison order. Oxford University Press. Semán, P. (2001). Cosmológica, Holística y Relacional: una corriente de la religiosidad popular contemporánea. Ciências Sociais e Religião, 3(3), 45–74. Semán, P. (2010). De a poco mucho: las pequeñas iglesias Pentecostales y el crecimiento pentecostal. Conclusiones de un estudio de caso. Revista Cultura y Religión., 4, 16–33. Sozzo, M. (2007). ¿Metamorfosis de la prisión?, proyecto normalizador, populismo punitivo y “prisión-depósito” en Argentina. URVIO Revista Latinoamericana de seguridad ciudadana, 1, 88–116. Sozzo, M. (2020). Sykes y las prisiones contemporáneas en América Latina. Cuestiones criminales, Cuadernos de investigación: Apuntes y claves de lectura, 3(3), 5–19. Sozzo, M. (This volume). Epilogue. Inmate Governance in Latin America. Comparative and theoretical notes. Stegemann Dieter, V. (This volume). Co-governance of ‘dialogue’: hegemony and governance in a Brazilian maximum-security unit. Sykes, G. M. (1999 [1958]).The society of captives. A study of a maximum security prison. Princeton University Press. Tolosa, P. (2016a). ¿Hermanitos o refugiados?: procesos de conversión religiosa dentro y fuera del contexto carcelario [Bachelor’s thesis, Universidad Nacional de San Martín]. San Martín, Argentina. http://ri.test.unsam.edu.ar/xmlui/ handle/123456789/117

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Tolosa, P. (2016b). La fe dentro del dispositivo religioso de los pabellones evangélicos pentecostales en las cárceles argentinas. Journal of the Sociology and Theory of Religion, 5 (1), 102–117. Vallejos, A. (2017). Unidad 25: la cárcel-iglesia. Arquetipo del pentecostalismo carcelario. Sociedad y Religión, 48(27) 287–299. Weegels, J. (2017). Prisoner self-governance and survival in a Nicaraguan city police jail. Prison Service Journal, 229, 15–18. Weegels, J. (2019). Prison riots in Nicaragua: Negotiating co-governance amid creative violence and public secrecy. International Criminal Justice Review, 30 (1), 61–82. Weegels, J. (This volume). Enduring lock-up. Violence, co-governance and exception in Nicaragua’s hybrid carceral system. Wynarczyk, H. (2009). Ciudadanos de dos mundos: el movimiento evangélico en la vida pública argentina 1980–2001. UNSAM EDITA.

Alternatives?

The “Prisoner-Entrepreneur”: Responsibilization and Co-governance at Punta de Rieles Prison in Uruguay Fernando Avila

and Máximo Sozzo

Introduction Latin American prisons are generally characterized by informality, overcrowding, violence and human rights violations (Darke & Karam, 2016; Sozzo, this volume-a). Although this characterization is largely accurate, exceptional prison settings that challenge these general features can be found within this region of the Global South.

F. Avila (B) University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] M. Sozzo Faculty of Social and Juridical Sciences, National University of Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Sozzo (ed.), Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America, Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5_10

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Whereas the overall Uruguayan prison system certainly exhibits the disturbing regional characteristics mentioned above,1 Punta de Rieles, a medium-security prison in Montevideo known as the “prison-town”, has achieved enhanced order with negligible violence rates2 through a radically different way of organizing and governing imprisonment. Holding roughly 600 male prisoners convicted of a range of offences, including serious crimes like robbery and homicide, Punta de Rieles has the appearance of a poor neighbourhood of a Latin American city with a vibrant social and economic life. Most prison officers are unarmed civilian women,3 and the warden4 in office at the time the fieldwork was performed was also a civilian, a former Tupamaro and

1 According to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Penitentiary Affairs of Uruguay, 44 prisoners died under custody in 2016, 47 in 2017, 37 in 2018 and 44 in 2019—on a total prison population of around 11,000 prisoners. In some prisons, they documented up to five prisoners injured in violent situations per day in 2016 and up to three in 2018. They also reported overcrowding and extended physical restrictions such as lockdown of groups of prisoners in cells and wings for 23 hours a day (Comisionado Parlamentario Penitenciario del Parlamento del Uruguay, 2016a, 2016b, 2017, 2018, 2019). 2 None of the officially registered deaths occurred at Punta de Rieles prison. The number of prisoners injured in violent situations in this prison is very low with not more than two prisoners injured per semester, as estimated by the Health Administration Office located inside the prison. 3 The prison perimeter is under custody of the army in keeping with Law 18717 enacted in 2011, by which the Defence Ministry is in charge of securing the perimeter of a number of prisons including Punta de Rieles. Inside the prison there are two kinds of prison officers: traditional uniformed police officers, mostly assigned to security issues, and unarmed civilian officers. The latter were introduced after a penal reform in 2010 when the government created the National Institute of Rehabilitation to unify the national prison system and to put an end to police control over prisons (Vigna, 2016a, 2016b). 4 The prison was inaugurated in 2010—after being used as a detention centre for female political prisoners during the last dictatorship between 1972 and 1985. But it was not until 2012, when a civilian warden (Rolando Arbesún) began to implement a whole series of innovations in the governance style, that Punta de Rieles acquired the unique features that characterize it today. Rolando Arbesún served as warden until 2015 with Luis Parodi as vice-warden, who then served as warden until May 2020. Parodi resigned to his position shortly after a new national government was elected defeating the “Frente Amplio”, the centre-left coalition that had been in office since 2005.

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“educador social” (popular educator ).5 The authorities banned segregation and sought to increase the prisoners’ autonomy. Prisoners are thus allowed to move freely within the prison, have cell phones, use the Internet, organize cultural activities, own and run businesses and workshops that provide job opportunities for other prisoners, and produce goods and services that are sold inside and outside the prison. A solidarity fund owned and administered by prisoners and the authorities provide the prisoner-entrepreneurs with interest-free loans for developing their projects. Responsibilization plays a fundamental role in this prison as a strategy deployed by the prison authorities and officers to make prisoners responsible, with broad levels of autonomy, for developing an open range of activities that authorities consider “positive”. Most of the officially promoted activities, of which the production of goods and services is the most frequent, are materialized by the prisoners’ initiative. Prisoners are encouraged to design their project to develop the productive activity they have chosen, and to draft a formal request to obtain the prison authorities’ approval and support to carry it out (Avila, 2020; Avila & Sozzo, 2020). This chapter focuses on the “prisoner-entrepreneur” as an agent in governmental relations at Punta de Rieles prison. These “prisonerentrepreneurs” occupy a unique position in this prison’s population. They are subjected to responsibilization and requested to engage in a “positive use” of time and develop forms of self-governance. However, as “employers” of other prisoners, they simultaneously become and act as government agents and structure the field of action of the “prisoneremployees” in a way that largely resembles wage labour outside the prison walls. In turn, this governmental role implies not only collaboration but also friction with the state agents, especially with prison officers. Based on a semi-ethnography (Owen, 1998, 21; Rowe, 2015, 350) conducted 5

Tupamaros was a left-wing urban guerrilla movement in Uruguay in the 1960s and 1970s. As to the term “Educador Social”, there is no equivalent career name in English. The closest translation is “social pedagogue” or “popular educator” where “popular” refers to “popular classes” as opposed to upper social classes—including peasants, the unemployed and the working class. The “educador social” is trained to work with disadvantaged groups in order to promote their active participation and engagement in social life, thus reducing social exclusion through educational strategies and practices.

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at Punta de Rieles prison between 2017 and 2019,6 this chapter addresses the unusual place of “prisoner-entrepreneurs” in terms of their governmental role and links with state agents, as a peculiar form of governance in this non-traditional Latin American prison. In the following section we will explain how responsibilization is deployed at Punta de Rieles as a key governing strategy to “activate” prisoners, and how this strategy acquires peculiar characteristics that differ to some extent from those identified in Global North prison contexts. The next section will describe how entrepreneurism and productive activities are a key component of governance and daily life in this prison setting. In the fourth section we will analyze the role of prisoner-entrepreneurs, not only as agents of self-governance, but also as agents of governance for their prisoner-employees. In the final section, we will focus on the relations that develop between prisoners and state agents. We will analyze the specific features of the co-governance that arises from this interaction in the light of recent studies in the literature on Latin American prisons.

Governing Through a Peculiar Responsibilization Strategy The governance strategy of the Punta de Rieles prison authorities involves a very specific form of responsibilization. The use of responsibilization strategies in prisons has been documented and theorized by several scholars from the Global North (Ballesteros-Pena, 2018; Crewe, 2007, 2009, 2011a, 2011b; Garland, 1997; Goodman, 2012; Hannah-Moffat, 2000, 2001). 6

The research involved more than 450 hours of fieldwork with informal conversations and diverse social interactions, more than sixty semi-structured interviews with prisoners, prison officers, the former warden and the warden-in-office at the time of the fieldwork. The interviews were private and could take place anywhere inside the prison (squares, inside shops, inside buildings, or sitting by the street). Some scholars have pointed out that prison ethnography is not a simple enterprise, and that researchers may find many obstacles on attempting to access the field and documents, and to interview prisoners with privacy (Crewe, 2006, 348–352). Nonetheless, the authorities and officers of this prison simplified the research enormously, allowing access to every site and every document, taking pictures, walking alone and freely without a fixed agenda, and participating as an observer in board meetings and discussions.

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When responsibilization is deployed in Global North prison settings, responsibilized prisoners have a range of choices that are structured, promoted and monitored by the prison authorities and officers. If prisoners choose to act outside this range, a state sanction is triggered against them. If prisoners choose to act within this range of officially promoted choices, the authorities and officers still monitor their actions closely and carefully evaluate their performance, and hand out certain privileges according to their performance. Nothing like this occurs when responsibilization is applied to subjects of governance who are “included” in society (Rose, 2000, 334). For example, in the state initiatives in the name of crime prevention that seek to hold residents of an urban area responsible for managing their own risks of being victims of crime (O’Malley, 1992, 1996), there is no subsequent state intervention to monitor whether or not they pursued the promoted course of action. In the case of Northern carceral institutions, “individuals can be governed through their freedom to choose” (Rose & Miller, 1992, 201), but the responsibilization strategy deployed also involves direct and constant interventions by state agents that go well beyond simply governing “at a distance” (Miller & Rose, 1990). The responsibilization strategy at Punta de Rieles prison shows a number of peculiar features that differ partly from those described in Global North prisons (Avila & Sozzo, 2020, 6–9, 17–19). The Punta de Rieles authorities promote prisoner responsibilization through a set of discourses and practices that we have defined as the “imperative of activation”. The warden meets every group of newcomers personally in a welcome meeting, which is when he delivers two key messages that define the prison’s organization and governance. These messages are reinforced formally by the guards and informally by other prisoners. Firstly, he informs that the prison will not tolerate any humiliation or abuse from any officer to a prisoner or from a prisoner to another prisoner, and that there are two golden rules that if broken will result in transfer to a traditional prison: drug dealing and using a knife to attack another person. Secondly, he tells the prisoners that they have to be “active”. Passive obedience is not enough. Instead, they have to think about what to do with their time, they have to do something, thus generating a commitment to engage in a “positive” behaviour that can be oriented in different

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directions. The warden will not explicitly say that sustained inactivity can lead to transfer to a traditional prison, but the newcomers know that this can happen through the information they gather informally from other prisoners. An important characteristic of the “imperative of activation” is the absence of predefined or compulsory programs set by the prison institution. Activities are voluntary, flowing and dynamic, and most of them start and continue under the prisoners’ initiative. These activities must be valued as positive by the prison authorities, who formally authorize them. They range from the production of goods and services to attending secondary school or taking a university course, from conducting a show on the community radio to participating in the drama group. Some sort of reformative philosophy can be traced in the official discourse. This philosophy is unrelated to the idea of “treatment” and “expert” knowledge. Its underlying ethos is to persuade the prisoners to become active citizens. The authorities rely on techniques of responsibilization and selfgovernance to get prisoners vested in their own future, while meeting institutional aims. Put in the warden’s words, the idea is to help prisoners “to find a different place for life’s struggles, if they want to”. The prison authorities actively seek to get prisoners deeply involved in this life transforming process. They create an open obligation that the prisoners can fulfil in many, though limited, ways that are not necessarily pre-set by the authorities. Thus, the prisoners actively engage in this process selecting their own paths between these different possibilities. Unlike most prisons, Punta de Rieles allows prisoners a great deal of autonomy in their everyday life. The prisoners are encouraged to deal with their problems and find solutions by themselves. Prisoners at Punta de Rieles are not subjected to any form of classification, so they are all authorized to walk freely within the perimeter from 8 am to 6 pm every day. Early in the morning, the streets come to life resulting in an intense social, economic and cultural life. The circulation of people is more intense on visitors’ days,7 when the streets are crowded with

7 Prisoners have three days per week for visits. Most of them value the security for their families during the visit time at Punta de Rieles, contrasting it with the previous experiences at other prisons.

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prisoners and families walking around, playing soccer with their children, having lunch at the restaurants, or just buying groceries to enjoy a meal with their visitors. It is common to see groups of prisoners chatting, debating, playing music, walking around, or working. The walls are covered with graffiti and banners inviting everyone to a diverse range of activities: from gender violence prevention or addiction treatment to chess, garden keeping and learning English. Some of the activities are offered by prisoners, and admission is open to everyone including prison officers. Every day, the prisoners leave their wing8 for their activities. They are not escorted or controlled by prison officers. Every now and then, the prison officers visit the sites where the activities are carried out, though the level of surveillance and supervision is relatively low. This unique level of autonomy becomes manifest in their institutionalized and unmonitored right to use cell phones, the Internet and social media, all of which is normally prohibited in Uruguayan prisons. This access to technology poses two main advantages to prisoners: it re-establishes, helps maintain, and improves social bonds with family and friends, and it also allows some of the prisoners to run their businesses more efficiently, since they can use the Internet to manage their bank accounts and buy supplies and sell their products outside the prison. This greater autonomy for the prisoners shows that the Punta de Rieles’ responsibilization strategy, unlike the Global North experiences, is characterized not by “tightness”, but by “looseness”. Another distinctive characteristic of this governing strategy at Punta de Rieles prison is its “informal” nature. Free, flowing and direct communication between prison authorities/officers and prisoners is encouraged. The warden himself fosters a friendly and direct relation with the prisoners, taking walks around the prison every day and meeting with them in different contexts and situations. His office works with an “open doors” policy: any prisoner can see him without a previous appointment. Civilian prison officers also seek to develop a direct relationship with the prisoners. This daily, informal and personal contact is the basis to

8 All the wings are closed, but the cells inside them are always unlocked, so that prisoners can move freely inside the wing, even when the access gate is locked.

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achieve high levels of trust and legitimacy. Closely related, the responsibilization strategy in this prison context is also characterized by its “lay” nature. The ethos of prison authorities and officers is strongly linked to the idea of assistance, but it is based on lay experience and understanding and not on expert knowledge and rehabilitation and treatment techniques. The prison authorities communicate with prisoners using lay language, relying on persuasion to get them to actively engage in a productive use of time, as promoted by the prison. This informality contributes to a more horizontal relation between prisoners and prison authorities/officers at Punta de Rieles. Finally, despite the strong link between responsibiliziation and individualization, the governing strategy at Punta de Rieles coexists with “collectivist” and mutual aid mechanisms and dynamics. For example, the solidarity fund, finances repair or improvement of common prison areas and grants no-interest loans to support new “productive” projects. All allocation of funds is decided through a democratic process by which the prisoners decided what initiatives to support. Interestingly, project failure and insolvency do not compromise the prisoner’s situation or negatively impact his record, and any outstanding debt is waived. The next section will focus on how, through this process of responsibilization, a prisoner at Punta de Rieles can engage in productive activities and ultimately become an entrepreneur.

The Role of Productive Activities and Entrepreneurism The enormous significance of the labour and productive activities at this prison is evidenced by the fact that most of the prisoners—8 out of 10— work in some way.9 Every prisoner is strongly encouraged to engage in productive activities: working for the prison (in maintenance), working for a private employer (another prisoner or a free person or company 9 In contrast, only 38% of inmates carried out some type of labour activities in 2017, 39% in 2018 and 36% in 2019 in the entire prison system of Uruguay, according to the official reports (Comisionado Parlamentario Penitenciario del Parlamento del Uruguay, 2016b, 2017, 2018, 2019).

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that runs a business inside the prison10 ), or becoming an entrepreneur himself. The most frequent option is working for an employer (around 50% of prisoners) followed by working for the prison in maintenance (around 25% of prisoners),11 whereas the least frequent though most appreciated, is becoming an entrepreneur (around 10% of prisoners). The official stimulus for engaging in productive activities starts in the entry wing, the only permanently locked wing of the prison where newcomers are held for a month under “observation” before being admitted or rejected. Newcomers are invited to join groups of volunteers that work with different employers in order to network and to explore the prison looking for a paid job in case they are finally admitted to Punta de Rieles. Job seeking is a personal endeavour. The applicant must negotiate with the owner of the business, whether another prisoner or a free citizen, or with the prison officer in charge of the prison area where maintenance is needed (such as the gardens or kitchens). Once both parties reach an agreement, they must present a note to the prison’s Labour Office providing details about the agreement and requesting approval of the employment relationship. The Labour Office meets every week, and its intervention is required to control and avoid underpayment and fake employment, and to keep track of every labour relationship.12 The prisoner-entrepreneurs own and manage around 50 businesses that hire other prisoners as employees, and that sell their goods/services 10

In November 2019, there were two businesses owned by former Punta de Rieles prisoners who had started them while in prison and kept them running after release. One is a brick factory with four employees, and the other is an industrial bakery with 84 employees, the biggest employer at the prison. There are also two businesses owned by citizens who were never imprisoned: one is a brick factory with two employees, and the other is a recycling company with 29 employees. 11 Most of the labour activities inside prisons in Latin America are frequently related to maintenance (as cleaning and cooking). At Punta de Rieles, according to the official data provided by the prison Labour Office, in June 2017 these maintenance activities involved only 28% of the inmates that worked inside the prison (136 out of 479). In November 2019 it was 30% of the working inmates (149 out of 490). 12 There are at least two strong incentives for prisoners to engage in a labour relationship. The first is the possibility of sentence reduction. The Uruguayan law—Article 13 of Law 17897— allows for sentence reduction for prisoners who have worked or studied during their time of confinement: two days of work or study are equivalent to one day of imprisonment. The second incentive is the increased availability of services and goods the prisoners can access inside the prison once they have a paid job.

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to prisoners, prison officers and people outside the prison. The list of active businesses in 2019 included several groceries, ten brick factories, one crafts shop, two restaurants, seven food stores, one hardware store, two smithies, one candy shop, one laundry, one minimarket, two bakeries, two barbershops, one personal-hygiene items store, one house-cleaning items store, two tattoo shops, a recycling company, a greengrocer’s, two farms, a flower shop and a furniture store, among others. Becoming an entrepreneur can be considered a status upgrade in the social world of this peculiar prison. Besides the fact that they earn more money and provide jobs to others, the entrepreneurial role influences self-esteem, family consideration and peer respect. The process to become an entrepreneur is simple. First, the prisoner must write a petition to explaining his project, stating whether it is an individual or a group project, the number of job positions he expects to create, and the place where the business will be located. Given the increasing number of projects, there are few available buildings. Hence, the prisoners themselves must find a suitable site and actually build the facility where they plan to establish their business. If the project is approved by the authorities, the prisoner and the prison administration will sign a contract. The document establishes guidelines and requirements to operate, as well as prisoners’ rights and duties. The clauses define things such as: who the persons authorized to carry out the activity are, that the prison only lends the physical space for the business to operate while the rest of the items for setting up and running the business must be provided by the prisoner, the commission per transaction to be paid to the prison which they refer to as the “canon”, the contribution to be paid to the solidarity fund, that the project does not have a fixed term of duration and can be concluded by either of the parties with 60 days’ notice unless there is a serious irregularity that enables immediate closure. These serious irregularities include repeated failure to pay salaries, occurrence of accidents at the workplace due to not having the necessary safety equipment, informal money transfers to suppliers, repeated situations of misconduct by the members of the business at the workplace, and illegal activities carried out by employees with the consent of the business owner.

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Once the paperwork is finished, the prisoner can request a no-interest loan from the prisoners’ solidarity fund. The fund works as a community development bank13 and is run by a board of directors made up of prisoners, the warden and one civilian prison officer. The director of the fund is a prisoner elected by his peers. Every business owner can participate in the decisions they make about who to loan money to, or whether money should be invested in improving a given building or service for the prisoners or their families. The fund’s capital consists of the contribution paid by the prisoners for each sale. The contributions are less than 5% of the sale and yield a monthly income of USD2,000 for the fund. According to information provided by the president of the fund during an interview in early 2017, the fund had at least 30 active loans and savings for USD10,000. As mentioned previously, the significant degree of autonomy of the prisoners allows them to comply with the “imperative of activation” in many different ways, including other types of activities that the prison authorities value as positive and that are associated with educational and cultural projects. Nonetheless, data show that the vast majority of prisoners decide to engage in a productive activity either as workers or as entrepreneurs. In either case, monitoring by the prison authorities and officers is minimal and only aims to control two simple though crucial aspects: that they are actually performing the “positive activity”, and they do not commit any serious transgression (use of knives and drug-dealing). If the prisoner consistently fails to engage in any positive activity or commits a serious transgression, he is eventually transferred to a regular prison. The transfer practices set the boundaries to the responsibilization strategy. This strategy builds and shapes specific power alignments and relations between the authorities/officers and the prisoners. In the next section we will analyze how the prisoner-entrepreneur plays a dual role in these power alignments and relations.

13

Community development banks are institutions that make small collateral-free loans, such as microcredits, to impoverished people to create sustainable self-employment businesses (Yunus, 1998).

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The Prisoner-Entrepreneur as an Agent of Self-Governance and as an Agent for the Governance of Others At the core of the “imperative to be active” at Punta de Rieles prison is the will to get the prisoners to become involved in their own life, to get them to make choices, and to use their time in prison positively. As mentioned earlier, it is an open-ended obligation that rests on a mandate that can be fulfilled in many ways, and these ways are not necessarily pre-established by the authorities. The prisoners enjoy a broad margin of autonomy to decide how to become active. The prisoners who decide to actively engage in a productive activity somehow internalize the goals set by the authorities through the official discourse. Thus, the prisoners begin to regulate their own lives according to those normative expectations (Crewe, 2007, 258; Garland, 1997, 191). The conditions that facilitate self-governance rest on acknowledging the possibility of being an ideally different person—a “productive subject”, an “entrepreneur” (Rose, 1999a, 11), on the normative view about what they are and what they could be, and on the incentive provided by the prison administration to close that gap set by normative expectations. Entrepreneurs value their position and the status attached to their role. Prisoners perceive the change towards a different way of doing things in life as a free and autonomous decision, and they emphasize the lack of fixed or compulsory programs and activities as something that differentiates this prison from others when it comes to prison work, and that also adds value to their achievements. Furthermore, the participation of the prison administration is sometimes described as passive, as limited to not hindering the process. In this sense, the administration appears as providing tools and opportunities, or at least as not obstructing the prisoners’ initiative. There is a clear link between how prisoners visualize their change (i.e., as something not imposed but chosen), and the notion of government at a distance: the prison administration acts indirectly upon the wishes and choices of prisoners, forging a symmetry between

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the official objectives and the prisoners’ attempts to make life worthwhile. The feeling of making autonomous decisions towards change described by some prisoners opens a path to the notion of self-fulfilment through productive behaviour. You have to get rid of the prisoner in your head in order to be able to work here. You have to focus on something different, to feel you are a worker. For this to work for me I had to believe that I am a businessman and not a prisoner. (Prisoner JC. Entrepreneur) The civilian guard is not a person who tells you what to do. You start to think about change because of the open environment, that you are working all day, that you are thinking that you have to get up early to go to work. As the days go by you realize that you have to make a change. It’s good, it’s a life changer. But they don’t force you: those who want to, change, those who don’t, leave. They give you the tools and you choose whether you want to stay here or to leave. (Prisoner J) Here I have the possibility to do things, I can make a proposal and if my proposal is coherent, I can carry it forward (…) there is space to propose and to do (…) We say that we [the prisoners] make the change and it is because we make it ourselves. (Prisoner M)

But unlike the other ways in which a prisoner can be active, becoming an entrepreneur at Punta de Rieles comes together with specific obligations that go well beyond self-governance. As mentioned previously, the agreement signed between the prison administration and the prisonerentrepreneur establishes some guidelines that obligate the latter to control his employees and holds him responsible for their behaviour. In some way, therefore, as “prisoner-employers”, entrepreneurs become and act as governmental agents, and they structure the field of action of the “prisoner-employees”. This set of obligations place these prisoners in a different role: prisoner-entrepreneurs are not only actors who govern themselves through their freedom and choices aligned with a broader project laid out by the prison authorities, but in their role as entrepreneurs-employers they also exercise governance over their prisoner-employee reinforcing the rules of the prison by voluntarily

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embedding them in the rules of their own business. For example, “you have to work according to the tasks and schedule of the workplace”, “you can’t sell or consume drugs here”, “you can´t fight with other prisoner-employees here” and “you have to obey the orders of the prisoner-entrepreneur”. I have strict rules here with the boys who work with me. In this sector, I have never made any trouble [for the prison]. When the guys come looking for a job, the rules are no drugs, you are not going to walk around, no fights (…) if they do that, they leave automatically (…) We must respect what we have built with effort. (Prisoner JC. Entrepreneur)

FA: J:

Are you responsible for your employees’ behaviour? Yes, we have rules, we have a schedule. It is a regular job, so there is a schedule and there are rules. (Prisoner JR. Entrepreneur)

This dual role influences the way in which prisoners relate to each other and to the prison administration. The labour relationship begins with a private negotiation between prisoners. Entrepreneurs understand that in order to avoid misunderstandings and future problems they need to be careful and extremely precise when communicating to the future employee the requirements, boundaries and rules of the business, and discussing the prisoner-entrepreneur’s own goals and his decision “to change” and do things differently (and legally). Clarity is key at this stage because the prisoner-entrepreneur is about to start a hierarchical relationship with another prisoner. If this relationship breaks or ends badly, it can have negative consequences for the prisoner-entrepreneur. It is difficult to be an entrepreneur within the system without complicating your future path when you decide to change (…) if you are in a different prison tomorrow you could face certain complaints [from other prisoners for your decisions today] (…) and that implies that you have to have certain conversations prior to giving a job position to another prisoner. A lot goes into that talk, you need to be sure that the other [prisoner] understands that you are looking for change and you don’t want trouble. (Prisoner R. Entrepreneur)

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I have had an employee for a month now. I searched until the right person came along (…) Sometimes I have to tell him off, but nothing serious (…) Obviously, if the guards catch him committing an infraction, if they search the business premises and find a joint or whatever, I’m the one that will be in trouble, in the case that my employee has the [illegal] things in his possession, the business is harmed (…) Obviously we tell the employee [the rules] clearly (…) and if he follows those rules, the business continues to work well without being tainted. (Prisoner ML. Entrepreneur)

It is within labour relationships that the role of the prisoner-entrepreneur as an agent for the governance of others is most visible. Indeed, in addition to persuasion, prisoner-entrepreneurs can resort to redundancy as the final sanction for the prisoner-employee who violates business rules. The threat of redundancy also allows the prisoner-entrepreneur to demand the prisoner-employee to correct and improve his activity. Redundancy forces the former prisoner-employee to find another job in the prison to replace the income he had from his previous job, and it also creates an unfavourable precedent, since the reason for his getting fired is rapidly known throughout the prison. In addition, the prisoner-entrepreneur has to inform the Labour Office about the redundancy, which entails two important consequences for the former prisoner-employee. First, because employment is recorded on each prisoner’s file, the time unemployed does not earn credit towards sentence reduction. Second, unemployment added to lack of engagement in other activities—implies the prisoner is not complying with the “imperative of activation” encouraged by the prison authorities and guards, and with time, this could lead to difficulties for the prisoner to secure his permanence at this non-conventional prison. [My business] is like any business: there are rules, if an employee doesn’t comply, he’s out. (Prisoner AD. Entrepreneur)

FA: Have you ever fired an employee? C : Yes, one. It was a problem. There’s no reason why I have to put up with someone selling marihuana here. He worked for me, and he was selling drugs here.

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FA: Why is his selling a problem for you? C : It brings problems! I have been in prison for 12 years, and if the guards come and catch him with drugs, who do you think they are going to put into the spot? It’s gonna be the entrepreneur. I told him to stop selling drugs or to quit. And he said he was quitting. Of course! Do you want to sell drugs in my brick factory? Fuck off! (Prisoner CC. Entrepreneur) One day I found out that [a prisoner] took a sandwich from me through the window [from my food store], one of the guys in here [an employee] gave it to him. And I called him, I asked him and he denied it, so I fired him. (Prisoner FD. Entrepreneur)

Thus, as prisoner-entrepreneurs value their position and status and have a clear understanding of what is at stake if someone contravenes the rules, they tend to be careful when hiring a new employee and to strictly monitor their employees’ behaviour at work. But in order to protect their businesses, they will have to reinforce rules that are generally depicted as the authorities’ rules, and in doing so they may become an alien to other prisoners. Two overlapping sets of interests underlie the hierarchical relationship established between the prisoner-entrepreneur and the prisoner-employee, straining the inmate’s code. Indeed, traditionally described inmate code rules, such as those warning against the betrayal of other prisoners or against the exploitation of other prisoners (Sykes & Messinger, 1960, 7–8), are at stake when the entrepreneur negotiates the labour relationship and when he decides to terminate it and has to inform the prison authorities about the reasons for redundancy.14 Thus, entrepreneurs navigate through a complex scenario: their business role and interests may compromise their loyalty towards fellow prisoners, the entrepreneur and the prisoner are somehow competing and overlapping positions. 14

If a prisoner-entrepreneur informs the administration that the reason for redundancy is that he caught his employee selling drugs on the work premises, the prisoner-employee may be transferred to a traditional prison. The prisoner-entrepreneur is aware that reporting this violates a rule of the inmate code, and that he might run into the prisoner-employee at a traditional prison at some point in the future, and his safety would therefore be jeopardized.

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Likewise, from the prisoner-employees’ point of view, the labour relationship has ups and downs just as labour relationships outside the prison. During the fieldwork, the prisoners shared their complaints about hardship at work and being underpaid by prison-entrepreneurs and outside private employers, as well as stories about resigning from their job and organizing group demonstrations. The following conversation is an example: Prisoner: Hey Parodi we are not getting well paid at Gigor [external company inside the prison]. Warden: Well, what are you waiting for to stand up for your rights, I’ll back you up. Prisoner: We are gonna burn tyres, Parodi! (laughing). Warden: That’s bullshit! Learn to argue! In some interviews, prisoners and the warden also referred to this point: Before this, I worked at Gigor, at the bakery, I worked in maintenance for 8 months, I did welding, things I never imagined I would do. Then I quit and went to Huerva [another private company inside the prison]. Because they paid more there. (Prison ML. Entrepreneur) Here you have to go out and look for a job. I left the bakery, I quit because I wanted to rest a bit, my body was tired, I wasn’t used to working 12 hours a day, it was a lot. You look for a job because you see that in this prison you have to keep yourself, you go to the shops and all, sometimes it’s always good to have a little extra money. (Prisoner D)

Warden: I met with the employees and owners [of one of the private companies inside the prison] three days. [The employees] got an extra thousand pesos for their salary. I was here [in his office] in a meeting with the company about the canon they have to pay, and ten prisoners showed up and told me they wanted to be at the meeting, they sat down, and they hijacked the meeting. There were strike threats. FA: Had there been other strikes?

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Warden: Yes, there were several at the sawmill. Then they came to an agreement about things before going on strike because they were very anarchic, they went on strike for everything. Confronting authority is part of growing up, that’s why you don’t transfer them for doing that. In other words, the labour relations between prisoners—and with external private companies—within this atypical prison are marked by a certain level of conflict. These conflicts usually seem to remain at the individual level and only in some cases have become collective protests. Nevertheless, the group protests did not lead the prisoner-employees to create an organization to protect their rights.15 Interestingly, no formal prisoner-workers’ union has emerged at Punta de Rieles, even when the Warden actively encourages claiming for rights and holding collective discussions, and when prisoners have other examples of peer solidarity and collective identity such as the prisoner-students’ union and ASOCIDE (Asociación Civil de Personas Privadas de Libertad del Uruguay), the NGO of prisoners.16 This could be due to the fact that to some extent a workers’ union implies a strong level of conflict of interests with another group of prisoners, the prisoner-entrepreneurs. Such opposition could have consequences on the relationship among inmates. In the current situation, instead, the prisoners can come together to confront the prison authorities and officers, as it happens in the case of the prisoner-student’s union. Other reasons for the lack of formal unionization of prisoner-workers may be, first, the horizontality and direct access to the authorities to submit complaints about labour relations; and second, a certain level of individualism in a context characterized by 15 There have been experiences like this in Latin American prisons. In Argentina, the Union of Workers Deprived of their Liberty (SUTPLA) emerged in the Federal Prison Complex of the city of Buenos Aires in 2012, and then extended to other federal prison, though with less strength (Gual, 2017, 113–114). 16 This NGO was legally constituted inside the prison in 2016. They claim to be an organization whose mission is to promote and develop actions to improve the living conditions of prisoners. Although it has been permitted by the authorities, it is a small organization that has not reached a wide audience and therefore has limited representativeness and participation. The prisoner-students’ union is a more informal group of prisoners engaged in educational activities inside the prison that submit group requests to the authorities.

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almost full-employment, where prisoners who disagree with their current labour conditions may easily find a new job position or even start a business of their own. Prisoner-entrepreneurs at Punta de Rieles prison develop a strong level of self-governance; thus they seem the most perfect incarnation of the “imperative of activation” as a governmental strategy, developing a strong level of self-governance. But they are also agents of governance of others, the prisoner-employees. Through constantly enforcing their own business rules, which blend with the prison administration rules, the prisoner-entrepreneurs definitely contribute to enforcing prison order. As a result, power expands, multiplies and dilutes in this atypical prison, and is never statically located (Crewe, 2007, 269). The successful translation of the values and goals promoted by the authorities into each prisoner’s own ambitions and conducts creates a network that enables governance at a distance not only to operate but also to replicate, as some actors of that network reinforce the normative commitment upon others. Thus, the possibilities and reach of governance are increased by the role these prisoner-entrepreneurs play. This does not imply, of course, that employer-employee relations develop without transgressions that generate conflict in labour relations, which are also governmental relationships. In the next and final section, we will focus on prisoner-state agent relationships, which are broadly constructed through this general dynamics, and on how these relations can be both collaborative and conflictive, as reported in recent scholarship on co-governance and prison order in Latin America.

Co-governance, Delegation, Collaboration and Friction The governmental role we found certain Punta de Rieles prisoners played is not new in Latin American prisons. In fact, the extraordinary dissemination of the prisoners’ participation in prison governance is what has led a number of social researchers to describe what they call “self-governance—or similar expressions—as a general feature of prison

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contexts in the region (Birkbeck, 2011, 315–316; Darke & Garces, 2017, 4; Darke & Karam, 2016, 461, 465; Macaulay, 2017, 51–52; 2019, 253–255; Skarbek, 2020, 27–28).17 However, this notion may not cover the broad range of governmental roles the prisoners play across the different jurisdictions and prisons in Latin America. One of the shortcomings of this notion is that it exaggerates the alleged absence and passivity of state agents (Navarro & Sozzo, 2020, 206–210; this volume; Sozzo, this volume-b). As has been observed by the same empirical research on the subject that often employs this category in various national contexts, even in the most extreme situations, the exercise of power by certain prisoners inside the prison requires the consent of prison authorities and guards. Moreover, the state agents themselves sometimes limit the governmental capacities of the prisoners by means of actions that can generate varying degrees of conflict and even violence. So that, if the notion of “self-governance” is linked to a vacuum of state governmental activity, it is actually distorting what happens inside a prison, even in the most extreme cases. An alternative notion of “co-governance” has recently emerged in the specialized literature—whether explicitly taking up the previous critique or not—to consider the governmental roles of Latin American prisoners in specific contexts (see among others Bracco Bruce, 2020, 45–50, 95– 128; Darke, 2018, 139–197, 279–321; Manchado, 2018, 102; 2019, 21–22; Weegels, 2019). However, this notion may also miss nuances if generalized. Indeed, “co-governance” could imply the idea that there is a relationship of collaboration between custodians and those under their custody in these governmental schemes. But this idea clashes with multiple confrontations and conflicts found in many situations and contexts of confinement in the region, in such a way that rather than a “shared government”, the image of a “contested government” emerges (Navarro & Sozzo, 2020, 213–215; this volume). Nevertheless, “cogovernance” seems to be a useful notion to analyze the governmental role of the ‘prisoner-entrepreneur’ at the Punta de Rieles prison. 17

Several social researchers have used this same notion to reflect upon the participation of certain prisoners in the exercise of power within specific prisons in countries such as Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela and Nicaragua. (Antillano, 2015, 2017; Antillano et al., 2016; Cerbini, 2012, 2017; Darke, 2013, 2014; Macaulay, 2017; Skarbek, 2010, 2020; Weegels, 2017).

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This governmental role of prisoner-entrepreneurs is the consequence of the central place that responsibilization has in the governance style constructed by the authorities of this peculiar prison. Unlike what is often argued to understand the governmental activities of certain prisoners in some Latin American countries, the exercise of power of prisoner-entrepreneurs over prisoner-employees at Punta de Rieles is not the result of the absence of state capacity due to the low number of prison officials resulting from the rapid and strong growth of the incarcerated population (Antillano, 2015, 32–34; 2017, 29–30; Antillano et al., 2016, 209; Darke & Garces, 2017, 3; Darke & Karam, 2016, 465–466; Dias & Darke, 2016, 214–215; Macaulay, 2017, 51; Skarbek, 2020, 27; Sozzo, this volume-a).18 Instead, these power relations are part of the very design of the logic of production of order by the authorities of this prison. The governmental role of prisoner-entrepreneurs is clearly the product of state planning and capacity that enables and promotes it, and not the reverse.19 Thus, unlike many of the governmental activities carried out by certain inmates inside prisons in Latin America (Darke & Garces, 2017, 7–9), the role of prisoner-entrepreneurs is formally recognized and regulated by the Punta de Rieles prison administration.20 It is not the result of 18

In fact, the number of prisoners per number of state agents at Punta de Rieles is quite low compared to national averages in Latin America (Skarbek, 2020, 24). By October 2019, at the time our fieldwork was completed, 505 prisoners were housed in Punta de Rieles prison and there were 116 civilian prison officers and 76 police officers. That is to say that, in general terms, there were 2.6 prisoners per state agent. It is obvious that they only perform their duties in shifts, which is not usually taken into account when calculating the ratio between the two groups in a prison system. Taking this into account, the ratio is approximately 1 state agent to 6 prisoners during 16 hours in the day, while it is reduced to 19 prisoners to 1 state agent during the night. 19 The same applies to the governmental role that the rest of the prisoners at Punta de Rieles prison play when they follow the “imperative of activation” in other ways, both in the production of goods and services and in relation to educational and cultural activities, governing themselves in a way that is aligned with the objectives and ways promoted by the authorities. 20 David Skarbek, in his relevant recent book (2020, 8) uses the category “extralegal governance”, which is associated exclusively with the governmental activities of the prisoners themselves, as opposed to “official governance” carried out by state agents. We find this association problematic for two reasons that become especially evident when thinking about prison governance in Latin America. First, state agents often govern prison life through actions that are not legally authorized—for example, through the illegal use of force (Gual, 2015, 43–66). Secondly, as in Punta de Rieles prison, in some cases the governmental activities of the prisoners

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informal dynamics that have been built around the relationships between custodians and prisoners.21 This formal acceptance of their role is also reflected in the administrative procedures by which a new entrepreneurial project is submitted and accepted. The prisoner-entrepreneur candidate must initially request this authorization by submitting his project to the prison authorities in a written document, without strict formalities but with sufficient information to justify the request. And it is only after the project is approved that the prisoner-entrepreneur signs an agreement with the Labour Office of the prison administration, in which the rights and obligations that define the boundaries of the prisoner-entrepreneur’s activity are detailed. The agreement is then officially put on record and filed. A prisoner-entrepreneur exercises power over prisoner-employees in keeping with the institutional goals set by the prison authorities. A process of “dislocation” clearly emerges. Not all forms of dislocation of the exercise of power from state authorities and guards to prisoners in Latin America should be read as “delegation” or “outsourcing”, as this makes us lose sight of the fact that these dynamics can be either the fruit of a “conquest” “from below” by certain prisoners, or even “from outside” by external agents, ranging from the evangelical churches to “criminal organizations” (Navarro & Sozzo, 2020, 210–212; this volume). But the notion of “delegation” is useful to describe what occurs at Punta de Rieles prison. The governmental role of prisoner-employers is constructed “from above”. This does not prevent prisoner-entrepreneurs from playing this role with a high level of autonomy, as pointed out are officially recognized and this recognition is even expressed in different types of regulatory texts—see Postema et al. (2017, 59–62). In Skarbek’s work, extralegal governmental institutions can be “highly formal” (2020, 34). Instead, we associate “formal” with what is legally and officially established by state authorities. 21 There are several experiences of formalization—in the sense mentioned in the previous note— that have varying degrees of intensity with respect to different governmental roles of prisoners in Latin American prisons. They are very significant, and it is essential to further develop their empirical exploration. These types of experiences can open up diverse sources of inspiration for prison policy in the region—and also beyond the region itself. For specific explorations where the utility for thinking about policy alternatives is underlined see Salla (2007), Salla et al. (2013), Dias et al. (this volume), Macaulay (2013, 376–377; 2017, 55–56), Darke (2014), Postema et al. (2017, 59–62), Darke and Garces (2017, 7–9), and Bracco Bruce (2020, 95–128).

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above. Hence their frequent perception that their own role is crucial to the production of order in this atypical prison and that it is exclusively the consequence of their own decision and will. For example, one of them pointed out: You have the police, it’s like a neighborhood, you know that in your neighborhood you have the police station, but the police are there if you call them, if you call them, they come, if there is something wrong, they come, but afterwards it’s like the prison is controlled by the prisoners. That’s my feeling, that we control the prison. You know that there’s Parodi [the warden], the police and the operators, but we control the prison. From the fact that it works so well, I think that no prisoner wants to break that and the prisoners who more or less want to go out of tune don’t fit in. (Prisoner DM)

This delegation of a governmental role to the prisoner-entrepreneurs that is formally authorized by the prison administration, gives rise to largely collaborative relationships between those prisoners and the prison authorities and guards. However, everyday “frictions” (Rubin, 2014)22 still exist. Prison authorities and guards visit the various workplaces and talk to prisoners regularly. These are informal visits that allow horizontal dialogues, which do not usually lead to administrative processes that result in rewards and sanctions. The warden himself is involved in this process which, according to his own words, consists of walking to get information in a prison where the words flow with the same intensity with which people circulate: I worry that when there is impunity in prison, unrest starts. [A prisoner] beats up a guy and we knew who he was, they [threw hot water on] another one and we knew. And we also knew about the robbery [to a 22

We use the idea of frictions as conceptualized by Rubin (2014). She considers that most prisoners’ behaviours characterized as “resistance” fall into a misleading binary conceptualization, and that they could be more accurately described as “frictions”, understanding secondary adjustments as a continuum. Indeed, “frictions” describe prisoners’ activities that are normal human behaviours and respond to prisoners’ social and physical needs and desires rather than to their understanding of autonomy, rights, or justice, and that are largely apolitical and do not intentionally challenge the prison regime (2014, 24).

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prisoner-owned pizza store]. This information comes to you from a thousand places, I can’t tell you how. I tell the police that we shouldn’t allow impunity. Each one has his own informants. The police officer [chief of security] has his own. I don’t manage things like that, I just go out for a walk and the information comes to you. (…) Once you have the data you have to see what to do. (Interview with Luis Parodi, warden)

Although these visits are not ostensibly surveillance and control mechanisms, they at least partly fulfil the function of identifying situations or behaviours that may disturb the prison order, including the relationship between the prisoner-entrepreneur and the prisoner-employees.23 That is why prisoner-entrepreneurs can perceive these practices negatively as intrusive and annoying. For example: Yes, [guards] come to bust my balls, but I calm them down. They come to ask why the guys aren’t doing anything… and [I think] ‘what do you care!’ After drinking mate, after eating… if they want to drink mate 20 times, they drink 20 times… As long as I don’t tell them anything, you don’t have to interfere! I am the boss; I am the owner. That makes [the guards] uncomfortable. (Prisoner CC. Entrepreneur) The guards know that this is one of the few entrepreneurships that they don’t need to come to. In what sense don´t they need to come here? 23 There are other forms of centralized control over the prisoners’ productive activities by the prison administration, especially in relation to their financial dimension. Firstly, the entry and exit of goods necessary for production inside the prison and related to sales outside the prison is rigorously monitored and accounted for. Secondly, there is no circulation of money inside Punta de Rieles prison, and purchases and sales are made through a system of credits and tickets regulated and managed by the prison administration, and that prisoners can convert into money either to pay a supplier for goods or for family members to receive a share of the resources produced by the prisoner-employers or prisoner-employees. This implies thorough control of every economic transaction. In addition, the prison administration automatically deducts a percentage from each economic transaction to pay the prison fee, the contribution to the solidarity fund, and the contribution to a national fund to help victims of crime. Thirdly, and related to the above, the payment of salaries by the prisoner-employers to the prisoneremployees involves a movement in the accounts carried out by the prison administration itself. This is very significant in terms of state control of the labour relations between these prisoners. If an employer does not come to the corresponding office one month to indicate that his employee’s salary should be paid and generating the movement of money from one account to another, he is called upon to give explanations as to why this has happened and a state intervention is triggered in this respect.

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Because there are no misdemeanours. You don’t have [prisoners] trafficking, you don’t have [prisoners] messing around (…) those who pass through here, all they see is people working, I have all the salaries registered, it’s not that I pay you with drugs or that I’m using you. Do you understand what I’m saying? (Prisoner R. Entrepreneur)

Similarly, frictions between prisoner-entrepreneurs and the prison administration emerge regarding the everyday operation of the businesses. The former need to do paperwork on a regular basis and obtain permissions from the authorities for several reasons related to the operation of the business, such as entering certain materials or goods into the prison: They always put a stick in the wheel at the Labour Office. I want to install a new floor on my business, and [the labour office] ask me for a note [to enter the materials] and to wait. Sometimes there are obstacles. (Interview with prisoner F. Entrepreneur)

These daily frictions are generally handled smoothly, without disrupting the general prison order. However, open conflicts may arise on occasions and lead to more severe consequences. This does not happen frequently. But two stories with similar dynamics emerged during the fieldwork: the authorities and guards received information that illegal drugs were being sold at two prisoner-owned businesses (one store selling rabbits and one selling patisserie). As noted above, this activity is one of the few serious infractions to the rules, and as such it triggers transfer to a traditional prison. In both cases, the suspicions led to formal investigations and searches by the prison staff, which resulted in the discovery of illegal drugs. As expected, both businesses were shut down and the prisoner-entrepreneurs were transferred. These stories show the limits to the prisoner-entrepreneurs’ autonomy as agents of governance at Punta de Rieles prison, and the reasons why their relation with prison authorities and guards cannot be described solely as collaborative, since they include confrontation and friction. In these cases, the responsibilization strategy gives way to direct official interventions (Hannah-Moffat, 2001, 176–177) that are more clearly aligned with the “sovereign” logic and its binary structure in relation to

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what is permitted and what is forbidden and to inclusion and exclusion, even in this atypical prison. The governmental role of the prisoner-entrepreneur at Punta de Rieles prison is peculiar in comparison with other forms of governmental activities developed by prisoners in Latin American prisons. It is embedded in the development of a market for the production of goods and services and labour that is encouraged and regulated by the prison administration.24 This market—and this governmental role—therefore, has similarities with the outside world and the mercantile dynamics of contemporary peripheral capitalism, although there are also numerous differences arising from the various state interventions in this regard. Of note, the prison authorities’ official discourse stresses the ideal of “normalization” (Carrabine, 2000, 317–318), meaning that they seek to get the outside inside, to create an environment as “normal” as possible, to resemble life on the outside inside the prison. In this regard, the warden frequently repeats that life outside prison has certain “shortfalls” that cannot be improved inside because the prison is a social institution that reproduces broader social logics. The prison can’t be very different from the society that generates it, can it? (…) society is capitalist (…) and the prison cannot be the revolution (…) Spending 10 years in jail to be happy would be crazy. (Interview with Luis Parodi, warden)

The prisoner-entrepreneur and his governmental role presents a whole series of affinities to the core components of the neo-liberal governmental ethos, as has often been described in recent decades across the Global North and South, with its individualizing and individualistic emphasis that appeals to freedom, choice and responsibility, and its defence of the market and the enterprise as the model of social order and organization (Dean, 2009, 175–204; Rose, 1996, 50–61; 1999b, 137–166). In fact, the emergence of the “entrepreneurial prisoner”, in a broader sense than 24 This is not the only prison in Latin America where such a market for goods, services and labour exists. For example, the San Pedro prison in La Paz (Bolivia) has similar characteristics in part, although it does not appear to be the result of detailed state planning and intervention (Cerbini, 2012, 2017; Skarbek, 2010, 2020, 32–43).

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that used in this work, and its strong connection with neoliberalism as a governmental rationality has already been noted in English-speaking countries (Crewe, 2007, 258; Garland, 1996, 462; 1997, 191–192, 196– 168; O’Malley, 1999, 177, 183–185). Certainly, this neoliberal side is crucial when it comes to analyzing the form of governance in this atypical Latin American prison. Nevertheless, the case under study includes a neowelfarist element which translates into collectivist and mutual aid dynamics, creating a truly paradoxical assemblage that, despite its contradictions, functions in a relatively effective manner (Avila & Sozzo, 2020, 19–20). Acknowledgments This work by Fernando Avila has been supported by the John Beattie Research Fund of the Center of Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at University of Toronto and the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship.

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Radical Alternatives to Punitive Detention Sacha Darke

Most humane settings in corrections happen to be organised democratically… through participative management and shared decision-making, so that staff (and inmates, in the case of prison programmes) can develop a sense of ownership and a feeling of having a stake in the welfare and survival of the community they have helped to shape. (Toch, 2006, 2)

When I arrived back at the semi-open unit of APAC de Itaúna men’s prison in Minas Gerais, an argument had just broken out in the workshop. Robson, a member of the prison’s Sincerity and Solidarity Council (the CSS or the Council), had approached Daniel at the end of the working day to escort him back to his cell as punishment for having only that morning refused to stand up for Christian prayers. Both prisoners had to be physically restrained by their peers after Daniel picked up a S. Darke (B) University of Westminster, London, UK e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Sozzo (ed.), Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America, Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5_11

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metal rod and Robson refused to back down. The CSS president immediately called for a disciplinary hearing, before heading off to inform the governor. While they were waiting to start the proceedings, the other council members gathered to discuss the incident and agreed that Daniel was the main culprit. On his return, the president informed them the governor took the view Robson should not have risen to Daniel’s challenge and that both prisoners needed to return to the closed unit. Most Council members disagreed, insisting that the governor was partly to blame, having overridden their decision that morning to confine Daniel to his cell during the daytime as well as the evening. According to the prison’s disciplinary code, Daniel should not have lost his right to work for such a minor offence as disobeying orders. Nonetheless, they argued that the governor should not have interfered with a CSS decision, and in any case had not taken into consideration that Daniel, who had been an enemy of Robson since childhood, was bound to use the fact he had completed a hard day’s work (and so under any other circumstances would now deserve to spend his evening in association rather than be sent to bed early) as an excuse for an argument. Since arriving to commence my fieldwork two weeks earlier, I had already sensed that the governor’s authority was compromised by the fact he was the first in APAC de Itaúna’s by then 17-year history not to have himself previously been a prisoner. When the hearing commenced, all witnesses to the incident, including several Council members, claimed they had arrived at the scene too late to confirm that a weapon had indeed been raised. In his report to APAC de Itaúna’s disciplinary committee (which was chaired by the governor) the CSS president recommended Daniel was returned to the closed unit, but that Robson should spend only two days confined to the cell block. The disciplinary committee agreed to the CSS recommendations. To enforce Robson’s sanction, Council members temporarily converted the cellblock kitchen into a cantina (canteen), where he could continue his job selling fast food and confectionaries. A week later, Robson was given the responsibility to sleep on a sofa in a corridor of the administrative block to attend to the needs of Dr. Mário Ottoboni, the elderly founder of the APAC movement and governor of the first APAC, who was staying there for a few days during the movement’s four-day-long

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40th-anniversary conference that was being held in the town centre. I was also accommodated in the administrative block, in an adjacent room to Mário. The conference was attended by APAC prisoners from across the state, some of whom had been given permission to stay overnight at local hotels or in the homes of APAC de Itaúna staff. On the first morning, Robson sat in the audience with his wife, who was also a prisoner. I sat with three men I had met at another APAC prison two weeks earlier, one of who (the CSS president on its closed unit) joked that his hotel was miles away and he had not walked so much in years. In his opening speech Mário warned that APACs were in danger of becoming prisons: that they were resorting too quickly to disciplinary penalties and were treating their detainees as criminals in need of reform rather than people who needed to recover. When I brought up this subject over breakfast the next morning, Mário told me the story of one of the first APAC prisoners, a particularly troubled man who later developed the movement’s methodology and come up with its motto, “nobody escapes from love”. Mário claimed this prisoner had changed overnight after the prison responded to a particularly poor incidence of indiscipline by giving him money and sending him out to buy supplies (From research journal, July 2012). These field notes are taken from a three-week pilot ethnographic study of daily routines and everyday prison governance that I completed in July 2012 while staying as a guest at APAC de Itaúna. The title APAC (Association for the Protection and Assistance of the Convict) was originally associated with a Catholic Cursillo group that in 1984 opened Brazil’s first voluntary sector prison, APAC de São José dos Campos, on the site of a former police holding facility in the state of São Paulo. According to Ottoboni (2012), Jesus Christ had appeared to them twelve years earlier from among the detainees held there. In 1985 the group inaugurated a second prison, APAC de Itaúna, in the state of Minas Gerais, and in 1995 a regulatory body, the Brazilian Fraternity for the Assistance of Convicts (FBAC), to oversee the two. APAC de São José dos Campos was closed in 1999 and re-opened as a public sector prison in 2002. The APAC movement has enjoyed longer-term success in Minas Gerais, where state authorities have funded APAC prisons since 2001 and granted FBAC legal status in 2009. Six other Brazilian states have also opened APAC

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prisons since the 2010s.1 At the time of writing (September 2021), there are currently 62 APACs in operation (52 men’s prisons, nine women’s prisons, and one youth detention facility), including 46 in Minas Gerais.2 The movement has most recently attracted the support of the federal government, which in late 2020 agreed to fund another six APACs and 947 APAC prison spaces, at a cost of R$27 million (£4 million). Each APAC prison contains a closed and semi-open unit (in Brazil, prisoners held in semi-open conditions are usually granted the right to work outside during the daytime and to spend up to 35 days a year at home). Some APACs also operate an open prison regime (similar to a British probation hostel but in Brazil usually reserved for prisoners nearing the end of the custodial element of their sentence), typically in a residential house close by the main prison complex. Brazil’s 62 APACs currently hold a total of 5,023 sentenced prisoners (4,530 men and 493 women). Most APAC prisons hold fewer than 100 inmates. The smallest, APAC de Patrocínio, has an operational capacity of just twelve inmates. The APAC movement’s stated vision (first published as Ottoboni, 2001) is of a prison system that is human rights respecting and operates without police (who are typically stationed at the outer walls of prison complexes), prison officers (see also Andrade, 2014; Ferreira, 2016), and divisive prison norms such as honour cultures and offence hierarchies. Some state authorities have reserved the right to appoint APAC governors and heads of security, but in practice most APACs directly contract all their staff. Indeed many APAC governors and most APAC security staff are former APAC prisoners. At a second APAC that I visited in Minas Gerais in 2012, the governor was still on conditional release, having “left” the same prison he was now in charge of a year earlier. Some of the more senior FBAC employees are also former APAC prisoners. This includes the person responsible for drafting its 1 In Brazil most prisons operate at state level. In June 2020 there were only five federal prisons and 668 federal prisoners (MJSP, 2020). In this chapter I sometimes refer to the APAC system, irrespective of the fact that APAC prisons are subject to different legal regulations (in addition to FBAC regulations) in different states. 2 Figures available at https://www.fbac.org.br/infoapac/relatoriogeral.php (last accessed 2 September 2021).

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disciplinary code (latest version, FBAC, 2020). FBAC’s (2020) list of disciplinary offences includes behaviour commonly prohibited by state prison authorities (e.g. assault and disobeying orders), supplemented by traditional inmate codes (e.g. not touching personal property belonging to other prisoners) and other customary practices exclusive to the APAC system (e.g. betting on games and putting up washing lines in cells). Individual APACs also develop their own house rules like the one Daniel was first disciplined for. Another example of a house rule I encountered in a women’s APAC was a ban on prisoners leaving wet towels at the end of their beds. Inmates appoint their own cell representatives. Each closed and semi-open APAC unit has a formally constituted inmate council, the CSS, the presidents of which select eight other members (the presidents are chosen by the prison governor). As we saw in my field note reflections, the prisoners that make up the CSS formally adjudicate and enforce penalties, although the prison administration retains the right to veto, and CSS decisions on more serious offences are officially approved by the prison’s disciplinary committee. When I completed my 2012 pilot study, membership of APAC de Itaúna’s inmate councils was renewed every six months. This is impracticable in the smaller APAC units, where prisoners are more likely to be appointed onto the CSS until they are released or progress to a lower security unit. Besides monitoring everyday prison routines and discipline, the CSS also selects prisoners to assist guards, of which there are usually one or two on duty across the two units. I previously published a shorter version of the workshop incident and the quasi-legal disciplinary proceedings I had witnessed in Darke (2015). In that paper I introduced the APAC prison system’s underlying communitarian ethos and the particular importance it attaches in its methodology (as originally described in Ottoboni [2001] and most recently updated in Ferreira [2016]), alongside “human appreciation”, to “community participation” and “the recoverer assisting the recoverer”: what I described at the time as “community” and “peer-facilitated rehabilitation”. In Darke (2018) I returned to these field notes in order to contrast the responsibilities for everyday prison order formally delegated to inmate councils in APACs with the de facto reliance on inmate

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collaboration and organisation I had observed in the country’s common prisons, which I summarise here in a moment. In this exploratory chapter,3 I focus on the implications of delegating disciplinary powers to Brazilian community prison inmates from a penal abolitionist perspective.4 In addition to APAC de Itaúna, I introduce three other radically different Brazilian prisons that are partly or fully governed by voluntary sector organisations and in which aspects of the power to discipline are also formally delegated to inmates: Celas Lares, in the state of Rondônia, Centro de Ressocialização de Limeira, in the state of São Paulo, and Núcleo Ressocializador da Capital, in the state of Alagoas. However, I base most of my analysis on the APAC prison system, of which for the time being I have most knowledge. Besides APAC de Itaúna, I visited six other APACs in Minas Gerais in 2010 and 2012, two of which held women. I am also involved in an education project at APAC de São Luis in the state of Maranhão, where I spent four days in 2019. I refer to all of these penal institutions as community prisons, for reasons I also return to shortly. Finally, I draw brief comparisons between the Brazilian community prison phenomenon with HMP Grendon in Buckinghamshire, England, to my knowledge one of just a handful of prisons in the Northern 3 I write this chapter in preparation for ethnographic research on the Brazilian community prison phenomenon introduced in this chapter that I originally intended to complete in late 2020 and early 2021 but had to put on hold during the Covid-19 pandemic. I will complete the fieldwork at two APAC prisons in the state of Paraná in the first half of 2022. 4 Note my preferred use of the term penal rather than prison abolition. As Ferrari and Pavarini (2018, 186) emphasise in their 2015 Italian Abolitionist Manifesto, abolitionists are united in their support for moving beyond, “the notion of punishment [and its commitment] to the sanguinary culture of intentionally inflicting pain and suffering”. This requires the “abolition of punitive incarceration [but it] does not mean the end of all types of involuntary confinement” (Feest & Scheerer, 2018, 39); forms of preventative rather than punitive detention would still be occasionally necessary, for instance to ensure people do not abscond while awaiting trial (ibid.), to protect the public from dangerous, predatory offenders (Ryan & Sim, 2007), or as a refuge “for perpetrators who have extreme and complex needs” (Drake & Scott, 2018, 214). The means by which offenders’ needs should be deal with is not a subject of major debate in the Anglophone abolitionist literature besides Scott and Gosling (2015, 2016), whose work I return to in the conclusion. Nor is the question whether an abolitionist alternative should be referred to as a prison or as a detention centre, as suggested e.g. by Brown (2013). For recent Brazilian accounts of penal abolitionism, see e.g. Achutti et al. (2021), Genelhu (2018), and Karam (2021), who calls for the abolition of penal punishment as part of a wider abolition of state violence.

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world in which inmates also play an official role in disciplinary proceedings. Grendon has attracted the interest of penal abolitionists (e.g. Sim, 2021) and other activist scholars who promote radical prison reform (e.g. Rhodes, 2010; Toch, 2006; Toch & Adams, 2002). I convene a Convict Criminology study group at Grendon. The prison-based students are all studying for undergraduate or postgraduate degrees.5 We will see that delegating disciplinary powers to prisoners contravenes the international human rights consensus that prisoners should never exercise power over each other. I argue that this position is questionable, at least in the Brazilian context. In this chapter I pose the question under what circumstances, by what means and to what extent might disciplinary powers be appropriately devolved to community prison inmates in Brazil? I also ask, to what extent might the removal of offence hierarchies and ownership that Brazilian community prison inmates are afforded over the physical and social environments in which they are incarcerated be replicated in a Northern country like the United Kingdom?

Background: (1) Carceral Injustice Brazil is criticised by civil society and governmental organisations, both at home and abroad, for its extreme levels of social inequality and for breaching international human rights norms at every stage of the criminal justice process, from procedural unfairness, violent and discriminatory practices in its criminal investigations, pre-trial hearings and prosecutions (e.g. IDDD, 2019; Ramos, 2021; Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, 2016), to disproportionately high resort to pretrial detention and long-term prison sentences (e.g. Depen, 2020; UN General Assembly, 2014), inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners (e.g. IACHR, 2021; MNPCT, 2020; Pastoral Carcerária, 2016). The poorest 30% of the Brazilian population earn less than 7% of 5 Since 2019 some of the (now former) students from this study group have acted as project advisors and peer reviewers for my research on Brazilian community prisons. I would like to thank David Hinde, Niamke Kervani, Moses Mathias and George Milner for their reviews of an earlier draft of this chapter.

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national income, while the richest 10% earn half of the national income (World Bank, 2020). White Brazilians earn on average 74% more than black or brown Brazilians (IBGE, 2019). These positions are reversed in the case of criminal justice. Upper-class and middle-class offenders invariably avoid arrest, prosecution and imprisonment. The targets of the police and judiciary are disproportionally poor and black (Alves, 2017, 2018). The majority of Brazilian prisoners left school before the statutory minimum age of 14 and were not in formal employment when they were arrested (MJSP, 2020). Less than 1% of prisoners have completed higher education, compared to 17% of the general population (MJSP, 2020). Even when they do end up in prison, under the country’s 1941 Penal Code university-educated and other “special prisoners” (e.g. police chiefs, government and court officials) are held separately to “common prisoners” until they have exhausted all legal avenues of appeal. This usually means avoiding months, sometimes years sharing a six or twelve square metre cell with up to 60 other people. Important for current purposes, Brazilian prisoners are acutely aware of these social and carceral injustices. As former Inter-American Court of Human rights and Argentinean Supreme Court of Justice, Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni puts it in the broader South American context, such “penal illegalities” are openly justified in political and judicial discourses as necessary oppression of the “hostile” (Zaffaroni, 1989), of the internal “enemies of society” (Zaffaroni, 2006). It is also important to emphasise the extent to which this systematic treating of large sections of the Brazilian public as “legally disqualified” citizens (Batista, 2000) is currently extraordinary by local as well as international standards. This is particularly notable in the case of sentencing. Since the country emerged from its last period of military dictatorship 35 years ago, its prison population has risen ten-fold, from 69,355 adult prisoners in December 1984 (Pavarini & Giamberardino, 2011) to 755,274 adult prisoners in December 2019 (MJSP, 2020), the last official figures produced before the onset of the Covid-19 global pandemic. In the past two decades alone Brazil’s prison population rate has more than tripled, from 137 per 100,000 national population in December 2000 (Carvalho, 2013) to 359 per 100,000 national population in December 2019 (MJSP, 2020). By comparison, in September 2018 the world prison

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population rate was 145, around the same as it was in 2000 (Walmsley, 2018). In December 2019 Brazil lay in third position globally in terms of absolute numbers of prisoners, far ahead of any other country in Latin America. At the same time, prison populations have risen in South and Central America more than any other global region, from approximately 650,000 in 2000 to 1.5 million in 2014 (Walmsley, 2018). Every Latin American country has a prison population rate above the global average and imprisons more people than they did in 2000. In contrast, the prison population rate has remained constant in the United States and has fallen by a fifth in Europe. In this regard Brazil might be regarded as the principal player in the emergence of a “new mass carceral zone” (Darke & Garces, 2017). Moreover, this period of Brazilian mass incarceration is less the result of changing patterns of crime as increasingly punitive sentencing. The total number of recorded homicides rose steeply in the immediate post-dictatorship period (Caldeira, 2000) but has fallen in the twenty-first Century, from 45,360 recorded homicides in 2000 to 39,584 recorded homicides in 2019 (FBSP, 2020). Today, half of all Brazilian prisoners were sentenced for one of two crimes: robbery or the supply of illicit drugs. Robbery has attracted a minimum sentence of four years since Brazil passed its 1940 Criminal Code. Nine per cent of prisoners were remanded or sentenced for supplying drugs in 2005 (Karam, 2015), before minimum sentences were increased under Drugs Law 2006 to 20 months for a first offence and five years for a repeat offence. In the state of São Paulo, which accounts for a third of the country’s prisoners, the number of people held under Drugs Law 2006 increased 508% between 2005 and 2017, from 13,927 to 138,116 (CESeC, 2021). In a recent analysis of 800 sentences given by judges in eight states between July 2013 and June 2015 for supplying drugs Semer (2019) found the average sentence to be four years ten months. Four in five of those sentenced were first-time offenders (Semer, 2019). When deciding whether a defendant should be prosecuted for possession (a non-imprisonable offence) or for “trafficking”, judges are legally required to take into consideration the social background of the accused and the locality in which they were arrested. The president of the CSS on the closed wing of APAC de Itaúna had been sentenced to 5 years and 6 months’ imprisonment for nine grammes of cannabis (field notes,

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15 July 2012). Like so many prisoners I have spoken with up and down the country that were sentenced as drug traffickers, he shrugged when I told him I knew people in England who had received shorter sentences for ten times that weight in cocaine. Finally, although Brazilian prisons were arguably even poorer in the nineteenth Century (see e.g. Aguirre, 2009; Salvatore & Aguirre, 1996), they are undoubtedly in as bad a state today as they have been at any time in collective memory. Historically, Brazilian prisons have been characterised by inhumanity more than they have been characterised by rehabilitation (Maia et al., 2009). Like many other parts of South America, they remained places of “judicial internment” (Birkbeck, 2011) and “more akin to concentration camps for the dispossessed… than to judicial institutions serving any identifiable penological function” (Wacquant, 2003, 200) throughout most of the twentieth into the twenty-first Century. The example I gave above of up to 60 prisoners being accommodated in a 12 m2 cell might have been taken from any of the 49 remand prisons in São Paulo, most of which were built from the same design. These prisons typically have occupational capacities of between 800 and 850 but in normal times hold between 2,000 and 2,500 (during Covid-19 times, the state’s average remand prison population fell below 1,500). Their 12 m2 cells were built with twelve concrete bunks and a bathroom. Running water is often available for just an hour or two a day. No more than twelve officers are usually on duty in the cell block during the daytime, even fewer in the night-time or when members of prison staff are off sick. Besides the delivery of three daily meals outsourced to private companies, prison authorities barely provide any goods or services, including medicines, cleaning products or bedding. Guards make up 90% of all staff. A qualified doctor is likely to be available to tend to prisoners’ medical needs just one afternoon a week.

Background (2): Inmate Governance Yet, despite these most blatant degradations, Brazilian prisons are no more disorderly or staff-inmate relations more conflictual than their

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counterparts in the Global North. I make this claim based on ten years of fieldwork that has included extended and often repeated visits to more than 45 sites of penal detention across twelve Brazilian states, as well as numerous conversations with former prisoners. Everyday institutional routines, disciplinary order and staff-inmate relations have been overseen by prisoners as well as officers since Brazil’s first modern penitentiaries were inaugurated in the mid-nineteenth Century and have been governed by everyday customary practices and staff-inmate accommodations as much as official prison rules. With too few staff to run their institutions, prison managers have always relied on inmates to organise, collaborate and self-govern to an extent that is difficult to imagine in the better resourced and more bureaucratically managed prisons of Northern America or Western Europe. At its most basic, Brazil’s tradition of “inmate governance” (Darke, 2013) or “staff-inmate co-governance” (Darke, 2018) requires prisoners to take on domestic, house staff roles such as cleaning, directing visitors and transporting food and refuse, and to appoint representatives to coordinate these activities in the cellblock corridors and dormitories, mediate and facilitate communications between the prison administration and the massa (mass) or coletivo (collective) of prisoners under its care (for a first-hand account of the existence of such positions and informal practices in 1930s Rio de Janeiro, see Ramos, 1953). In some prisons inmates are recruited to work in the place of guards in the cell blocks. Customary practices govern almost every aspect of prison routines, inmate and staff-inmate relations, including in-cell behaviour, commerce, sexual relations, mutual aid and protection, reporting and evicting troublesome or vulnerable inmates. Unlike American (Skarbek, 2014) or British (Crewe, 2009) “convict” or “inmate codes”, these “rules of procedure” (Ramalho, 1979) or “rules of conviviality” (Marques, 2010) are negotiated by prison staff as much as prison inmates. Some rules are common to most prisons; others vary from one state and one prison to another. More serious rules, e.g. those concerning the legitimate or obligatory use of violence, are enforced through quasi-legal systems of dispute resolution, managed by inmate representatives, usually with the implicit support of prison staff. Such staff-inmate “informal dynamics of survival” (Darke & Garces, 2017) have intensified in the modern era of “inside-outside gangs”

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(Dudley & Bargent, 2017). Brazil’s two largest criminal organisations, Rio de Janeiro’s Red Command (CV) and São Paulo’s First Command of the Capital (PCC), both started as inmate solidarity groups, with the stated aims of raising consciousness of injustice and unifying the country’s system of postcode gangs under the banner of one prison, state, even nation-wide collective. To an extent, the CV and PCC’s founding ideals have been corrupted by their involvement in illicit markets as they have spread beyond prison, especially drugs markets (see e.g. Siqueira and Paiva’s [2019] analysis of the relationship between the CV, PCC and Brazil’s third largest criminal organisation, the Northern Family, which emerged in the Amazonian region in the 2000s as a unification of street gangs in the “Eastern cocaine route” between the Andes mountains and Brazil’s northern ports). However, they continue to govern with the support of most prison inmates and prison staff. In Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo gang leadership regularly changes hands as individuals lose the confidence of other inmates or the prison administration. Staff continue to have a say in which prisoners they deal with. Inmates continue to refer to gang leaders as their representatives. Skarbek (2016) identifies two institutional factors that facilitate good inmate and staff-inmate relations: that a prison is small and its population homogenous. In Brazil social factors are equally important, especially economic homogeneity and criminal identity in the country’s urban peripheries (cf. Alves, 2015). Brazilian prisoners more often refer to themselves as divided (or increasingly as united) into criminal factions, commands or collectives rather than gangs, and being enemies of the punitive state rather than individual police or prison officers, or rivals within their “anticarceral communities” (Garces & Darke, 2021). As Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho, aka Marcola, the supposed leader of the PCC, explained to a 2008 parliamentary inquiry onto arms dealing, the collectivity that underpins order in Brazil’s large, heterogeneous prisons is rooted in inmates’ understanding of themselves as socially excluded groups in conflict with the law but not in conflict with “good” police or prison officers: Prisoners support prisoners. The marginal support the marginal. Everyone believes in the fight for justice of the miserable against established power.

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We will always be outlaws […] The guard also has a miserable life, very similar to that of the prisoner. So, the detainee ends up identifying with him, or he with the detainee. After all, they come from the same favela. (Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho, interviewed in Câmara dos Deputados, 2008, 113 and 130)

That it is the institution of the punitive state, not the servants of the state, against which the organised inmate body is ultimately opposed is also reflected in the following officer’s accounts of working at a CV prison in Rio de Janeiro: In CV units everything has to be negotiated. They have an inmate council with legitimacy to create consensus in order to avoid disagreements […] My objective is to always maintain the respect that exists between the prisoner and the guard… This respect is not constructed by force but by the righteousness of my conduct inside. Nobody disturbs me, because they can see that I’m doing my job in the right way. (Karam & Saraiva, 2017, 1 and 5)

Self-Governing Prison Communities Brazil’s tradition of co-produced prison governance has been adapted by dozens of small, radically different “community-run” or “civil societystate partnership” (Macaulay, 2005) prisons inaugurated since the APAC movement took control of São José dos Campos in the 1980s. APACs provide their “recoverers”, as they refer to their prisoners, with full-time regimes of work, education and therapeutic activities underpinned by religious duty to take care of oneself and to have unconditional love for others. However, it is not the religious or rehabilitative elements of the APAC methodology that draw my academic interest, but the fact prisoners are put into positions of responsibility and authority. To a greater or lesser extent, the same may be said of the other three Brazilian community prison models that I describe in this chapter. The APAC methodology takes state abandonment of prisoners and the failure of the common prison system as its starting point. At the entrance to every APAC prison is written the message, “here enters

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the man, his offence stays outside”. Under the headings “learning to live communally” and “learning to serve”, prisoners are required to be centrally involved in all aspects of institutional life, including as we saw in the introduction to this chapter, leading and representing their peers. As such, APACs are relevant to understanding the nature of co-governed Brazilian prison order and the potential for abolitionist alternatives for the extent they depart from certain aspects of the common Brazilian prison system (its abandoning of prisons and prisoners) but comply with others (its reliance on inmate collaboration, and its reliance on inmates maintaining their connections with their family and wider community). In other words, the APAC methodology embraces the collective nature of everyday Brazilian prison social order and the consequent entanglements between inmates and staff, prisons and communities, not by default (as means of getting by with limited human and material resources), but to purposely reduce the otherwise inevitable harms associated with losing one’s liberty. To achieve its vision of peer and community-facilitated rehabilitation, both prison staff and prison inmates are expected to be from the local area. Prisoners’ families and former APAC prisoners are encouraged to work or volunteer at the prison in which they served, or their loved ones are serving, a criminal sentence. In Brazil, the APAC movement has been extensively studied by research degree students (for publications from doctorate-level studies, see most recently Grossi [2021] on the APAC system in Minas Gerais, and Neto [2020] on the APAC system in Paraná). Otherwise, neither the APAC nor the country’s other community prison models have attracted much academic interest. Moreover, the relatively few academic studies published in peer-reviewed journals or by academic book publishers (e.g. Araújo, 2017; Burnside, 2005; Dembogurski et al., 2021; Faustino & Pires, 2007; Fernandes, 2021; Leal, 1999; Macaulay 2007, 2015; Marques & Studart, 2020; Silva et al., 2020; Siqueira et al., 2020; Souza, 2020; Vargas, 2009; Walker et al., 2013) invariably draw attention to their relatively good treatment and rehabilitation of prisoners, in comparison to the country’s common prisons, but not their focus on communal living and co-produced social order. This includes studies that take a penal abolitionist stance and question whether a version of Brazil’s community prison models might be developed that replaces the

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country’s common prison system altogether (e.g. Franco et al., 2020; Mattos, 2009; Menezes & Oliveira, 2010; Garces, 2019 comparative study of Brazilian and Ecuadorian faith-based prison movements). I am also concerned by the failure of most Brazilian prisons to operate regimes of dignified detention. This most fundamental of individual human rights is at the centre of international prison law (e.g. the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners 2016). My question is whether the penal abolitionist position should extend to the demand that prisoners retain a certain level of collective control over the physical and social environments in which they have been deprived of their liberty, and whether in this regard the international human rights community might have something to learn from community prisons in Brazil (although my own abolitionist position also draws me towards the conclusion, like Ryan and Sim [2007], that any form of post-trial involuntary detention should reserved for the most violent and predatory behaviour). In this chapter I use the term community prison as originally conceptualised by American prison governor Howard B. Gill: as a closed institution that houses a small, supervised group of prisoners who live communally and maintain close contact with the outside world (Hayner & Ash, 1940). Gill (1965) identified three principles underlying communal living: normalcy, small groups and participation. However, he excluded social order from the latter. I argue that it is neither theoretically nor practically necessary to do so, at least in the context of Brazil. Besides the APAC system, there are three Brazilian community prison models that purport to be human rights respecting and in which communal living includes collective participation in social order. The first was introduced in the state of Rondônia in 2007 by a second voluntary sector religious organisation led largely by former prisoners, the Cultural Association for the Development of Prisoners and Former Prisoners (ACUDA). ACUDA’s methodology is underpinned by three pillars: Spirituality, Education and Assistance (see https://acudarond onia.org/nosso-metodo). ACUDA delivers several social welfare projects, including a daytime centre (the Illuminate Programme) for prisoners held in closed units in Porto Velho State Prison Complex. In 2015 ACUDA was subject to a prime-time national television exposé that focused on the Illuminate Programme being attended by one of the state’s

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most notorious murderers, its therapeutic use of the hallucinogenic drug ayahuasca, and the fact 13 prisoners from a semi-open unit had been recruited to work at the centre and slept there overnight (these latter two activities have since been suspended). I spent two days participating in the ACUDA day centre regime in May 2017 and another two days in July 2019. At the time of the latter visit, construction work had begun on a new residential unit, Celas Lares, which will accommodate up to 200 prisoners in closed conditions. ACUDA aimed to inaugurate Celas Lares by the end of 2020. This is on hold during the Covid-19 pandemic. The day centre is operating as usual. Like FBAC, ACUDA insists its day centre and the future residential unit operate without police or prison officers and are co-governed with inmate councils. Even more than the APAC movement, ACUDA considers itself to be anti-punishment. Reflecting on his experiences of long-term imprisonment, ACUDA’s general director insisted to me that Celas Lares “will not be a prison”, adding that “the system teaches us to hate ourselves… and then we hate others” (field notes, 26 July 2019). ACUDA provides prisoners with a full-time timetable of education and “new age” therapies like meditation, yoga, massage, Reiki and Family Constellations. It also provides skills-based work, although more for the purpose of raising funds and attracting prisoners to the centre than as a means of rehabilitation. Similar to APAC de Itaúna, a ten-person inmate council manages most of the centre’s routines and activities. ACUDA’s 2019 unpublished disciplinary code for its day centre likewise includes a mixture of official state prison rules and customary practices. Unlike FBAC (2020), however, it was co-drafted with serving prisoners. The code is enforced by a separate committee composed of three serving prisoners and two former-prisoner ACUDA employees (it is intended that the inmate council will take on this role at Celas Lares). Prisoners are appointed to the inmate council and disciplinary committee by lottery, although in the case of the latter a prisoner must first make it onto a short-list compiled by ACUDA’s general director. Other prisoners are given keys and two-way radio transceivers to work with the formerprisoner ACUDA staff in charge of external security. Like APAC de Itaúna, most of the other people that work at the centre are volunteers.

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Next are the 22 Resocialisation Centres (CRs) of São Paulo, 21 of which were inaugurated in the early 2000s in an effort by a senior judge, Nagashi Furukawa, to implement a less community-run, more formal public-civil society partnership version of the APAC prison system while he was state Minister for Prisons (Furukawa, 2015). These included the two existing APAC prisons in São Paulo: APAC de São José dos Campos and APAC de Bragança Paulista.6 Like the APAC system, most of São Paulo’s CRs contain semi-open as well as closed prison units. At its peak, 5% of the state’s 137,282 prisoners were held in the CR system (Bueno, 2005). There is no official set of CR prison rules. Still, most CRs were purpose built to the same design during Furukawa’s term in office and operate similar daily routines and practices. CRs typically hold 150– 200 prisoners between their two units (the purpose-built CR prisons all have operating capacities of 210), making them on average larger than APAC prisons. The smallest, CR de Araquara women’s prison, has an operational capacity of 96 (and at the time of writing, a population of 99). Like APAC prisons and ACUDA’s day centre, CRs promote non-stigmatising prison cultures and close engagement with prisoners’ families (Macaulay, 2015). CR prisons also provide full-time regimes of work, education and therapeutic activities aimed at improving inmates’ self-esteem and social skills (Macaulay, 2015), like APAC and ACUDA, but also their occupational employability. São Paulo’s CRs were initially inaugurated under partnership arrangements in which voluntary sector NGOs were responsible for everyday prison management and contracting health, leisure, education and other social welfare services, but state authorities retained responsibility for security. Following a week of rebellions in May 2006 that included twothirds of the state’s common prisons (but no CR prisons), Furakawa was demoted and the CR prison system gradually brought under full public sector management. However, voluntary sector organisations have continued to provide services to many CR prisons. I have visited two of these CRs, including an afternoon and a full day at CR de Limeira, 6 In 1994 Furukara had inaugurated his first community prison under the APAC label. However, the prison was ostracised by the APAC movement for “lacking methodology” (Macaulay, 2015), among other things its secularism (ibid.), and its prioritising of industrial over community work (Massola, 2017).

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where in 2016 I ran a workshop on social order with prisoners held in the closed unit. Since 2016 CR de Limeira has received education, training, leisure and other social projects from the city of Limeira Community Council, established under the legal requirement under Article 80 of Penal Executive Law 1984 that prisons are monitored and supported by community organisations in each judicial district (of which there are 382 in São Paulo), with the coordination and support of the voluntary sector body, Instituto Ação Pela Paz. By the end of 2019, community councils had been set up to provide welfare projects to another seven CR prisons (IAP, 2020). Some activities were suspended with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, but most have now recommenced (IAP, 2021). Like most other Brazilian prisons I have visited, I did not encounter any guards stationed in CR de Limeira’s cell blocks. Cell doors were not locked, even on the closed prison unit, and inmates carry keys to manage access to shared spaces (e.g. workshops and store cupboards) and movement between individual corridors. In some CRs additional house rules are co-drafted by inmates and voluntary sector as well as public sector prison staff (Macaulay, 2007). On my visits to both CR prisons, I observed codes of conduct hanging inside the entrance to each dormitory. Different to both the APAC and ACUDA models, prisoners are not formally involved in adjudications. However, prisoners at CR de Limeira explained to me that although they did not have a unit-wide inmate council, they formally selected cell representatives to oversee social order and negotiate with staff. When they could not persuade one of their peers to stick to the rules to make amends for breaking one, their cell representative would ask officers to remove them. The final Brazilian community prison model which officially aims to be human rights respecting, and in which aspects of the power to discipline are formally devolved to inmates, is also public and officially secular. Adapted from an existing Spanish prison model (in English, see Ballesteros-Pena, 2018), Brazil’s first Social Reinsertion Centre was opened on a remand prison wing in the state of Goiás in 2009. Like its Spanish counterparts, the centre is more commonly referred to as a Respect Module (RM). In 2020 Goiás authorities published a list of RM rules (DGAP, 2020) and announced their intention to open RM wings

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across its prison estate. A stand-alone RM prison, Núcleo de Ressocialização da Capital (NRC), was opened in the state of Alagoas in 2011 with an operational capacity of 157. I visited the RM wing in Goiás in 2016 and was due to visit NRC for a first time in 2020. Like CR prisons, the Brazilian version of the RM model involves voluntary sector organisations being contracted to provide in-house services; and like the APAC and ACUDA prison models, inmate councils manage most aspects of daily routines and social order. At NRC, all prisoners are expected to participate in one of five inmate councils, whose memberships (like the ACUDA day centre) are chosen by lottery and (similar to the CSS at APAC de Itaúna) rotate every three months (Araújo, 2017). One of the councils (the Conviviality Commission) monitors everyday routines and discipline, while the others (the Reception, Judicial Assistance and Sports and Culture commissions) deal with more specific matters. The fifth council (the Responsibility Assembly) is made up of the leaders of the other four councils and is tasked with communicating with senior staff. RC prisoners are not formally involved in drafting disciplinary rules. However, all prisoners meet daily as a General Assembly to discuss and make recommendations for changes to everyday routines and disciplinary codes. Different to APACs, CRs and the future Celas Lares, guards are stationed inside as well as outside RC cell blocks. However, prisoners are formally involved in judging and administering disciplinary penalties for house rules through another inmate council, the Commission for Conflict Resolution. This council is made up exclusively of prisoners but is selected by the governor, again for three-month terms of office.

Conclusion We have seen that the APAC, ACUDA, CR and RM prison models all claim to treat the people in their care with human dignity. At this early stage of desk research, the extent to which they actually do so is not among my questions and has not been the subject of this chapter. For now my focus is ideals and potential. In any case, none of the Brazilian community prisons I have thus far visited appeared to be fully

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human rights respecting as defined by the United Nations, let alone radically different to the extent demanded in the abolitionist literature, for instance by Scott and Gosling (2016, 172–173), who in an analysis of residential therapeutic communities for people whose criminal offending is associated with substance abuse write that, “a radical alternative must… compete with, and contradict, current penal ideologies, discourses, policies and practices… directly replace a punitive sentence of the criminal courts… adhere to democratically accountable values and principles requiring unhindered participation, recognition of the validity of all voices, and facilitate a role in decision-making… safeguard human dignity and minimise human suffering… rooted in principles of fairness, openness, equality and legal accountability… promote (or at very least not inhibit) social justice.” This includes the APAC system, which we have seen regards crime as a problem of idleness and irresponsibility (Massola, 2017), and as Ottoboni hinted in his opening address at the movement’s 40th-anniversary celebrations often resorts quickly to disciplinary punishments rather than restorative or therapeutic sanctions. Another area of practice I have found the APACs I have visited to fall short of being “non-penal real utopias” (Scott & Gosling, 2016, 170) is their restricted approach to therapy. In 2012 I spent much of my time at APAC de Itaúna in the company of a prisoner in the semi-open unit convicted for robbery whose addiction to crack cocaine I became increasingly aware had not been dealt with beyond the occasional visit from Narcotics Anonymous. When I asked him for his views on the APAC methodology, he repeated the often-heard mantra that people only change through love. Yet, he went on to commit further crimes (the first within hours of his release later the same year) that have left him rotting in common prisons to this day. Nor has this chapter dealt with the question often posed by Northern penal abolitionists whether progressive criminal justice policies and practices will inevitably be “clawed back” (Carlen, 2002) and their proponents “silently silenced” (Mathiesen, 2004) in the long term. Again, this is not my immediate research interest. For the time being, I can only provide some preliminary observations based on anecdotal evidence. In late 2019 a new head of security was appointed at APAC de São Luis,

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who installed bars around the exercise yard in the closed unit, previously freely accessible to prisoners despite providing a quick and easy route to escape. Ironically (predictably?), there have been two mass break outs from the unit since, the first in the prison’s five-year history. Still, I question whether the culturally heterogeneous nature of Brazilian society (see e.g. Ribeiro, 1995) and the informal, pragmatic nature of Brazilian micro-politics (e.g. DaMatta, 1986), including penal policy making (Batista, 2000; Macaulay, 2021), leave greater space for grass-roots abolitionist praxis (cf. Gay, 1998; Koster & Eiró, 2021): that different to the more bureaucratic countries of the Global North, prison reformers have less to fear from engaging with well-meaning criminal justice practitioners, and that each step backwards along the road towards abolition might plausibly be followed by two steps in front. When ACUDA is finally able to open Celas Lares, for instance, it has every intention to recommence its use of ayahuasca and to receive prisoners convicted for the most violent predatory crimes. These practical concerns are also matters for future research and discussion. In this chapter I have focused on the preliminary question what else besides human dignity might be promoted by those taking a penal abolitionist position in Brazil, where my reading of prisoner autobiographies (e.g. Jozino, 2004; Mendes, 2009; Rap & Zeni, 2002) and academic ethnographies (e.g. Biondi, 2010, 2018; Feltran, 2018), as well as my own fieldwork, suggests that many if not the majority of prisoners consider themselves to be criminal only in the sense that “their kind” are the victims of authoritarian oppression and are in conflict with the state and its weaponised laws. Specifically, I have introduced the extent and means by which Brazilian community prison inmates are formally involved in establishing and, more controversially, enforcing disciplinary rules and practices. In doing so I have also indirectly questioned the international human rights consensus that prisoners should not have the collective right to co-govern their institutional environment, as reflected in Rule 40 of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners 2016 (where it is stated that, “no prisoner shall be employed, in the service of the prison, in any disciplinary capacity”)—which, it should be noted, were agreed predominantly among Northern experts (Peirce, 2018)—and also Article 96 of

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the Third Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of Prisoners of War 1949 (where it is stated, “in no case may disciplinary powers be delegated to a prisoner of war or be exercised by a prisoner of war”). This blanket policy is repeated in the Brazilian Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners 1994. In the most comprehensive international human rights report on Brazilian prisons to date Human Rights Watch (1998, 7) came to the same conclusion, warning that, “prisoners should never be assigned internal security responsibilities or be placed in positions of power over each other, even informally”.7 As far as I am aware this position is not directly questioned in any academic prison literature anywhere, including the Anglophone and Lusophone literature on community prisons that I am best acquainted. I have already noted the central importance of communal living to Gill’s (1965) definition of community prisons, and prisoner participation as a defining characteristic of communal living (alongside normalcy and small group living). Gill described prisoner participation as a matter of joint staffinmate civic responsibility. However, he emphasised that as a prison governor he had restricted these responsibilities to overseeing activities and recommending changes to institutional routines. Scott and Gosling (2016) come closer, in their evaluation of the abolitionist potential of therapeutic communities, when they refer to democratic and procedurally legitimate decision-making processes. However, they make this point in the specific context of voluntary participation in community

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The absolute human rights ban on prisoner participation in disciplinary actions and processes is most notable in UNODC (2015), where the United Nations promotes good staff-inmate relations as the key to prison order but makes no mention of rules being negotiated or powers being delegated. The rationale and implications of this international consensus are explained in Coyle and Fair’s (2018) Human Rights Approach to Prison Management Handbook for Prison Staff, sponsored by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Coyle and Fair (2018, 72) write, “In a well managed prison all prisoners will be treated equally. Whenever possible they should be encouraged to become involved in constructive activities during their time in prison… These may include helping in certain aspects of the daily running of the prison, such as working in the kitchen or on farms or maintenance. Prisoners who are skilled or well educated may also be encouraged to help other prisoners in these respects. However, it is never permissible to employ or to use prisoners to control other prisoners. This sometimes happens when there is a shortage of staff. Such prisoners are often given special treatment in terms of accommodation, food, or other facilities, to encourage them to monitor or manage other prisoners. These arrangements are always open to abuse”.

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routines. They do not rule out but neither do they mention the supervised community participating in disciplinary processes (see also Scott & Gosling, 2015). Yet this lack of trust in people to take—or under the APAC vision of social reintegration, to be belatedly taught—civic responsibility in prison, and the consequent rigidity of the boundary drawn between the institutional powers and functions of inmates and staff, was arguably the most critical issue identified in the classic mid-twentieth-Century North American sociological studies on the effects of inhumane detention. In his introduction to the “pains of imprisonment” Gresham Sykes paid heed to the anger and frustration caused by the sense of moral rejection and loss of the status of citizenship experienced by prisoners: The basic acceptance of the individual as a functioning member of the society in which he lives… the loss of that more diffuse status which defines the individual as someone to be trusted or as morally acceptable is the loss which hurts most… Somehow this rejection or degradation by the free community must be warded off, turned aside, rendered harmless. Somehow the imprisoned criminal must find a devise for rejecting his rejecters, if he is to endure psychologically. (Sykes, 1958, 66)

Similarly, Erving Goffman emphasised that his objective in analysing the debilitating effects “total institutions” like prisons and closed residential psychiatric hospitals have on their inmates was, “to help us see the arrangements that ordinary establishments must guarantee if members are to preserve their civilian selves” (Goffman, 1961, 14). Like Sykes, Goffman was most concerned with the consequences of inmates having to defer to the bureaucratic authority of the institution and the everyday managerial decisions of its employees.8 Of course Goffman’s (1961) concept of the total institution applies little to the ordinary Brazilian prison, where officers deal with inmates mostly through their representatives, micro-political authority is shaped 8

This removing of inmates’ autonomy to make or challenge decisions over how the institution they have been denied their liberty should operate is often raised by my prison-based students as a key problem of northern imprisonment as currently defined. One of the peer reviewers of this chapter (see n.vi.) writes, “walls don’t make a prison; a loss of power over the environment does” (Moses Mathias, formerly HMP Grendon prison, personal communication, 28 July 2021).

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by an inmate as much as staff hierarchies, staff-inmate functions are entangled, governors do not have the resources to manage their institutions without entrusting inmates, and in a reversal of Sparks et al.’s (1996) assessment of the illegitimacy of British prison staff-inmate relations, social order is more negotiated and consensual than imposed and enforced. Imprisonment is considered inhumane by Brazilian prisoners, but for different reasons than by people who experience imprisonment in the United Kingdom. Still, the reciprocal social order that gives staff-inmate relations de facto legitimacy in Brazil’s common prison system arises out of necessity and is more “forced” (Darke, 2013) than democratic. I am hesitant to make any preliminary normative assessment of whether disciplinary powers are more appropriately devolved to Brazilian community prison inmates before I have at least had the opportunity to explore what legitimate governance means to my participants. I will commence my fieldwork with a set of generalised research questions relating to the equity of the social norms community prison inmates and staff are expected to follow and the procedures by which they are established and enforced. I am also interested in exploring the implications of delegating responsibilities for security as well as discipline to prisoners, and the broader implications of former prisoner and voluntary sector involvement in prison governance. My fieldwork needs to be guided but not restrained by a global understanding of theoretical concepts like community, hierarchy and legitimate authority, self-help, self-governance, participatory and representative democracy, substantive and procedural justice. Finally, in the longer term I intend to explore the extent to which the collective ownership that Brazilian community prisoners exercise over the institutions in which they are incarcerated might be replicated in a Northern country like the United Kingdom, where prison governance is on the whole more bureaucratic and prison communities less cohesive. This will involve comparative research that includes the democratic therapeutic community (DTC) regime at HMP Grendon prison. We have seen that Grendon has attracted the attention of British and American penal abolitionists and radical prison reformers. The DTC model emphasises collective decision-making as well as the collective

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living (Bennett, 2013; Shuker, 2021), in contrast to Gill’s (1965) more restricted definition of community prisons, and also the concept of therapeutic communities (CTCs) studied by Scott and Gosling (2015, 2016), which are usually reserved for problematic drug users. CTCs are typically more hierarchical than DTCs and more likely to be staffed by former residents (Jones, 1979; Rawlings & Yates, 2001; Vandevelde et al., 2004; for a critique of Brazilian CTCs, see in English McBride et al., 2018). Besides four smaller individual DTC units situated within mainstream English prisons, Grendon is currently the only secure DTC in the Anglophone world to have been implemented in a prison rather than in a psychiatric hospital.9 , 10 Grendon is divided into six selfcontained communities of between 20 and 40 prisoners, all of whom convicted for serious predatory violence. Prisoners engage in a full-time regime of psychodynamic and creative therapies based on the concept of reality confrontation, in small therapy groups of eight, and with their wider inmate community. All prisoners are expected to be actively prosocial and—like the APAC system—to take on positions of responsibility relating to different aspects of the physical and social environment, e.g. as cleaners, cooks, treasurers, committee chairman, health and safety, events and diversity representatives. Each community writes a “constitution” containing—like the disciplinary codes co-produced by ACUDA and some CR prisoners—a mixture of official prison rules and customary practices and appoints an inmate “cabinet” with a six-month term of 9

The DTC concept was originally developed at the Industrial Neurosis Unit in London, opened in 1947 as a specialist psychiatric institution specialising in psychotherapy and the treatment of psychopathy and especially post-traumatic stress disorders. It received people with and without criminal convictions. The Industrial Neurosis Unit was later renamed the Social Rehabilitation Centre and, later still, Henderson Hospital (see Warren & Norton, 2004). Henderson Hospital closed in 2008. Grendon opened as Europe’s first and still only fully DTC prison in 1962. For detailed academic accounts of the psychiatric regime at Grendon and other English DTC units, see Brown et al. (2014), Genders and Player (1995), and Stevens (2013). 10 Comparable models also operate in other parts of Europe, principle among which are the social therapeutic facilities of Germany, which operate in more than a dozen prisons or prison units (see Lösel & Egg 1997; Sauter et al., 2019). Beyond the wider context of psychiatric treatment, parallels may also be drawn with early to mid-twentieth-Century experiments in self-governance in children’s institutions in the United Kingdom, most notably at the Little Commonwealth residential home in Dorset (see Bazeley, 1928) and the Summerhill independent boarding school in Suffolk (see Neill, 1960). These experiments influenced both the CTC and DTC movements. For broader discussion, see Kasinski (2003), Raimo (2001), and Shaw (2011).

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office to liaise with prison staff. Prison inmates and staff are also expected to be tolerant and to challenge and report any aggressive, anti-social or disrespectful behaviour to their community. Communities vote on their members’ suitability for different types of work, education, therapeutic activities, and representative positions. Minor disputes are dealt with informally among the small therapy groups at first instance and if necessary the wider community. The cabinet is also tasked with guiding new arrivals, mediating more serious conflicts and convening community meetings to decide on sanctions if necessary. In contrast to each of the Brazilian community prison systems I have introduced in this chapter, inmates are formally allowed to apply restorative and therapeutic as well as punitive sanctions. Prison managers reserve the right to veto. Still, official disciplinary proceedings are rarely resorted to and the prison does not have a segregation cell.11 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the support of the Leverhulme Trust. I am currently a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow (award RF2020-373\8). My research focuses on community self-governance in Brazilian former prisoner-led voluntary sector NGO prisons, the subject matter of this chapter.

References Achutti, D., Giamberardino, A., & Pallamolla, R. (2021). Penal abolitionism and restorative justice in Brazil: Towards a transformative justice model? In 11

All of the prison-based students currently or previously involved in the convict criminology study group at Grendon express reservation as to the extent disciplinary authority might be legitimately delegated to prisoners in the UK. However, their concerns are invariably more pragmatic than normative and are based on their experiences of divisive institutional cultures being imported to Grendon from other prisons. Regarding this matter, one of the peer reviewers from the study group of this chapter (see n.vi.) writes that although prison staff and inmates are more divided at Grendon than at the Brazilian community prisons described in this chapter, it remains the case that “involvement in disciplinary processes can give the community a sense of ownership and responsibility” (David Hinde, formerly HMP Grendon prison, personal communication, 24 August 2021).

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Epilogue

Inmate Governance in Latin America: Comparative and Theoretical Notes Máximo Sozzo

In this final chapter I am going to present a series of theoretical and comparative notes in relation to the phenomenon of inmate governance in Latin American prisons, taking up what has been worked in the various chapters of this book on several countries of the region—and in the recent literature on this theme. On the one hand, I am going to present some reflections on how to insert the question of inmate governance within the framework of a more wide-ranging consideration about the differences between the prisons of this region—and more generally, of the Global South—and those of the Global North, critically discussing an approach that seeks to build an understanding of these differences through a distinction of types of regimes of confinement, allegedly characteristic of each of these different parts of the world. M. Sozzo (B) National University of Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Sozzo (ed.), Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America, Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5_12

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Secondly, as regards the question of inmate governance in Latin America, I am going to introduce the broader discussion of to what extent the theoretical tools of prison studies in the Global North can be used—and how—to make sense of the mechanisms and dynamics in this region, advocating a position that defends the possibility of “use” but discourages an attitude of “application”. There I will also show how, in relation to the question of inmate governance, a strong South-South dialogue has been produced in the last years—of which this book is also a piece of evidence-, particularly around some key concepts like “self-governance” and “co-governance”, which also have the potentiality of influencing the ways of thinking about prison order in the Global North. Finally, I am going to raise the need to advance in the construction of a comparative perspective on inmate governance in Latin American prisons, as a fundamental exercise in the elaboration of our theoretical tools in this regard, based on the recognition of the strong degree of variation that this book evidences. In this sense, I will present a tentative comparative outline, isolating various crucial dimensions and exemplifying the diverse alternatives with the analysis produced throughout this book on the various schemes of participation of prisoners in the governance of incarcerated life in the region. I believe that this exercise could be a contribution on a longer path to more fully theorize the dynamics and effects of inmate governance, both inside and outside Latin America.

Inmate Governance and Differences Between Prisons of the Global North and South A possible reading of this book on inmate governance in Latin American prisons could emphasize the distinctive character of this phenomenon, in a more general picture that underlines the existence of a radical, essential, difference between the prisons in the region—and, more generally, in the Global South—and those of the Global North. Precisely, this type of interpretation was presented a decade ago by Christopher Birkbeck (2011), in an important attempt to draw a comparison between prisons in the North and South of the Americas, with all the difficulties that such a task implies, since it involves the elaboration of wide-ranging

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generalizations.1 He built an opposition between two types of regimes of confinement: “imprisonment”, which would characterize the dynamics of the North, and “internment”, which would characterize the dynamics of the South. He composed both concepts from a series of differences between the penal institutions of the North and the South around a series of crucial dimensions: “regimentation”, “surveillance”, “isolation”, “supervision”, “accountability” and “formalization”. He summarized his main argument as follows: Looking at the various institutional dimensions reviewed in this essay, we find a relatively clear set of differences between the North America and Latin America. In the North, inmates are more regimented, more isolated and subject to greater surveillance; they are les involved in the running of the institution. North American Penal facilities are more open to external scrutiny and their bureaucracies are more formalized. In Latin America, inmates are less regimented, less isolated and subject to less surveillance; they are also more involved in the running of the institution. Latin American penal facilities are less open to external scrutiny and their bureaucracies are less formalized. One way to express these contrasts -quantitatively- is as a difference in the level of control: in North America, control is assiduous in the sense that is unceasing, persistent and intrusive: in Latin America, control is perfunctionary in the sense that it is sporadic, indifferent and cursory. But another way to express these contrasts -qualitatively- is in terms of the character of confinement: in North America there is imprisonment; in Latin America there is internment. (Birbeck, 2011, 319–320)

I consider this conceptual distinction to be problematic. And so is its association with the prisons in each of these regions.2 From my perspective it entails three main problems.

1 At one point the author recognized that, fundamentally, it is a comparison focused on the two contexts with which he is most familiar, the United States of America and Venezuela, and that from there he expands his descriptions at the regional level (Birkbeck, 2011, 308–309). 2 Birkbeck’s differentiation has been recently used by other authors when referring to Latin American prisons as examples of “internment”, although they have not necessarily made a detailed analysis of it. See in this regard Darke and Karam (2016, 469); Darke and Garces (2017, 4); Darke (2018, 73, 303; this volume); Macaulay (2019, 250).

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First, a central issue, although not indicated in the synthesis just quoted, is the identification of the objectives or goals that Birkbeck associates with these two theoretically constructed regimes of confinement. This ‘telos’ articulates the logic that the actors who build these regimes of confinement manifestly recognize as the one that guides their actions, beyond the interests and effects that are latently constructed. When conceptualizing “internment”—the Latin American regime of confinement—, Birkbeck (2011, 320) states that “detention is the sole objective” and “penal intervention is limited to spatial policy of confinement”. This is combined with the fact that he maintains that the discourses around the “rehabilitation ideal” have had and are widely disseminated in Latin American contexts, but “these visions were either never realized or only short lived” (Birkbeck, 2011, 320). In my view this is a simplistic reading of a much more complex process and dynamic. As I tried to suggest previously regarding the Argentine case (Sozzo, 2007, 2009), the history and the present of prisons in this national context are traversed by a “mixed economy”, between the “correctional model” and the “incapacitating model”. Both ways of structuring incarcerated life have had and have different levels of strength through time and space in Argentina’s prisons. More than ten years ago I emphasized that hand in hand with the growth of incarceration and overpopulation from the 1990s onwards, the “incapacitating model”—which I identified using previous works on the Global North (Garland, 2001; Irwin, 2004; O’Malley & Meyer, 2005)—seemed to broaden its scope, with a logic of mere confinement, to prevent prisoners from causing new crimes in social life, associated with the traditional idea of “social defense”, radically moving away from the “rehabilitative ideal”. However, I denied at the time that the “correctional model” could be treated as mere “rhetoric” without any impact on incarcerated life. And I consider that this is still the case today. This, of course, does not mean that the correctional model achieves its declared purpose in Argentine prisons, but it does mean that its logic effectively structures a whole series of practices in contexts of confinement. The correctional model has had a high level of incorporation in the legal discourse throughout the twentieth century in this country. This has been partially modified by recent legal reforms that have accompanied the punitive turn—especially through

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the restriction on the possibilities of flexibilization of the sentence in its implementation and, particularly, of accessing parole—but they have not completely disarmed it. Beyond the law—although, in part, related to its configuration—a whole series of activities in Argentine prisons are officially justified around the ideal and the language of rehabilitation. For example, the considerable degree of contact of prisoners with their families, which translates into a high frequency and duration of visits that involve direct contact—including intimate visits—and, more recently, the legalization—in some jurisdictions—of the possession of cell phones by prisoners (Arnaudo, 2021; Ferreccio, 2017; Gual, 2020). Or the relatively widespread access to educational activities, related to both the primary and secondary level of education, encouraged by a recent legal change that formally created an incentive for prisoners to carry out these activities in prisons—in a kind of sentence redemption for time of education-, to which is added a growing number of initiatives for prisoners generated by national universities. In the 2020 census of the prison population (SNEEP), 42% of the prisoners participated in some educational activity (Acin et al., 2016; Ghiberto & Sozzo, 2014; Gual et al., 2018; Gutierrez, 2012; Manchado et al., 2019; Moreira & Rojas, 2018; Routier, 2021; Sozzo, 2012). On the other hand, in that same 2020 census, 36% of the prison population carried out some type of paid work. However, as it has been revealed by various researchers in different jurisdictions, most of these work positions are for few hours a week, earn very low salaries, and frequently consist of maintenance tasks for the prison itself, their justification and implementation is hampered by the ideal and language of rehabilitation (Claus et al., 2019; Gual, 2015; 2017; Taboga, 2016a, 2016b). Even the multiplication of evangelical wings in Argentine provincial prisons, addressed in a chapter of this book (Navarro & Sozzo, this volume) as well as by a wide literature (referred to there), can be thought of as connected to this correctional ideal and language, given the weight that religious discourses and practices have traditionally had in this model. From my perspective, it is not possible to ignore this presence, as it would be in the general identification of the regime of confinement in this national context as “internment”. I do not pretend to sustain that what is stated here is valid for Latin America as a whole. Some of the explorations in this book, such as

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the work of Peirce (this volume) on the “new model” prisons in the Dominican Republic or the work of Darke (this volume) on the Brazilian “community-run prisons”, provide evidence referring to other countries—although, clearly in the second case, with very limited scope in relation to the immense prison universe of that country. In any case, I think that it is necessary to be cautious and to structure a future debate on this matter based on new contributions and inquiries. Now, on the other hand, when defining “imprisonment” as North America’s regime of confinement, in relation to its objectives, Birkbeck not only includes the “rehabilitative ideal”, but also the “ideal of punishment”. Although he does not explicitly state it, I consider that, based on his approving references to the work of Feely and Simon (1992) on the “new penology” and of Irwin (2004) on the “warehouse prison” (Birkbeck, 2011, 320), he also includes there the “ideal of incapacitation”, to which these authors refer in detail. In this sense, Birkbeck points out that when North American prisons abandon the “ideal of rehabilitation” and only seek “to reduce disorder, danger and risk”—which is clearly a reference to incapacitation—they do more than mere “detention” or “containment”, unlike the “internment”, the regime of confinement in Latin America. He highlights the greater degree of control of imprisoned life by state actors in the North. One could clearly think here of the extreme case of the supermax prisons and their wide diffusion.3 But when the prisons of the North set out to incapacitate—and even proclaim so in official discourse, as it has happened repeatedly in the United States since the 1970s—it could hardly be said that they are structuring a telos different from that observed in vast sectors of Latin American prisons that are closer to the image evoked by the concept of “internment”. In my view, the logic is similar even when there are obvious differences in the mechanisms to achieve it.

3 In recent decades there has even been certain diffusion of the style of confinement that the American “supermax” embody—although sometimes not identifying them with this name—in various Latin American countries, such as Brazil and Colombia (de Dardel & Söderström, 2015, 2018; Macaulay, 2013, 378–380; 2017, 54–55). This is another empirical element that, even when contained in its scope, introduces complications in this conceptual differentiation.

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Second, when it comes to drawing the differences between the prisons of the North and the South of the Americas in the different key dimensions identified, Birkbeck seems to accentuate certain contrasting features in the penal institutions of both regions, taking them to their maximum expression, hiding that in both there are cases and developments in which these differences may be less marked. It is important to underline how in the same paragraph quoted above, in which he summarizes his main argument, the differences between both regions are articulated with constant references to “more” or “less”, but then it is resolved in expressing these contrasts “qualitatively” as manifestations of two types of regimes of confinement. In the particular theme that concerns us in this book and which is dealt with by Birkbeck in the framework of the “supervision” dimension, he argues that in North America prisoners used to participate in “running the facility” but that this has been declining markedly in the last 70 years and, although he indicates that there are “gangs” that “represent an important mode of social organization among contemporary inmates”, they are not supported or accepted by the prison administration, who in any case opposes to or is cautiously tolerant” of them. On the other hand, in Latin America, in what he argues to be a “striking contrast”, “the use of some kind of building tender appears to be widespread and longstanding”, to which “a more problematic form of prisoner self-government, built on anarchy rather than authority” is added, “two styles of internal governance” that “ebb and flow” “throughout Latin America” (Birkbeck, 2011, 315–316). It is difficult, at this point, to fully agree with the landscape of prisons in North America depicted by Birkbeck. Although there seems to be an agreement in the literature on US prisons regarding the decline of the figure of the “building tender”, the important work of David Skarbek (2014) on the governmental role of “gangs” in Californian prisons—which is not precisely a marginal state in the field of the “great confinement” of the United States, with more than 200,000 prisoners at present-, around a “system of community responsibility”, fully demonstrates its relevance in the processes of construction of order in these penal institutions. It is difficult to argue that there is a radical difference with the governmental roles played by some organizations of prisoners in Latin American prisons—and even for this reason, some researchers

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working on these organizations adopt the very notion of “prison gangs” elaborated around the American case. In Skarbek’s work, the role of prison authorities and guards in relation to “prison gangs” is not scrutinized in detail. But the attitude of opposition or cautious tolerance that Birkbeck briefly points out does not appear to be radically different from those observed in some of the different chapters of this book that address formations that can be considered relatively similar in Latin America (Alvarez et al., this volume; Antillano, this volume; Weegels, this volume; Setegemann Dieter, this volume). In turn, Skarbek’s most recent work on what he defines as “decentralized mechanisms” of “inmate governance”, using the examples of women’s prisons in California (Skarbek, 2020, 89–105) and a “gay and transgender unit” in Los Angeles County Jail (Skarbek, 2020, 133–146), provides explorations of other types of processes in which inmates participate in the structuring of prison governance, which have obvious similarities to some of the other schemes discussed throughout this book. These considerations encourage us to think about the comparison between the prisons of the North and South of the Americas without elevating differences—which certainly exist— to the status of a contrast of “types” of incarceration, recognizing the existence of substantive variations within both regions and cases where relative similarities between the North and South of the Americas also emerge.4 Finally, one last—but not less important—reason to avoid this binary differentiation of “types” of incarceration associated with the Global North and South, is that a normative orientation can be implicit, as Ariza and Iturralde (this volume) rightly point out, which places the North as a point of arrival to which the South should aspire, exoticizing the contexts of confinement of the South, reproducing an old tradition in the field of 4 Hathazy and Muller (2016, 122–123) have already challenged the association of the notion of “internment” with prisons in Latin America. They argue that contemporary prisons in Argentina (especially at the federal level) and Chile have features that approximate the regime of confinement identified by Birkbeck as “imprisonment”, even when they point out that in a weak way and as a consequence of recent changes. On the other hand, they recognize that the prisons of other countries such as Brazil, Venezuela, Peru and Mexico are dominated by “internment”. In their proposal, however, it is possible to rescue this opposition between these two types of regimes of confinement, but as “ideal types”, “as two ends of a continuum of imprisonment practices”, for the purposes of “comparative assessments of empirical cases”.

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social studies about prisons—and, more generally, in the criminological field (Aliverti et al., 2021; Carrington et al., 2016, 2019; Darke, 2018, 20–22; Hathazy & Muller, 2016, 124). Martin et al. (2014, 4) have accurately raised the need to avoid facing the study of prisons in the Global South “in the terms of the Western prison”, assuming “scholarly accounts for the western prison as universally relevant” and reading these Southern “spaces of confinement” “in terms of deviance and the perpetual need for reform”. I cannot agree more with these warnings—and I will get back to them in the next section. From there, the authors point out the need to generate a “break from ‘same as / different from’ perspectives, symbolically loaded as they are with an alterity prone to the fate of exclusion” (Martinet al., 2014, 4). I believe that a difference of “types” of incarceration such as the one discussed so far generates this perverse analytical effect. But this is not the only way to face the comparative task and the delimitation of similarities and differences. It is possible to do so from a deep, dense exploration of each context on its own terms. From this base it is possible—and necessary—to generate a dialogue across borders, which does not abandon the possibility of establishing what is similar and what is different, but considers it to be the result of a long-term laborious task (Nelken, 2010, 2011; Sozzo 2018, 2021).

Theoretical Tools and North–South/South–South/South–North Dialogues Somewhat in relation to the previous point, here I want to critically analyze the question of whether the theoretical tools generated by Northern social researchers on prison life can be useful when thinking about the inmate governance schemes and dynamics in Latin America worked on throughout this book—as well as on other research problems related to the penal institutions in this region. Some discussions have recently emerged in this regard in social studies on prisons in Latin America, which I consider interesting to dwell on here (Sozzo, 2020).

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Within the framework of an effort to identify some general characteristics of contemporary incarceration in Latin America, Darke and Karam (2016, 469; see also Darke, 2018, 20–23) have raised the need to generate a more acute consideration of the extent to which the classical sociology of prison life “can be applied beyond the North”.5 They provide examples of arguments from Sykes (1999 [1958]), Goffman (1961), and Foucault (1977) that do not work well for understanding certain aspects of contemporary Latin American prisons. For example, with respect to Sykes, they briefly discuss his idea that there is a necessary relationship between the poor living conditions in prison and the destabilization of relations between captors and captives, since exactly the opposite is observed in many Latin American contexts of confinement, characterized by high doses of state abandonment (Darke & Karam, 2016, 469–470). In another similar effort, Hathazy and Muller explicitly contrast the position of Darke and Karam and point out that the “theoretical models developed by research in the Global North can, indeed, be productively applied to the analysis of Latin American prison worlds if they are modified and adapted to Latin American empirical realities” (Hathazy & Muller, 2016, 123). They argue that it is possible to re-read these theoretical frameworks in relation to empirical realities different from those that gave rise to them to discover their potential and explain what is observed. They point out: …instead of discarding concepts and theories because of different ‘places of origin’, we argue first, that the above-mentioned concepts and theories should be applied to those cases in the global South that clearly resemble developments in the global North. In fact, simply assuming that empirical developments in Latin America are so different from related processes in the global North that theories and categories applied to the analysis of the latter are ontologically incapable of ‘travelling South’ not only reproduces unintentionally and exoticizing perspective that contributes an ‘othering’ of Latin American realities. Moreover, it also fails to account for the fact that despite existing differences, Latin American prison systems, in 5 In the same sense in relation to Brazilian prisons, Darke (2018, 299–304). With respect to the Global South Drake et al. (2015, 928) briefly pose the same question.

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many ways, followed the developments of prison systems in the global North…Second, and more important, these concepts and theories can be adapted and extended to explain the variations and changes in the region´s prison regimes…to re-read those works from a different empirical vantage point that allows for discovering their potentialities for explaining prison realities that differ from the empirical reference points in relation to which these concepts and theories were originally developed (Hathazy & Muller, 2016, 123–124)

They also provide various examples in this regard. For example, they briefly explore Sykes’s ideas about the “rebellious” mode of adaptation to life in prison and about the “inmates’ social system” as a set of power relations, and point to their coincidence with a series of observations on the prisons in Brazil and Venezuela contained in the special issue they edited (Hathazy & Muller, 2016, 125–126). I think that this divergence between these two positions is less marked than it seems. What might be at stake in this discrepancy is the meaning given to the notion of “application” of theories and concepts generated in the North to the Global South, which appears explicitly in both texts. From my point of view, this notion should be reserved only for processes of “adoption” of a theoretical tool generated in the Global North, in which the researcher who analyzes a problem in the Global South understands what he observes in his own context as a substantiation of that which has been previously gestated in those other spatial coordinates. Now, when the “adaptation” of a concept or argument is at stake, a certain amount of innovation and creativity is introduced by the researcher who analyzes a problem in the Global South. This raises a “dialectic of the same and the different” that makes it difficult to discern the boundaries of one or the other, in a kind of “metamorphosis”, which in any case goes far beyond the borders of the mere “application” of what has been previously gestated in other spatial coordinates. Finally, those concepts and arguments built in the Global North can be the object of a “rejection” by the researcher who analyzes a problem in the Global South, whether he uses his empirical observations or his theoretical inventiveness to do so. In any case, these last two different intellectual operations refer to a “use” of the Northern theory in the Global South that goes

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far beyond the idea of “application” or “adoption”(Sozzo, 2006, 2017).6 Most likely, Hathazy and Muller would agree on the need to “reject” some concepts and arguments contained in Sykes’s work—or another classic author of the social studies on prisons in the Global North— when thinking about prisons in Latin America and, in turn, Darke and Karam would agree on the possibility of “adapting” some of his concepts and arguments to do so. In any case, I think that all of them would agree on the productivity of its “use”, in the sense that I am suggesting here, as an umbrella term that houses various intellectual operations with a more or less marked creative dimension, depending on the case. Now, possibly they would also agree on two other points that I consider crucial and which are interrelated—and connected with the previously referred warnings posed by Martin et al. (2014, 4). In the first place, this “use” can occur as long as it is based on a dense, deep exploration of prisons in Latin America that can be channelled through various techniques and procedures, but which must involve a strong “encounter with the empirical moment” in our own settings (Sozzo, 2006, 411, 416–417). Second, this also requires that such a task be developed from an attitude based on a strong awareness of the need to avoid the reproduction of the “coloniality of knowledge” (Aliverti et al., 2021; Bracco, 2020; this volume; Carrington et al., 2019; Lander, 2000). This implies annulling the traditional consideration of the theory produced in the Global North as “universal”, as a set of “timeless” and “spaceless” concepts and arguments. It involves proceeding to generate what Chakrabarty (2000) calls its “provincialization”, relativizing its possibilities in relation to what is observed, a different empirical reality, in another time and place (Aas, 2012, 5–7; Brown, 2018, 95; Carrington et al., 2019, 4–5, 184; Martin et al., 2014, 4). The risks of not meeting these requirements are very marked, since it implies falling into the long 6 In these preceding works I have analytically differentiated these intellectual operations in the processes of importation, from the Global North to Latin America, of theoretical vocabularies in the field of criminology, in a broad sense, in the remote and recent past—from positivist criminology to critical criminology-, recognizing that very frequently they are complexly intertwined in a particular local text. I consider that it constitutes an analytical scheme to think about the travels of ideas on the criminal question between the centre and the global peripheries beyond those specific examples (see also, Aliverti et al., 2021; Carringtn et al., 2019; Melossi et al., 2011).

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tradition of uncritical and light “application”/“adoption” exercises, so widespread in the past and present of the field of criminology in Latin America—and more generally, in the Global South (Alivertiet al., 2021; Carringtonet al., 2019; Sozzo, 2006, 2017). The authors of the different chapters of this book have taken important steps in this double sense, in relation specifically to the question of inmate governance in Latin American prisons. Within the framework of this recent counterpoint in the literature on Latin American prisons, I have rescued the references to Sykes, among the classics of social studies about institutions of confinement of the Global North, because I precisely consider that the “use” of—in the sense just defined—his concepts and arguments, is especially productive for the purposes of thinking about inmate governance in Latin American prisons (Navarro & Sozzo, 2020; Sozzo, 2020). In the late 1950s, in relation to American prisons, Sykes argued that the idea of “total control” by the authorities and guards over prisoners, although promoted by the same official rhetoric, is an illusion. Custodians do not have an “infinite power”, they “are not total despots” (Sykes, 1999 [1958], 42), their “dominant position” “is more fiction than reality” (Sykes, 1999 [1958], 45).7 The wide dissemination of violations to the rules by prisoners in the daily life of the prison is a constant indicator of how difficult it is to maintain order for those state actors in charge and how it is, to a certain extent, an always unfinished task (Sykes, 1999 [1958], 45–46). For this author, the use of force to generate order in the prison is, in fact, as inefficient as it is dangerous, since the prisoners are always more than the guards, violence usually generates violence and, in this way, the guards can absolutely lose control of the situation (Sykes, 1999 [1958], 49–50). This is something that custodians commonly recognize and from which they operate, so brutality is, according to Sykes, rare or contained (Sykes, 1999 [1958], 32, 64). 7

This does not prevent Sykes from recognizing the “authoritarian” character of this institution of legal punishment—recalling de Beaumont and Tocqueville-: “the prison is an authoritarian community and it will remain an authoritarian community, no matter how much the fact of the custodian’s power may be eased by a greater concern for the inmates’ betterment”. But then he adds controversially: “There are, however, many possible authoritarian communities and some are preferable to others” (1999 [1958]: 133). In another text he refers to “a totalitarian system rooted in the democratic matrix” (Sykes, 1956a: 97).

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Guards and prisoners, in turn, develop a closeness and intimacy based not only on a shared social background, but also on the prolonged periods they spend together in a closed space (Sykes, 1956a, 102–103; 1956b, 259–260; 1999 [1958], 33, 54). Sykes (1999 [1958], 56) states that, to a great extent, the guards depend on the prisoners for the construction of prison order. In this way, part of guards’ tasks is transferred to the hands of the prisoners whom they trust, especially the “cellblock runner”, who takes care of many more things than those that are recognized as his duties and “may wield power and influence far beyond nominal definition of their role” (Sykes, 1956a, 104–106; 1956b, 260–261; 1999 [1958], 57, 127). In turn, within the framework of a scheme of “reciprocity”, the guards constantly “look the other way”, tolerating certain infractions of official rules, in exchange for obedience to other rules—“where it really counts”—. In other words, “compromise” and “negotiation” between prisoners and guards is a constant and habitual component of prison life. (Sykes, 1956a, 100; 1956b, 260; 1999 [1958], 52–58, 127).8 Here those who are recognized as the leaders of the prisoners play a key role. Sykes, following prisoner argot, distinguishes different roles in the world of prisoners who are given specific names (1999 [1958], 84–86). The leader is the “real man”, a person who complies with the “inmate’s code”, a set of values and maxims to which prisoners publicly adhere as a guide for their behaviour.9 As such, he becomes a model, recognized both 8 Sykes stated: “In this limited sense, the control of the prison officials is partly concurred in by the inmates as well as imposed on them from above” (1999 [1958]: 74). 9 This “normative system” had already been partially described by Clemmer (1940), but Sykes’s innovation is to define its origin and function within the prison. In a 1960 article with Sheldon Messenger (Sykes-Messenger, 1960) he argues that this type of code is widespread and that it can be found in very different prisons, beyond the case studied in his book. For these authors, this is something that is rooted in the structural properties of incarceration. These properties are the “pains of incarceration”: the deprivations that go beyond the deprivation of liberty and that define the experience of incarceration. These deprivations affect the prisoner’s “selfimage”. (Sykes, 1956a, 106–110; 1999 [1958], 63–84) The “inmates’ code” is viewed as a way to alleviate these sufferings, to bear the weight of moral condemnation and its impact on self-image, by allowing prisoners to build relationships that mitigate the psychological and practical problems of incarceration. For Sykes the code is an ideal, which does not mean that the prisoners actually behave according to it. The code is “anti-institutional” in terms of its content, but it proposes order should not be broken except when it is essential and it promotes that there should be no hostilities among prisoners and between prisoners and guards. In this

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by authorities and guards and by prisoners, marked by his dignity and strength in the face of the adversities of incarceration. These “real men” are the “natural” intermediaries between the authorities and guards and the group of prisoners, actively participating in the negotiation of prison order. They constantly receive “informal” benefits10 and act as distributors of them among prisoners, structuring clientelistic schemes. It is important to note that, in Sykes’s perspective, these leaders are not seen by the other prisoners as “collaborators” with the authorities and guards, but rather as weavers of a delicate balance between “cooperation” and “rejection” (Sykes, 1956c, 136; 1999 [1958], 101–102, 107, 124–126; Sykes & Messinger, 1960, 10–11, 17). In fact, prison argot reserves other names for those who fulfil “collaborationist” roles. On the one hand, the “Center men”—referring to the site in the prison that is identified as the seat of the official control—who are the ones who adopt the perspective of the authorities and do not hide this alignment from the other prisoners. And there are also the “rats”, who inform the guards about the activities of other prisoners, betraying the loyalty of the group, in order to achieve personal benefits (Sykes, 1956a, 110; 1956c, 134; 1999 [1958], 87–90). All this leads Sykes to point out that in the prison he analyzes there is a “’semi-official self-government’ exercised by the inmate population” (1999 [1958], 122), that “the inmates have established their own unofficial version of control” (1999 [1958], 127) or the “illicit form of inmate self-government” (1999 [1958], 128). It is evident that, compared to the images of “total” or “complete” state control offered by other classic texts of social studies on prisons in the Global North (Foucault, 1977; Goffman, 1961), Sykes offers us several keys to think about different forms of participation by prisoners in the governance schemes and dynamics of incarcerated life (Navarro & Sozzo, 2020; Sozzo, 2020). Proceeding synthetically, I consider that sense, it is central to stabilizing the prison. The inmate’s code, in Sykes’s view, has a double function: it is a collective mechanism that allows prisoners to survive in prison and it is a source of institutional order (Crewe, 2016, 79–79).‘ 10 For Sykes (1999 [1958], 48–52), in the prison that he analyzed the “formal” rewards that were available to custodians, in the same way as punishments of the same type, do not have the necessary entity to motivate the prisoners to comply with the rules, since they imply little differences with respect to the living conditions that are imposed on them from the beginning of their confinement.

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there are at least four fundamental elements with which to dialogue in the study of inmate governance in contemporary Latin American prisons: (a) the frequent fictitious nature of total control by state agents— even when officially declared—and the actual dislocation of a part of the exercise of power from captors to captives; (b) consequently, the important and inevitable role of negotiation and compromise between captors and captives in the production of prison order; (c) the affirmation of the existence of multiple roles that prisoners can play in the governance of incarcerated life; and (d) the need to think about these roles in a continuum that implies different degrees of collaboration and contestation with respect to the prison authorities and guards. Arguing that it is useful to dialogue with Sykes’s work when thinking about inmate governance in Latin America does not mean it is indispensable, or that it should be the starting point of our inquiries—again, recalling the general warning of Martin (2014, 4). In numerous chapters of this book the authors make reference to Sykes, in some cases more incidentally, in other cases in a more substantive way, in some cases to point out similarities with what was observed in their research, in other cases to point out differences (Antillano, this volume; Ariza & Itrurralde, this volume; Avila & Sozzo, this volume; Darke, this volume; Diaset al., this volume; Navarro & Sozzo, this volume; Stegemann Dieter, this volume; Weegels, this volume). It is a resource among others possible to thinking about what is observed in certain contexts of confinement of our region. In the literature of recent years about inmate governance in Latin America it is possible to observe something similar regarding Sykes.11 It is interesting to note that a crucial concept in part of this literature, used to defining certain forms of participation of prisoners in the governmental relations of incarcerated life, has been that of “self-governance”, a 11

For example, recently, Sacha Darke has argued that there is an important difference between Sykes’s perspective and his own observations on inmate governance in Brazilian prisons. For Darke, the American author thinks of these governmental roles of the prisoners from the idea of ‘corruption of authority’ and as a ‘defect of bureaucratic power’ and not as the result of ‘institutionalizations of ordinary practices’ and’ as a way of sharing authority (Darke, 2018, 230, 287, 299, 303). Or, also recently, Weegels (2019, 62–63) has raised the usefulness of Sykes’s ideas about the impact of “prison riots” on the reconstruction of the balance of power between prisoners and authorities and guards in the contemporary context of Nicaraguan prisons.

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term—as we have just seen—employed by Sykes, although in his work it was not the object of a detailed reflection on its implications. This notion in this recent literature on Latin American prisons has not been predominantly constructed in dialogue with the American author. It is possible to argue that the theoretical elaboration in this regard has rather been the autonomous product of a dialogue between the various social researchers working on this issue in different countries of the region, in a kind of South-South exchange—although with a strong presence of authors based at universities in the Global North and dedicated to studying this region of the Global South. Its use can be observed in numerous very significant texts (Antillano, 2015, 2017, this volume; Antillano et al. 2016; Birkbeck, 2011; Cerbini, 2012, 2017; Darke, 2013, 2014, 2018, this volume; Darke & Días, 2016; Dake & Garces, 2017; Darke & Karam, 2016; Macaulay, 2017, 2019; Skarbek, 2010; Weegels, 2017, this volume). A potential problem with this notion is evoking the image of a generalized ‘withdrawal’ of the State, which would translate into its simple ‘absence’, and which would make the prisoners autonomously govern incarcerated life, while the State actors would dedicate themselves exclusively to guarding the boundaries between the inside and the outside of prisons. This is not a convincing image, from my point of view. Even in the most extreme cases, in which prisoner organizations have developed with a high capacity and scope to govern what happens in a prison—as illustrated in the chapters of this book on Brazil and Venezuela (see Dias, this volume, Stegemann Dieter, this volume; Darke, this volume; Antillano, this volume)—, they must negotiate and agree on a series of relevant issues with state actors. For example, the entry of illegal drugs, firearms or other prohibited or even permitted goods (food, refrigerators, televisions, etc.), garbage collection or the access of family and friends and their prolonged stay in the contexts of confinement. In all these cases, the cooperation of the authorities and guards in charge of guarding the prison borders is required. In certain cases, this cooperation is built on the basis of a corrupt exchange, but in others it is not. Furthermore, in some of these contexts there are also some interventions by state agents that routinely go beyond the prison walls because they are positively valued by the higher echelons of the prisoner hierarchy, such as educational and cultural or health care activities. But also, decisions and

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actions of state agents have been recorded in these same contexts, which imply going beyond the prison walls in a logic of confrontation, often using force, in order to alter the balance of power between the prisoners or even regain control of the penal institution. Finally, as it is evident, though its importance should not be overlooked, it is always these state agents who keep the prisoners incarcerated.12 Partly in relation to the misunderstandings that this image of withdrawal and absence of the State can generate and partly in relation to the realization of observations in contexts of confinement where the presence of state actors is more visible and evident, various researchers working on these schemes of participation of prisoners in the governance of imprisoned life in Latin America, have advanced the alternative notion of “co-governance”—again within the framework of a SouthSouth theoretical conversation—(Avila & Sozzo, this volume; Bracco, 2020, 45–50, 95–128; this volume; Darke, 2018, 139–197, 279–321; Peirce, this volume; Stegemann Dieter, this volume; Navarro & Sozzo, this volume; Weegels, 2019, this volume; ). Clearly this notion remedies the problem of imagining that state actors simply do not intervene in the governance of incarcerated life when some prisoners become governmental agents, illuminating the importance of revealing the weight of state decisions and actions. Now this notion raises another potential problem. It can easily evoke an image of these governance schemes in which there would only be a collaborative relationship between captors and captives, which makes one lose sight of confrontations and conflicts that often emerge between these actors in these contexts. It is essential to avoid this effect, placing such confrontations and conflicts in the centre of our attention, since the dynamics can be of “shared governance” but also of “contested governance” (Avila & Sozzo, this volume; Navarro& Sozzo, 2020, 213–215; this volume). Recently, David Skarbek (2020, 9–10, 16–17)—as I briefly pointed out in the Introduction to this volume—has very interestingly used 12

Antillano, one of the authors who has used the notion of “self-governance”, has been concerned in avoiding this image of mere “absence”, highlighting the roles of state agents in the governance of these contexts of confinement. He points out in this regard: “prison selfgovernance can only exist thanks to the support and tolerance of state actors” (2015, 31). See also Antillano (2015, 29–32; this volume) and Antillano et al. (2016, 208).

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these same notions to differentiate two types of “inmate governance” in contemporary prisons at a global level that, precisely, would differ in relation to the roles of state actors. In “self-governance” there would be an absence of “official governance”, that is, of governance by state actors, while in “co-governance” there would be governmental interventions by state actors but they would be characterized by their weakness. While the former evokes an idea of “replacement” of state actors by prisoners in the construction of prison order, the latter evokes an idea of “complementation” of state actors and prisoners in the development of this task. I think that Skarbek’s uses of these two notions clearly continue to have the aforementioned problems. But what I am interested in highlighting here is how these notions that have emerged in the fundamentally SouthSouth theoretical conversation, about prison order in Latin America—in which Skarbek (2010, 2016) has actively participated-, generate these categories that ‘travel’ to the Global North in his recent book, enabling potential uses to observe power relations in contexts of confinement in the United States and the United Kingdom (Skarbek, 2020, 89–146). This South-North exchange exercise shows the potential for a more egalitarian conversation in social studies about prisons between researchers focused on different regions of the world, beyond the traditional patterns of hierarchy and subordination that cross this as other fields of studies in social sciences (Aliverti 2021; Carrington et al., 2019).

Towards a Comparative Perspective Throughout this book, the authors have explored particular schemes of inmate governance in Latin American prisons in different national contexts. As a whole, this book shows us a high level of variation in these practices of governance in the region (Ariza & Iturralde, this volume; Darke, 2018, 18–19; Hathazy & Muller, 2016, 123; Macaulay, 2019, 243; Peirce, this volume). As Skarbek (2020, 150) has well stated, at a more general level, with respect to the different forms of construction of order in prisons globally, there are few comparative analyses, being the “focus overwhelmingly on single-site studies”. The same happens more

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specifically with respect to the various forms of prisoner participation in the governance relations of imprisoned life in Latin America. In this last section, based on the social research in this regard that has been developed in recent years, and especially on the contents of this book, I will seek to present a set of dimensions—with their respective different valences—for the exercise of comparison, making special reference to the various examples worked by the different authors of this collective volume. This is not the final outcome of a comparative study, but rather a preliminary proposal launched to boost discussion in this field of studies, as an initial contribution to carry out this task adequately.13 I consider that it can be useful to think comparatively not only within Latin America, but across other regions of both the Global South and North. In this sense, I identify seven crucial dimensions, which are relatively interrelated—in some cases more clearly than in others—and in which there are gradations between extreme points. This initial proposal for the exercise of comparison does not seek to explain the variations of inmate governance schemes but rather to describe their most relevant characteristics, which obviously constitutes a precedent task in order to develop a more ambitious one. The first dimension to consider is the degree of autonomy inmates have with respect to prison authorities and guards in regard to the development of the practices of governing incarcerated life, which allows them to generate their own decisions and actions, between a maximum and a minimum of state involvement in the construction of prison order.14 Thus, in prisoners’ organizations with a strong and complex structure, such as the Primeiro Comando da Capital in the prisons of the state of Sao Paulo and in other states of Brazil, it is possible to find the maximum degree of autonomy (Dias et al., this volume, Stegemann Dieter, this volume). This maximum degree of autonomy could 13

In this exercise I dialogue with some points raised previously by Macaulay (2017, 51; 2019, 253–254) and Skarbek (2020, 12–18). 14 As I stated in the previous section, it is necessary to avoid assuming that there is something like mere absence and lack of intervention of state actors. Examples of governance schemes that embody the extreme degrees of this continuum, in relation to the autonomy of prisoners as governance agents, have been frequently thought of in the literature on prisons in Latin America through the notions, respectively, of “self-governance” and “co-governance”, which we also analyzed in the previous section.

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also be embodied by the figure of the Narco in Colombian prisons, (Ariza & Iturralde, this volume), the Carro in some Venezuelan prisons (Antillano, this volume) or the Tigres of the prisons in the Dominican Republic before the reform of the early 2000s (Peirce, this volume).15 In turn, this autonomy has lesser but relatively strong degrees—and similar to each other- in other mechanisms of inmate governance in the region, as in the case of the Gallada in Nicaraguan prisons (Weegels, this volume) or the evangelical wings of the provincial prisons in Argentina (Navarro & Sozzo, this volume). In comparison, surely this degree of autonomy is lower in the Delegadas of the Santa Mónica prison in Peru (Bracco, this volume), the Consejos de Internos of the Nicaraguan prisons (Weegels, this volume), the Representantes of the “old model” prisons in the Dominican Republic (Peirce, this volume), the Comites de Solidaridade of the São Paulo prisons in the 1980s (Dias et al., this volume) or the “prisoner entrepreneur” of the Punta de Rieles prison in Uruguay (Avila & Sozzo, this volume). Second, we can identify the degree of symmetry between prisoners and prison authorities and guards. The relationships between captors and captives in modern prisons have always been marked by an asymmetry, an imbalance, which can be considered structural and constitutive of the exercise of power in this type of contexts. However, inmate governance schemes may imply a certain reduction in this asymmetry, which may be more or less substantive, depending on the case. Thus, in prison organizations with a strong and complex structure such as the PCC in prisons of Brazil (Dias et al., this volume, Stegemann Dieter, this volume) or the Narco in the case of Colombian prisons (Ariza & Iturralde, this volume), the asymmetry, the imbalance is severely reduced, which means that state actors must be very careful when defining when and how to intervene in prison life, in order to avoid adverse effects on prison order. At the other extreme, always within the examples discussed in this book, we can find the “prisoner entrepreneur” from the Punta de Rieles prison in Uruguay 15

It is difficult to place the cases of the “community-run” prisons in Brazil analyzed by Darke (this volume) in this dimension. It would seem that state intervention in APAC prisons is really minimal—although it is always the state that authorizes their operation and sends prisoners there—while it is somewhat greater in the CRs—since state agents are in charge of security. In any case, they seem closer to the extreme of the maximum degree of autonomy.

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(Avia & Sozzo, this volume) or the members of the Consejo de Internos of Nicaraguan prisons (Weegels, this volume) whose governmental roles are clearly the product of a delegation by prison authorities and are subject to their control, which may not be insidious but permanent. In these cases, the subordination of this type of prisoners to state actors is more frequent and evident. Third, the degree of confrontation between prisoners and prison authorities and guards around the construction of order. Prisoners’ participation in the governance mechanisms of incarcerated life may be framed in a relationship predominantly marked by collaboration with prison authorities and guards. This does not necessarily imply a zero degree of confrontation—and hence the ambivalence that often surrounds these actors in the world of prisoners. The examples of the Delegadas of the Santa Monica prison in Peru (Bracco, this volume) or of the Consejo de Internos in the prisons of Nicaragua (Weegels, this volume) seem to be located around this extreme point. On the contrary, the case of the Carro in certain prisons in Venezuela (Antillano, this volume) or of the PCC in prisons in Brazil (Dias et al., this volume, Stegemann Dieter, this volume) seem to be in the opposite extreme of the continuum, maximizing the levels of confrontation—although this does not imply neither a zero degree of collaboration. Fourth, the degree of the scope of prisoner governance practices. In certain cases, the scope is defined by the facets of imprisoned life prisoners can effectively govern. In this way, the “prisoner entrepreneur” of the Punta de Rieles prison in Uruguay can govern his employees while they are working, but this capacity does not extend beyond this activity—and the place in which it is developed (Avila & Sozzo, this volume). This scope is broader in the case of the hierarchy of the evangelical wing in Argentine provincial prisons, since their practices of governance extend to different facets of the lives of those who live in it—from the religious activities to the music that it is listened to and the way to do it- but it also has its limits of a spatial nature since they only do it within this specific area of the prison (Navarro & Sozzo, this volume). It is much broader in the case of the Carro in certain prisons in Venezuela (Antillano, this volume), where their practices of governance cover almost the entire prison and all facets of incarcerated life. And it is

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even broader in the case of the PCC in Brazil, which not only exceeds the limits of a singular prison, encompassing many penal institutions in one state, but increasingly other states (Dias et al., this volume, Stegemann Dieter, this volume). Fifth, the degrees of complexity of inmates’ organizational structures for the development of the practices of governance of incarcerated life. There are inmate governance schemes structured around organizations that include a large group of prisoners who are assigned different roles within the framework of a hierarchy with different levels. This hierarchy is based on their own rules—even written, in some cases- and produces a strong identity among the participants, which persists over time. A paroxysmal example in this regard discussed in this book would be the PCC in the prisons of Brazil (Dias this volume, Stegemann Dieter, this volume). But these characteristics can also be found in the scheme of the Carro of certain prisons in Venezuela (Antillano, this volume), in the scheme of the evangelical wings of provincial prisons in Argentina (Navarro & Sozzo, this volume) or in the “community-run” prisons in Brazil (Darke, this volume). In the antipodes, simpler inmate governance schemes could be identified, which even anchor the exercise of governance practices in some singular, isolated prisoners, as in the case of the “prisoner entrepreneur” of the Punta de Rieles prison in Uruguay (Avila & Sozzo, this volume) or in the Representantes of the prisons of the “old model” of the Dominican Republic (Peirce, this volume).16 16

In relation to the organizational structures of the inmate governance practices, it would be possible to include other characteristics as relevant to differentiate schemes, consistent or not with the reference made here to their complexity -related, in turn, to the differentiation between centralization / decentralization raised by Skarbek (2020, 12). A possible axis—pointed out by Macaulay (2017, 51)—would be the distinction—less in terms of gradation than in a binary key—between the organizational structures that only operate inside the prison—most of the schemes analyzed throughout this book- and those that also do so outside the prison walls -such as the case of the PCC in Brazil (Dias et al., this volume, Stegemann Dieter, this volume) and, to some extent, the case of the evangelical pavilions, considering their relationship with the external churches, in the provincial prisons in Argentina (Navarro & Sozzo, this volume). Another possible axis—also pointed out by Macaulay (2017, 51)—that would also imply a binary key, would be to differentiate those organizational structures that within the same prison acquire a monopolistic status—as frequently happens with the presence of the PCC in Brazil (Dias et al., this volume, Stegemann Dieter, this volume)—and those that in the same confinement context compete between each other in some way—as, for example, in the provincial prisons of Argentina those that are structured in the evangelical and common wings

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Sixth, the degree of use by the prisoners themselves of violence as a tool to govern incarcerated life. This is a very significant dimension since, especially in the public sphere, certain mechanisms of inmate governance—and even the very idea that prisoners participate as actors in the governance of incarcerated life—is strongly associated with the frequent and intense exercise of physical violence. In several of the studies contained in this book, violence appears as a very frequent and intensely used tool at certain moments in the past of these governance schemes, as in the case of the PCC in Brazilian prisons (Dias et al., this volume, Stegemann Dieter, this volume) or the Carro of certain prisons in Venezuela (Antillano, this volume). This does not mean that it is not used today, but it seems to be much more dosed and focused. A panorama of greater use is the one that emerges around the ley de la Gallada in the prisons of Nicaragua (Weegels, this volume). Certainly, the levels of use appear as closer to the minimum point in other cases addressed in this book, such as in the evangelical wings of the provincial prisons of Argentina (Navarro & Sozzo, this volume), in the system of Delegadas in the Santa Mónica prisons in Peru (Bracco, this volume), in the “prisoner entrepreneur” in the Punta de Rieles prison in Uruguay (Avila & Sozzo, this volume) and the “community-run” prisons of Brazil (Darke, this volume).17 Finally, the degree of formalization of prisoners’ participationin the relations of governance of incarcerated life. For the most part, these inmate governance schemes in Latin America have been conceived and developed outside the legal and administrative rules of prisons, in daily (Navarro & Sozzo, this volume). Finally, a third characteristic that could be outlined would be related to the degrees of stability over time of the organizational structure, differentiating those schemes that present high levels, such as the PCC in Brazil (Dias, this volume, Stegemann Dieter, this volume), of those that are more ephemeral, linked to specific circumstances that have a certain degree of volatility, such as the solidarity committees of the São Paulo prisons in the 1980s (Dias et al., this volume). 17 Recently, Gual (2021) has proposed another differentiation with respect to violence as an instrument of inmate governance that may be interesting to explore, in its articulation with the distinction about its greater or lesser use raised here. In some inmate governance schemes in the region, their regulations only allow the use of physical force to certain actors within the organizational structure and prohibit—and severely sanction—it beyond them. In other cases, this does not happen, so violence could be used by many actors in the world of prisoners. Then, he proposes to identify various levels of concentration of the use of violence by prisoners.

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practices and as part of the broader informality as a trait that characterizes this type of penal institution in the region—which we already referred to briefly in the Introduction. In some cases, the prison authorities participate in some way in activating the actors who play governmental roles in the world of prisoners, but nevertheless it continues to be an informal position, as in the Delgadas of the Santa Monica prison in Peru (Bracco, this volume) or the Representantes of the “old model” prisons in the Dominican Republic (Peirce, this volume). However, there are also cases in which there is a formalization—of diverse intensity and form- of these governmental roles, such as in the Comites de Solidaridade of the São Paulo prisons in the 1980s (Dias, this volume), in the Consejo de Internos of the Nicaraguan prisons (Weegels, this volume) and in the various schemes of the “community-run” prisons of Brazil (Darke, this volume). The positions of the various inmate governance schemes in the continuums of these different dimensions may have a relatively strong correlation in certain cases. Thus, for example, it would seem that greater autonomy usually corresponds to greater symmetry. However, it is necessary to be cautious and avoid building these links as necessary, always and in all cases. Schemes in which the levels of autonomy and symmetry are high can acquire a fundamentally collaborative characteristic—such as the evangelical wings in the provincial prisons of Argentina (Navarro & Sozzo, this volume)—or fundamentally confrontational—as in the Carro of certain prisons in Venezuela(Antillano, this volume). On the other hand, some of these dimensions, such as violence and formalization, do not tend to have, by contrast, a clear correlation with the variations on other dimensions. As Skarbek has raised, I consider that a comparative approach allows dialogue between single-site research of different scholars in this regard, which has been growing significantly recently—and of which this book is an example-, generating within the framework of a collective and collaborative effort a greater capacity to construct generalizations. Clearly “a more intentional and systematic effort by researchers could greatly accelerate our learning by making more studies relevant to a comparative project” (Skarbek, 2020, 155). In this sense, this initial proposal is conceived as a further step in this direction, which awaits to be taken

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up and critically discussed by those who address the problem of inmate governance, both within and outside Latin America.

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Sozzo, M. (2021). Inequality, welfare and punishment: Comparative notes between the Global North and South. European Journal of Criminology. Online first. Sykes, G. M. (1956b). The corruption of authority and rehabilitation. Social Forces, 34, 257–262. Sykes, G. M. (1956b). Men, merchants, and toughs: A study of reactions to imprisonment. Social Problems, 4 (2), 130–138. Sykes, G. M. (1956c). Crime and society. Random House. Sykes, G. M. (1999 [1958]). The society of captives: A study of a maximum security prison. Princeton University Press. Sykes, G. M., & Messinger, S. L. (1960). The inmate social system. In R. A Cloawrd et al. (Eds.), Theoretical studies in social organization of the prison (pp. 5–19). Social Science Research Council. Taboga, J. (2016a). Trabajo en la prisión. Una exploración sociológica sobre las prácticas laborales y sus efectos. Tesina de Licenciatura en Sociología, Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Taboga, J. (2016b). Privaciones del encarcelamiento y trabajo carcelario: La mirada de los detenidos de la unidad penitneicaria N. 1 de la Provincia de Santa Fe. Delito y Sociedad, 42, 77–102. Weegels, J. (2017). Prisoner self-governance and survival in a Nicaraguan city police jail. Prison Service Journal, 229, 15–18. Weegels, J. (2019). Prison riots in Nicaragua: Negotiating co-governance amid creative violence and public secrecy. International Criminal Justice Review, 30 (1), 61–82. Weegels, J. (this volume). Enduring lock-up. Co-governance and exception in Nicaragua’s hybrid carceral system.

Index

A

Abolitionism 334 abolitionists 335, 348, 352 Admission 271, 281, 284 Adorno, S. 44, 45, 58 Agamben, G. 159, 178 Agentes (Agents) 18 Agentes (Officers) 95, 110 Algranti, J. 260, 262–265, 267, 269, 270, 274, 279, 281, 283–285 Aliverti, A. 375, 378, 379, 385 Alternatives to detention 24, 343 Alvarez, M.C. 8, 10, 14, 16, 42, 47–49, 51, 53, 137, 280, 374 Andersen, J. 260, 264, 265, 279, 283, 285 Antillano, A. 5, 10, 12, 19, 131, 136, 146, 149, 158, 216,

238, 240, 242, 279, 317, 374, 382–384, 387–391 Arbitrariness/arbitrary 46, 49 Argentina 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 16, 22, 370, 374, 387, 389–391 Buenos Aires province 261–263, 267 federal prisons 264, 265 provincial prisons 279, 287 Santa Fe 22 Santa Fe province 261–263, 266–268 Ariza, L. 6, 8, 13, 17, 65, 66, 86, 148, 374, 382, 385, 387 Association for the Protection and Assistance of the Convict (APAC) APAC de Bragança Paulista 345 APAC de Itaúna 329–331, 333, 334, 337, 344, 347, 348

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Sozzo (ed.), Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America, Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98602-5

399

400

Index

APAC de Patrocínio 332 APAC de São José dos Campos 331, 345 APAC de São Luis 334, 348 Autonomy 386, 387, 391 Avila, F. 11, 12, 15, 23, 142, 188, 213, 285, 299, 301, 323, 382, 384, 387–390

B

Baile de la botella (dance of the bottle) 167, 168 Ballesteros, A. 300 Bandyopadhyay, M. 2, 191, 214, 220, 237, 240, 244–247, 251, 252 Batista, N. 336, 349 Bergman, M. 6, 8, 10, 11, 13 Biondi, K. 45, 49, 217, 349 Birkbeck, C. 9–12, 80, 209, 210, 316, 368–370, 372–374, 383 Blundo, G. 158 Bosworth, M. 238, 239, 245 Bottoms, A.E. 40, 53 Bottom-up dynamics 283 Bowden, M. 67, 73, 75, 82, 83 Bracco, L. 21, 285, 316, 318, 378, 384, 387, 388, 390, 391 Brardinelli, R 260, 262–265, 267, 269, 274, 285 Brazil 2–4, 7–10, 14–16, 21, 24, 38, 43–46, 53, 54, 57, 58, 187, 190, 194, 210, 211, 214, 216, 372, 374, 377, 383, 386–391 Maranhão 334

Minas Gerais 329, 331, 332, 334, 342 Rio de Janeiro 339–341 São Paulo 8, 51, 331, 334, 337, 338, 340, 345, 346 Brazilian Fraternity for the Assistance of Convicts (FBAC) 331, 332, 344 Building tender 373 Business 305–307, 310–312, 315, 321 business rules 311, 315

C

Carceral injustice 335, 336 Carceral institution/system 182 Carlen, P. 235, 236, 239 Carrington, K. 188, 191, 237, 251, 375, 378, 379, 385 Carro, El 140, 141, 387–391 Castro e Silva, A.M.de 190, 216–218, 220 Catedral, la (The Cathedral) 17, 18, 67, 68, 71–73, 75, 78, 79, 81–83, 86, 89 Centralization 99, 100 Cerbini, F. 137, 188, 192, 212, 220, 244, 245, 316, 322 Chakrabarty, D. 378 Chamberlain, A. 375 Chantraine, G. 42, 43 City police jail (CPJ) 157 Coelho, E.C. 43, 44, 190, 209, 218 Coercion 188, 193, 194, 207, 208, 210, 214, 222 Co-governance 2, 14, 15, 20, 21, 23, 25, 156, 157, 159, 160, 165, 176–178, 181, 188,

Index

189, 191, 192, 207, 216–218, 220–223, 234, 238, 240, 242, 243, 261, 285, 286, 300, 315, 316, 339, 368, 384, 385 Collaboration 299, 316, 334, 342, 382, 388 Collaborator 269, 270, 273, 274, 279 Collective 338–340, 342, 343, 349, 352 Collective (colectivo) 161–163 Collectivism 12 collective 13, 16 Collectivist 304, 323 Collusion 20, 156, 160, 180 Colombia 5, 7, 9, 16, 68, 69, 74, 82, 83, 85, 88, 372 Colonialism 238 Comando Vermelho (CV) 10, 44 Comites de Solidaridade (Solidarity committes) 387, 391 Community development bank 307 Comparison 2, 5, 11, 368, 374, 386, 387 comparative perspective 368, 385 Complexity 389 Confinement 174, 182 Confrontation 39, 51, 56, 280, 281, 285, 286, 316, 321, 384, 388 Conquest 284, 285 Consejo de Internos (inmate council)/Consejos (members of the inmate council) 156, 160, 163, 166, 388, 391 Consent 188, 193, 194, 207, 208, 212–222 Containment 21

401

philosophy/culture of containment 198, 200 policy of containment 189 Control 7, 10, 14, 18, 19, 99, 101, 104, 106, 107, 113, 117, 120, 121, 130–132, 134, 135, 137, 139, 140, 144, 146–148, 161, 165, 182, 188, 190, 199, 200, 202, 204, 205, 209, 210, 216, 220–222, 240, 242, 245 Convict criminology 335, 354 Conviviality 240, 241, 244, 247, 248 Cooperation 263, 280, 285, 286 Correction 371 correctional model 370 Corruption 95, 97, 102, 104, 111, 121 Crewe, B. 188, 190–192, 194, 210, 211, 213, 219, 300, 308, 315, 323 Crisis 189, 190, 201, 206, 215, 219, 221, 222 Cultural Association for the Development of Prisoners and Former Prisoners (ACUDA) 343–347, 349, 353 Cunha, M. 191, 194

D

Darke, S. 2, 6, 8–12, 14, 15, 24, 45, 50, 55, 64–66, 69, 100, 101, 137, 158, 167, 188, 190–192, 194, 212, 213, 216, 217, 220, 235, 237, 238, 240, 279, 285, 297,

402

Index

316–318, 333, 337, 339, 340, 352, 369, 372, 375, 376, 378, 382–385, 387, 389–391 Decentralization 117 Decolonial approach 21, 233 Delegadas (Delegates) 387, 388, 390 Delegates 241–243, 247–249, 251, 252 Delegation 318, 319 Denyer Willis, G. 179 Depatriarchal approach 21, 234 de Souza Santos, B. 21, 234, 240, 244, 247, 248 Dialogue 12, 15, 19, 21, 25, 101, 117–119, 188, 189, 193, 204–208, 213, 217–223 Dias, C.N. 8, 10, 14, 16, 45, 49–51, 53, 55, 57, 58, 66, 137, 191, 207, 218, 280, 382, 383, 386–391 Difference 367–369, 372, 373, 375, 376, 382 DiIulio, J.J.J. 41, 190, 216, 219, 220, 223 Disciplinary tools/function 181 Discipline/disciplinary 24, 39, 107, 109, 110, 113, 114, 117, 131, 135, 140, 143, 144, 189, 191, 192, 197, 205, 210–212, 217, 218, 223, 276 disciplinary code/rules 330, 333, 344, 347, 353 disciplinary committee 330, 333, 344 disciplinary institutions 81 disciplinary powers 24, 77, 334, 335, 350, 352

disciplinary proceedings 333, 335, 354 disciplinary rules 24, 82 disciplinary sanctions 200 disciplinary technology 77 Discretion 275, 276 Dislocation 261, 282, 283, 285 Domination 188, 192, 207, 208, 212, 219, 222, 224 Dominican republic 5, 7, 16, 18, 93–96, 100, 102, 120, 372, 387, 389, 391

E

Economy 19, 107, 114, 132, 139, 146, 148 Entrepreneurism 300 Escobar, J.P. 63, 67–69, 71–76, 79, 80, 83 Ethnographic research 156 Ethnography 21, 188, 191, 194, 217, 234 Evangelical wing 13, 22, 23, 371, 387–391 evangelism 13, 22, 266 multiplication of evangelical wings 260, 264 conditions 261 processes 261 Exception, state of 159, 178, 180, 182 Exclusion 19, 26, 132–134, 138, 143, 144, 148, 149 Exploitation/overexploitation 131–133, 137, 144, 145, 147, 149 Ex-prisoners 24 Expulsion 272, 277, 281, 284

Index

External private companies 314

F

Feminist approach 234 First Commend of the Capital (PCC) 340 Focus group 195, 205 Fondevilla, G. 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 99 Formalization 318, 369, 390, 391 Foucault, M. 2, 39, 42, 77, 80, 133, 145, 188, 190, 192, 210, 223, 376, 381 Fragmentation 50, 58 Friction 299, 315, 319, 321

G

Gago, V. 133, 145, 148 Galería 161 Galindo, M. 238, 239 Gallada, La 387, 390 Gang 340 Garces, C. 6, 9, 10, 12, 64, 65, 69, 188, 190, 235, 237, 238, 316, 317, 337, 339, 340, 343 Garland, D. 300, 308, 323 Gender gender-aware epistemology 238 gendered context 252 gender roles 236 Global North 9, 11, 25, 188, 191, 210, 211, 213, 214, 219, 220, 222–224, 233, 237–239, 252, 300, 301, 303, 322, 367, 368, 370, 374, 376–379, 381, 383, 385

403

Global South 1, 21, 22, 24, 188, 191, 192, 194, 210, 211, 213, 214, 218, 220, 222–224, 233, 234, 237, 238, 251, 252, 297, 367, 368, 374–377, 379, 383, 386 Goffman, E. 39, 79, 161, 166, 188, 190, 210, 219, 351, 376, 381 Goodman, P. 300 Gosling, H. 334, 348, 350, 351, 353 Governance 1, 2, 10–20, 22, 23, 25, 132, 146, 148, 188, 190, 233, 234, 237–239, 252, 280, 282, 283, 352 centralized governance 101 co-governance 94, 100, 103, 111, 118, 119 contested governance 384 decentralized governance 117 extralegal governance 317 extra-official governance 100, 101, 117 governance mechanisms 38, 39, 41, 52, 58 informal governance 220 official governance 117, 118, 190, 317, 385 prison governance 36–38, 40, 41, 45, 48, 57, 59, 94, 99, 100, 116, 117, 188–190, 192, 194, 199, 207, 213, 216, 219, 222 shared governance 55, 384 Government 66, 67, 72, 73, 82, 83, 85, 89 self-government 66 Governor Montoro, F. 46

404

Index

Gramsci, A. 188, 192, 193, 207, 213, 218, 220, 222 Grendon prison 351, 352, 354 Griffiths, A. 244 Growth of incarcerated population/prison population 135, 139, 148 Gual, R. 314, 317, 371 Guards 156, 161–165, 167, 170, 172, 179

H

Hannah-Moffat, K. 234, 239, 300 Harvey, D. 132, 145 Hathazy, P. 9, 10, 135, 136, 264, 265, 374–378, 385 Hegemony 20, 237 hegemonic apparatus 207, 213, 221 hegemonic project/project of hegemony 193, 208, 209, 212, 218, 221, 222 Hierarchy 259, 260, 265–267, 269, 270, 273–275, 280–282, 285 Higa, G. 47, 48 Hogg, R. 188, 191, 237 Horizontal 304, 319 Humanization plan 97, 121 Human rights 332, 335, 336, 343, 346, 348–350 Hybrid carceral system 156, 157, 159 Hybridity 68, 81, 87 Hybrid legal system 234, 240, 244, 247, 250 Hybrid system/regime 12

I

Ideology 19, 136, 195, 203 Illegal markets/activities 40, 65, 66, 78 Illicit economy 175, 177 Imperative of activation 301, 302, 311, 315 Imprisonment 369, 372 Incapacitation 372 incapacitating model 370 Incarceration 36, 40, 42, 54 expansion/intensification of Incarceration 36 incarceration growth/growth of incarceration 4–6, 8, 10 incarceration rate 2–6, 263, 264 mass incarceration 54, 56 Incarceration rate 64, 65, 135, 137 Incompleteness 79, 80 Informal arrangement 206 Informal authority 101 Informal dynamics 339 Informal governance/mechanisms 58 Informality 297, 304 informal authority 24 informal codes 145 informal governance 21 informal negotiation 8 informal order 135 informal rules 142, 143 Informal negotiation 189, 190, 216 Informal order/dynamics 239, 240 Inmate 314, 317 inmate code 312, 380 inmate collective/group 192, 217 inmate organization 389 organization of inmates 204, 215

Index

405

Inmate governance 338, 339, 367, K 368, 379, 382, 385, 387, Karam, M.L. 6, 9, 10, 12, 297, 316, 390, 392 317, 334, 337, 341, 369, arrangements/schemes 2, 9, 14, 376, 378, 383 15, 23 Krmpotic, C.S. 262, 284 conditions of possibility 13, 15 expansion 2, 9, 10 inmate governance schemes/mechanisms/arrangements L 368, 374, 375, 385–387, Latin America 2, 3, 6, 8–11, 15, 18, 389–391 21, 23–25, 64, 65, 68, 69, multiplication 2, 9, 10, 15 76, 80, 131, 134, 136, 141, Insecurity 181 142, 145, 235, 237–240, Inside-out 284 242, 279, 280, 285, Institutional presence 316–318, 337, 368, 369, abdicated institutional presence 371, 373–376, 378, 379, 118 382, 384–386, 390, 392 authoritarian institutional Lay 304 presence 101, 119 Leaders 263, 269, 270, 273–276, Interface brokers 234, 242 279, 281, 286 Interlegality 12, 21, 234, 244, 250, Legal pluralism 252 251 Legitimacy 40, 42, 51–53, 59 Internment 369–372 Le Meur, P. 158 Interview 97, 98, 104, 106, 108, Lessing, B. 99, 101 109, 113, 119, 121, 189, Ley de la gallada 171, 172 195, 196, 202 Liebling, A. 97, 99, 190, 219 Irwin, J. 234, 235 Long, N. 234, 240, 242 Iturralde, M. 8, 13, 17, 64, 65, 73, 85, 86, 134, 137, 148, 158, 236, 374, 385, 387 M

J

Jacobs, J.B. 40, 41, 190, 219 Jefferson, A. 2, 237, 240, 251, 252 Jefferson, A.M. 188, 191, 194, 210, 214, 220 Jodadera 171–175

Macaulay, F. 64–66, 69, 280, 341, 342, 345, 346, 349, 372, 383, 385, 386, 389 Manchado, M. 260, 262–265, 268, 269, 275, 279, 280, 284–286 Maras 13 Market 13, 68, 70, 79, 81, 86, 87

406

Index

Martin, T.M. 12, 190, 191, 214, 220, 237, 238, 240, 251, 375, 378, 382 Mass incarceration 188, 192, 209 Mathiesen, T. 190, 191, 210, 211, 213, 219 Matthews, R. 190, 192 Mediation 264, 273 Method 97, 99 Miller, P. 301 Monopoly/monopolization 58 Muller, M.M. 6, 9, 10, 375–378, 385 Mutual aid 304, 323

N

Narco 13, 17, 18, 64, 65, 67–71, 73–76, 78–82, 84, 387 Narco culture 74 Navarro, L. 9–11, 13, 22, 141, 143, 240, 282, 316, 318, 371, 379, 381, 382, 384, 387–391 Negotiation 39, 43, 48, 51, 238, 241, 242, 244, 252, 261, 264, 280, 281, 284–286 Neoliberal 323 Neoliberalism 19, 77 neoliberal creed 19, 131, 133, 144 neoliberal government 132, 137 neoliberal hegemony 134 neoliberal logic 145, 149 neoliberal order 19, 133, 144, 150 neoliberal project 134 neoliberal rationality 143, 145 neoliberal state 136, 145

Neowelfarist 323 Nicaragua 4, 5, 7, 16, 20, 156–160, 166, 179–182, 388, 390 North-South dialogue 375 Nuevo modelo de gestion penitenicaria (New prison management model) 93, 95 Nuñovero, L. 19, 101, 117–119, 240

O

Officers military officers 95, 97, 103, 117 police officers 107 VTP officers 97, 102, 110, 113–115, 119 Official governance 14 O’ Malley, P. 301, 323 Ottoboni, M. 330–333, 348 Outside-in 283, 284 Outsourcing 22, 283, 318 Overcrowding 7, 12, 20, 36, 41, 54, 65, 76, 85, 96, 155, 166, 191, 199–201, 203, 209, 235, 264

P

Paixão, L.A. 44 Participant observation 97, 189, 195 Pastor external pastor 266–269, 275, 278, 281, 283–286 internal pastor 266–279, 281, 282, 285, 286 Patriarchalism 234, 235, 238, 239, 245

Index

Peirce, J. 11, 18, 94, 96, 97, 99, 135, 159, 349, 372, 384, 385, 387, 389, 391 Penal re-education 157, 180 penal re-education ideology/discourse 155 Penal treatment 189, 196, 197, 199, 214, 215, 219, 221 Penglase, B. 156, 158, 159, 172, 179 Penitentiary project 77, 80, 88 Peonía 129, 131, 133, 134, 139, 142, 143, 145, 146 Pérez Guadalupe, J. 9, 16, 101, 117–119, 238, 240, 242 Permeability 79, 81 Peru 7, 9, 16, 244, 252, 387, 388, 390, 391 Pojomovsky, I. 134, 143 Police officer 156, 165 Political economy 68, 89 Porosity 68, 87 Positions 260, 265, 266, 268, 269, 273 Post-neoliberalism post-neoliberal government 134 Power 67–71, 73–75, 77, 79, 82, 88, 89, 99, 103, 105, 108, 117, 119, 120, 122, 131, 133, 140, 142, 146–148, 242, 245, 252, 261, 269, 279, 280, 282, 283, 285, 307, 315, 316, 318, 334, 335, 340, 346, 351, 382, 384, 387 hard power 21, 213 power brokers 105 power dynamics 233, 238, 252

407

power relations 1, 18, 36, 40, 52, 53, 58, 65, 67, 68, 78, 181, 188, 191, 192, 194, 207, 208, 213, 216, 219, 222, 261, 279, 317, 377, 385 prisoner power 159, 182 soft power 21, 211, 213, 214, 222 state power 159, 182 Practice of forgiveness 272 Precariousness of prison/precarious prison conditions 54, 55 Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Commend of the Capital, PCC ) 8, 16, 17, 21, 37, 195, 386 Prison community-run prisons 15, 341, 372 new model prisons 102, 104, 120 old model prisons 94, 97, 103, 107, 109 prison administration 306, 308–310, 315, 318, 319, 321, 322, 333, 339, 340 prison apparatus 213–215, 220, 221 prison authorities 15, 22, 23, 97, 104, 105, 135, 136, 140, 178, 203, 214, 217, 261, 263, 264, 267, 268, 271, 275, 279–284, 286, 299, 301–304, 307, 309, 311, 312, 314, 316, 318, 319, 321, 322, 333, 338, 374, 382, 386–388, 391 prison conditions 44, 46, 53, 56 prison culture 18, 67, 85, 188, 192

408

Index

prison dynamics 36, 39, 42, 53, 68 prison/facility management 99 prison/facility staff 98 prison gangs 9, 41, 44, 45, 58, 66, 68, 69, 119, 135–137, 139, 146–148, 203, 374 prison governance 158, 159, 176, 179, 181, 260, 261, 280, 286, 315, 331, 341, 352 prison governor 188, 189, 196, 197, 199, 203, 205, 214, 215 prison groups 67, 69 prison guards/officers 22, 23, 38, 73, 177, 196, 203, 209, 212, 215–217, 219, 221, 259–262, 264, 268–271, 275, 277, 279–282, 286, 311, 316, 318, 319, 321, 332, 340, 344, 374, 380, 381, 383, 386–388 prison hegemony 216, 219, 220 prison humanization 17, 46, 48 prison life 2, 6, 38, 41, 43, 54, 55, 77, 85, 98 deterioration 2, 6 precarization 6 prison management 19, 41, 51, 131, 136, 345 prison market 18, 20, 65, 66, 322 prison order 191, 192, 194, 207, 216–219, 222–224, 333, 342 prison policy 14, 47, 49, 57, 58, 120, 192, 199, 318 prison population 36–39, 41, 43–45, 47–51, 54–58, 187,

194, 209, 210, 217, 336–338 prison reform 18, 93, 96, 120, 335, 352 prison research 18, 98, 300 prison social order 66, 79, 86 prison space 67, 73, 75, 86, 89 prison staff 18, 21, 22, 188–190, 194, 196, 198, 199, 201, 204, 205, 209, 215, 223, 233, 236, 239–241, 244–247, 250, 251, 286, 338–340, 342, 346, 354 prison studies 234, 238 prison warden 303 Punta de Rieles prison 299–301, 303, 308, 315–318, 321, 322, 387–390 Santa Monica prison 388, 391 Self-governing prison communities 341 warehouse prison 234, 235 Prisoner 65, 66, 69, 70, 76–78, 81, 82, 86, 234–243, 245–252 former prisoner 156, 157, 161, 167 group of prisoners 16, 160, 175, 314 organisation of prisoners/inner organisation 21, 233, 238, 250 political prisoner 158 prisoner education 314, 371, 383 prisoner-employee 23, 299, 300, 309–315, 317, 318, 320 prisoner-entrepreneurs 23, 299, 300, 305, 307, 309–312, 314–322, 387–390

Index

prisoner group/groups of prisoners 66 prisoner hierarchy 173, 176 prisoner population 161, 162, 165, 172, 175, 176 prisoner rights 179 prisoner’s autonomy 299, 321 prisoner’s initiative 299, 301, 302, 308 prisoner’s unionization 314 prisoner work 304, 377, 383 Prisoner/inmate group 100 Prison governance 9, 14, 16–21, 24 Privatization 19, 131, 135, 137, 144, 147, 149 Privileges 160, 161, 164, 165, 176, 177 Productive activities 300, 304, 305 Punitiveness 3 Punitive sanction/detention 354 Punitive turn 2, 5, 17, 64, 65, 67, 88 Punta de Rieles prison 23

R

Ramalho, J.R. 43, 190, 192, 209, 216, 218 Ratio of prisoners to prison officers 11 Real man 380 Red command (CV) 340, 341 Regimes of confinement 367, 369, 370, 373 objective/goal of 370 Regional penitentiary system (SPR) 157, 161, 164, 169, 171, 177 Rehabilitation. See Correction

409

Rehabilitation center 129–131, 140, 141 Representante (Representative) 18, 105–109, 111, 113, 117, 118, 120, 387, 389, 391 Representatives 265, 267 Resocialisation centres (CRs) 345–347 Responsibilization 23, 299–304, 307, 317, 321 Reward 274, 275, 319 Rhodes, L.A. 190, 191, 194, 210, 211, 213, 219 Roles 260, 266, 269, 280, 283 Rose, N. 301, 308, 322 Rubin, A. 319 Rules 259, 261, 266, 268–271, 275, 276, 278, 282

S

Salazar, A. 71–74, 83 Salla, F. 3, 8, 10, 16, 44, 45, 48–51, 54, 137, 191, 222, 238, 280 Sanction 301, 311, 319 Santa Monica Prison 236, 245 Sapo 162, 163, 165 Scandal 245–247, 251 Schrag, C. 39 Scope 370, 372, 383, 388 Scott, D. 334, 348, 350, 351, 353 Secrecy 155, 156, 158, 166, 176, 178, 181, 182 Segregation 19 Self-governance 2, 14, 22, 23, 25, 279, 280, 285, 299, 300, 302, 308, 309, 315, 316, 352, 354, 368, 382, 385

410

Index

Self-governing practices 160, 165 Self-government 41, 43 Self-rule/self-regulation 144 Sepulveda, Ch. 143 Sin 245–247 Skarbek, D. 6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 19, 25, 41, 99–101, 117–120, 316–318, 322, 339, 340, 373, 374, 383–385, 391 Solidarity committees 14, 16, 17, 37, 38, 45–48, 51, 53, 56–58 Solitary confinement 275–277, 281, 284, 286 Southern 191, 223 southern criminology 191, 224 southern prisons 192, 220, 223 Southern criminology 20 Southern prisons 20 South-North dialogue 375 South-South dialogue 375 Sozzo, M. 3, 8–13, 15, 22, 23, 101, 141–143, 188, 191, 213, 235, 237, 240, 264, 269, 280, 285, 297, 299, 301, 316–318, 323, 370, 371, 375, 378, 379, 381, 382, 384, 387–391 Sparks, R. 40, 52–54 State 66–72, 78, 81–83, 85, 86, 89, 101, 114, 118, 120, 121, 129, 131, 133, 135, 136, 138, 139, 142, 145–149, 193, 197, 199, 201, 203, 204, 209, 239, 240, 243, 244, 252, 331, 333, 334, 337–341, 343, 345, 346, 349 state absence 316, 317

state authorities 8, 14, 15, 17, 22, 23, 70, 85, 211, 331, 332, 345 state capacity 159, 317 state control 381 state law 245–247, 249, 251 state neglect 211 state power 182 withdrawal of the 383, 384 Stegemann Dieter, V. 20, 137, 285, 382–384, 386–390 Strategies to mantain order 282, 284 proactive strategies 271 reactive strategies 275, 282, 284 Street gang 105, 170 Struggles 264 Subalternity 213, 218, 221, 222 sublatern groups 193, 207, 208, 218 Supervision 369, 373 Surveillance 272, 273 Survey 97, 98, 107–110, 113–115 Survival 329 Sykes, G.M. 39, 41, 44, 53, 159, 181, 189, 190, 214, 216, 219, 222, 223, 282, 351 Symmetry 387, 391

T

Tamayo, A. 6, 8, 66 Theory adaptation of 377 adoption of 377, 378 application of 377–379 metamorphosis of 377 theoretical innovation 377 theoretical tools 368, 375 use of 377, 379

Index

Therapeutic community 352 therapeutic activities 341, 345, 354 Thomas, P.D. 193, 207 Tigres (Tigers) 18, 103, 387 Top-down dynamics 283 Transfer 301, 302, 307, 321 U

Understaffing 191, 197, 222 United States of America 369 California 374 Uruguay 5, 7, 11, 16, 23, 298, 299, 304, 387–390 V

Vallejos, A. 260, 262, 284 Venezuela 3, 5–7, 9, 16, 19, 131, 132, 135, 137, 138, 145, 369, 374, 377, 383, 388–391 Violence 3, 7, 8, 12, 20, 38, 39, 41, 46–49, 52, 66, 69, 70, 81–83, 86, 88, 89, 99–102, 104, 108–110, 114–116, 118, 119, 122, 130, 136, 137, 139, 142, 143, 146, 148, 149, 156, 158, 159, 166, 170, 171, 174–178,

411

180, 181, 245, 249, 297, 303, 316, 379, 390, 391 negotiated violence 217 prisoner violence 176 slow violence 211, 222 violence against prisoners 7 violence among prisoners 7, 268 violence by authorities/authority violence/violence against prisoners 178–180 Visits to prisoners 371

W

Wacquant, L. 19, 132, 134, 136, 139, 143, 145, 188, 190, 210, 212, 214, 222 Warning 275, 276 War on drugs 64, 65, 67, 88 Weegels, J. 14, 19, 100, 156, 166, 180, 208, 218, 238, 242, 280, 285, 316, 374, 382–384, 387, 388, 390, 391 Women prison 22, 234, 235, 239, 241, 243, 245, 252

Z

Zaffaroni, E.R. 336