The promise of paper: files, movement and "progress" in a Rio de Janeiro men's prison

In: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Papers No. 202

Open AccessZugriff (via Standort)

Zugriffsoptionen:

Die folgenden Links führen aus den jeweiligen lokalen Bibliotheken zum Volltext:

www.eth.mpg.de < > /wp0202

www.eth.mpg.de/cms/en/publications/working_paperswww.eth.mpg.de/pubs/wps/pdf/mpi-eth-working-paper-0202

Alternativ können Sie versuchen, selbst über Ihren lokalen Bibliothekskatalog auf das gewünschte Dokument zuzugreifen.
Bei Zugriffsproblemen kontaktieren Sie uns gern.

init.form.title.accessOptions

init.form.helpText.accessOptions

Name

Email

Betreff

Nachricht

Referenz

Ich stimme zu, dass meine Angaben und Daten zur Beantwortung meiner Anfrage elektronisch erhoben und gespeichert werden.
Sie können Ihre Einwilligung jederzeit per Email an kontakt@pollux-fid.de widerrufen.

Absenden

Abstract

The prison system of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, functions through a series of documents that make the incarcerated available as objects of legal knowledge and intervention. This bureaucratic system, in turn, fulfils a federal legal mandate for a progressive model of imprisonment. In this paper, I consider the production and circulation of a set of legal documents within a single men's prison in Rio de Janeiro, one that I call Tobias Barreto. I offer a close examination of the files that proliferate within the prison, with an emphasis on one document – the criminological exam – that forms a nexus between penal courts, prison administrators, treatment workers, and incarcerated people. Through a rigid set of evaluations, these documents render the history and futures of the incarcerated person as evidence, a process that underpins any "progression" through a prison sentence. I argue that while documents relay an assurance of progress, this assurance is undercut by a generalised suspicion regarding incarcerated people's claims of having reformed. The analysis highlights both the tensions and the complicity between progressive governance and punitive violence.