Self-Governing Prison Communities: The APAC Phenomenon (original) (raw)

Social Science Research Network, 2014

Abstract

Brazilian prisons are notoriously under-resourced, but at the same time relatively orderly places. In circumstances of material deprivation and acute staff shortage, inmates and officers are left to cobble together customary orders in which prisoners are required to take on the role of janitors, in some prisons even guards. Meanwhile, prison wings are often left in the hands of inmate hierarchies, sometimes managed by prison authorities, but more often left to develop organically, sometimes under the influence of gangs. Less well known are 30 or so NGO administered, faith-based prisons that have opened over the past forty years, mostly in the state of Minas Gerais. These prisons take state abandonment, inmate collaboration and self-governance as their starting points. They operate without state presence and are managed by prisoners, former prisoners and local volunteers. Their vision is one of community self-governance, of community-facilitated rehabilitation.

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