Sociopedagogical effectiveness of the penalty of deprivation of liberty

Author(s)

Roberto da Silva

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Educação (FE/SBD)
• Defense date: 2001-08-21

Examining board members

Sergio França Adorno de Abreu; Afranio Mendes Catani; Sylvia Leser de Mello; Fernando Afonso Salla; Maria Victoria de Mesquita Benevides Soares

• Advisor: Angelina Teixeira Peralva das Chagas e Silva; Sergio França Adorno de Abreu

Abstract

It is a qualitative research, which aims to investigate the effectiveness of the penalty of deprivation of liberty as a preferred resource of society in the fight against crime. An inpatient unit of Febem in São Paulo, a female penitentiary, a prison of semi-open regime and a public chain in the State of São Paulo, with 60 prisoners interviewed in each one composes the search database. Variables considered gender, age, time, duration and place of fulfillment of the sentence as differential factors among the four sub-groups. Based on official documentation, medical records analysis, structured interviews with interns, technicians and directors, rode to sets of variables to plot the profile of every inmate pré prisional prison and phases, becoming also the characterization of each subject prison life inside the prison. We proceeded to the comparisons between the condition of entry in prison and the current condition evaluating how school variables vocational training, family Constitution, exercise of rights and socio-familiar support structure are transformed in function of time and space. The analysis of the quantitative data and qualitative information pointing to a condition of extreme personal and social vulnerability of almost all of the prisoners with sharp deterioration of the major items required for the exercise of the rights of citizenship, both in and outside prison; identifies that the sentence and the prison eventually enhance personal and social deficiencies in the extreme to the point of making their codes, symbols and values are accepted by individuals who, lacking of them in other instances of social life, will find in prison and prison culture the main benchmark to guide the thinking, feeling and behaviour. Identifies also be prison serving a new instrumentality on social dynamics, serving as a complementary space of socialization for large segments of the population, that they gravitate toward the ente stuck with him (a) establishing relations of various natures, including criminals. Also identifies a large number of relatives of detainees with criminal records and/or participation, active or passive, in delinquenciais practices and relationships of spousal character born within the prison itself completely undermines the principle of individualization of punishment, causing the delinquent behavior is no longer an individual pathology to transform into a social pathology, with numerous examples of prison culture that went beyond the walls of the prison and today is based on the imagination of groups of organized and communities, including with a generation of children conceived, born and socialized in or around the prison. This generalized process of criminalization of relations sociofamiliares points to the incipient emergence of criminal families, allowing them to deduce that the penalty and prison are fomenting a bold new way of organising the crime in which the relatives of prisoners are sometimes explicitly and ostentatious, the defence of codes, symbols and values. The research points out that the organizational and administrative model of prison competes for the solidification of the pedagogy of the crime within its walls, analyzing also the hierarchy of scientific knowledge within the prison and the responsibility we have in bankruptcy of pity as preferred instrument of combating crime. (AU)