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The prison system in the Brazilian Empire: study on the provinces of São Paulo, Pernambuco and Mato Grosso (1835-1890)

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Author(s):
Flávia Maíra de Araújo Gonçalves
Total Authors: 1
Document type: Doctoral Thesis
Press: São Paulo.
Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
Defense date:
Examining board members:
Monica Duarte Dantas; Marcus Joaquim Maciel de Carvalho; Miriam Dolhnikoff; Maria Luiza Ferreira de Oliveira; Ernesto Cerveira de Sena
Advisor: Monica Duarte Dantas
Abstract

This study focuses on the prison system in the Brazilian Empire while the 1830 Criminal Code of the Empire was in force and confinement only or with prison labor became the mainstream punishment regimes. Upon the approval of this code, a prison system restructuring was necessary for there would be an increase in the number of convicts; besides, appropriate buildings should be constructed for the imprisonment with labor sentence to be executed. However, the 1834 Additional Act put provinces in charge of issues related to the construction of jails and institutions with prison labor. Provincial houses of representatives determined the expenditures and the regime to be followed in the prison system. Therefore, historical, social, political and economic specificities of each place were reflected in the prison structuring. In this way, our analysis aimed at three provinces with very different characteristics: one in the Center-South of Brazil (São Paulo), one in the North (Pernambuco) and one in a borderland region (Mato Grosso). We noticed that, in the Province of São Paulo, effort was put forth in building a Penitentiary in line with the model established by the court; the São Paulo city prison received most of the inmates of all the province, while the countryside prisons were mostly provisional detention centers (jails). In Pernambuco, a House of Detention was established in Recife and several central prisons throughout the province, being the excess convicts sent to the military base of Fernando de Noronha. In Mato Grosso, it was not possible to build an institution suitable for prison labor and, although in some moments the workshops of the Cuiabá War Arsenal were used for the execution of this type of sentence, in general, prisoners were submitted to confinement only. (AU)

FAPESP's process: 12/24592-1 - The prison system in the Brazilian Empire: study on the provinces of São Paulo, Pernambuco and Mato Grosso (1835-1890)
Grantee:Flávia Maíra de Araújo Gonçalves
Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate