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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
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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)
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Contents
Introduction: Inmate Governance in Latin America.

Context, Trends and Conditions 1
Máximo Sozzo
Emergence and Transformations

Governance and Legitimacy in Brazilian Prison: From
Solidarity Committees to the Primeiro Comando Da
Capital (PCC) in São Paulo 35
Camila Nunes Dias, Fernando Salla, and Marcos César Alvarez
Tales from La Catedral : The Narco
and the Reconfiguration of Prison Social Order
in Colombia 63
Libardo Ariza and Manuel Iturralde
Provós, Representantes, Agentes: The Evolution of Prison
Governance Arrangements in the Dominican Republic’s
Prison Reform Process 93
Jennifer Peirce
v
vi Contents
Dynamics and variations

The Carceral Reproduction of Neoliberal Order: Power,
Ideology and Economy in Venezuelan Prison 129
Andrés Antillano
Enduring Lock-Up: Co-Governance and Exception
in Nicaragua’s Hybrid Carceral System 155
Julienne Weegels
Co-Governance of Dialogue: Hegemony in a Brazilian
Prison 187
Vitor Stegemann Dieter
A Decolonial and Depatriarchal Approach to Women’s
Imprisonment: Co-governance, Legal Pluralism
and Gender at Santa Mónica Prison, Perú 233
Lucia Bracco Bruce
Evangelical Wings and Prison Governance in Argentina 259
Lorena Navarro and Máximo Sozzo
Alternatives?
The “Prisoner-Entrepreneur”: Responsibilization
and Co-governance at Punta de Rieles Prison in Uruguay 297
Fernando Avila and Máximo Sozzo
Radical Alternatives to Punitive Detention 329
Sacha Darke
Epilogue
Inmate Governance in Latin America: Comparative
and Theoretical Notes 367
Máximo Sozzo
Index 399
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
vii
viii 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 Documenta-
tion (CEDLA), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
List of Figures
Introduction: Inmate Governance in Latin America.

Context, Trends and Conditions
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) 4
Fig. 2 Percentage of growth of incarceration rates—Latin
America—1990/2020 5
ix
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 (authori-
ties 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: msozzo@fcjs.unl.edu.ar
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

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
2 M. Sozzo
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, “con-
ducting 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. Inter-
esting indications in this regard can be seen in Garces, Martin and Darke (2013), Martin,
Jefferson and Bandyopadhyay (2014) and Darke (2018, 294–296).
Introduction: Inmate Governance in Latin America … 3
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 punish-
ment 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 incarcer-
ation 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 reli-
able 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
4 M. Sozzo
700
600 572
500
416
400 357 374
337 332
290
300 241 237 243
224 209 224
193 178
200 171 164 166
133 135 139 143
95 96 109 112 110
62 70 82 76 82 82 71
100 51 54
c. 1990 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 Amer-
ican 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 Scandina-
vian 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.
El Salvador 511%
Brasil 510%
Paraguay 473%
Costa Rica 456%
Nicaragua 405%
ArgenƟna 361%
Uruguay 355%
Perú 354%
Panama 308%
Bolivia 304%
Ecuador 295%
Honduras 217%
Colombia 201%
Guatemala 96%
República Dominicana 70%
México 51%
Venezuela 34%
Chile 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 experi-
enced 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.
6 M. Sozzo
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 incar-
ceration 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).
case, these features have been repeatedly evidenced by critical voices in

the academic field, as well as from activism and human rights organi-
zations 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 deter-
mined 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 generaliza-
tions 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.
8 M. Sozzo
confinement contexts over time (Skarbek, 2020, 25). In some juris-

dictions, 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).
10 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 corre-
lation 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 relation-
ship between the growth of the incarcerated population—and, therefore, a frequent worsening
of overcrowding—and violence in prisons in the region.
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).
10 M. Sozzo
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 “evangel-
ical 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 gover-
nance have clearly taken place hand in hand with the growth of incarcer-
ation 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,
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).
12 M. Sozzo
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 person-
alism, 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 accom-
modation 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 indi-
vidual 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 collec-
tive 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”.
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 under-
stand 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 under-
stand 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 organi-
zations outside the prison walls and the multiple effects they generate
(Bergman & Fondevilla, 2021, 172–176; Carter, 2014, 2017; Gutierrez
Rivera, 2012).
16 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 relation-
ships 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.
14 M. Sozzo
These various examples of conditions that operate “from outside”

the prison walls, generate reactions on the part of the state authori-
ties, 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 impor-
tant 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 expla-
nation 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 mainte-
nance 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 accom-
modation with certain prisoners, crossed not only by agreements but also
by tensions and conflicts, which give rise to transactions and compro-

mises. 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 condi-
tions 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 contribu-
tions that have been made in this regard, especially in the last decade—an
16 M. Sozzo
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 Soli-
darity 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 discur-
sive, 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 opposi-
tion 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).
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 encour-
aged 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 Depart-
ment 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 consol-
idated 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
18 M. Sozzo
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 construc-
tion 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 low-
resource 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 arrange-
ments 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 “representa-
tives” and prison staff share power. In contrast, in the new prisons,
the new corrections professionals have dismantled all forms of prisoner-
led governance and have imposed formal authority on every aspect of
daily life. These contrasting governance arrangements stem from mate-
rial 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 arrange-
ments 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
frameworks of prison governance. Specifically, the Dominican case illus-

trates 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
20 M. Sozzo
have a highly ambiguous relationship with both violence against crim-

inalized 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 authori-
ties 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 prisoner-
staff relationship for the maintenance of prison social order, yet the
rise of an administrative criminology in prison changed that orienta-
tion to seek “good management” increasingly from the perspective of
governors and staff practices. Subsequent prison studies in the Anglo-
sphere 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
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 maximum-
security units in the Global South. Based on ethnographic research in
a maximum-security prison in Southern Brazil and street ethnographic-
interviews 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 “con-
tainment” prison practices of a maximum-security unit. Through the
development of licit, illicit and violent “resistance strategies” to the “con-
tainment 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 decision-
making. 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 pris-
oners’ 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 empir-
ical data produced during an ethnography in Santa Mónica, a women’s
prison in Lima, Perú, with the aim of contributing to the decoloniza-
tion 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
22 M. Sozzo
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 recog-
nizing 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 patriar-
chal 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 evangel-
ical 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 pris-
oner hierarchy of the evangelical wing. Special attention is paid to the
relationships that are built within this framework with the prison author-
ities 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 “out-
sourcing” 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 non-
state 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
conceptual alternative of “co-governance” may run the risk of empha-

sizing 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’. Responsibiliza-
tion and co-governance at Punta de Rieles prison in Uruguay”. This
chapter focuses on the “prisoner-entrepreneur” as an agent in the gover-
nance 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 authori-
ties 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 “employ-
ers” 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
24 M. Sozzo
“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 staff-
inmate relations are as conflictual as established theories on prison
order and legitimate prison governance would suggest. Staffing short-
ages are mitigated by recruiting prisoners. Of most relevance to the
current chapter, prison managers informally engage gang leaders to main-
tain 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 contra-
venes 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 Criminolog-
ical 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
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 possi-
bility 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.
26 M. Sozzo
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: camila.dias@ufabc.edu.br
F. Salla · M. C. Alvarez
University of Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
e-mail: fersalla@gmail.com
M. C. Alvarez
e-mail: mcalvarez@usp.br
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 35

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
36 C. N. Dias et al.
subject of academic reflection, especially in the North American liter-

ature, such as, for example, the configuration of the prison as a social
organization with relative autonomy, the disconnect between the objec-
tives 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 intensifi-
cation 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 character-
ized by the existence of groups of prisoners claiming to represent the
prison population through different discursive, normative, and ideolog-
ical 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 pris-
oners 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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Prisons Inmates and Governance in Latin America Maximo Sozzo All Chapter

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Prisons, Inmates and Governance in

Latin America Máximo Sozzo

More information about this series at

ISSN 2753-0604 ISSN 2753-0612 (electronic)

Cover credit: Sutad Watthanakul/EyeEm

Introduction: Inmate Governance in Latin America.

Emergence and Transformations

Dynamics and variations

Marcos César Alvarez University of Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Fernando Salla University of Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Introduction: Inmate Governance in Latin America.

This collection addresses the specific issue of inmate governance in Latin

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

emerging through time and space—such as the differentiation between

of the Scandinavian countries. For example, the incarceration rate in

Fig. 1 Evolution of incarceration rates per 100,000 inhabitants—Latin

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

than 500%, Nicaragua greater than 400%, Argentina, Uruguay and

Paroxysmal Deterioration and Precarization

case, these features have been repeatedly evidenced by critical voices in

confinement contexts over time (Skarbek, 2020, 25). In some juris-

10 Recently, using responses to surveys by inmates in different Latin American countries

Multiplication and Expansion of Inmate

extraordinary power, not only within a sector of a prison or a prison

The formal rules—legal and administrative—are applied in an extremely

These various examples of conditions that operate “from outside”

by tensions and conflicts, which give rise to transactions and compro-

Contents of the Book

verticality—that is, the relationship between custodians and prisoners—

relationship to state authority to a different level. Also, the Narco has

frameworks of prison governance. Specifically, the Dominican case illus-

have a highly ambiguous relationship with both violence against crim-

gang organizations, resulting in forms of “shared prison governance”,

interpenetrate in the subjects’ actions and minds. Consequently, social

conceptual alternative of “co-governance” may run the risk of empha-

“prisoner-entrepreneur” in terms of his governmental role and his links

the Global North, critically discussing an approach that seeks to build

C. Barreira (Eds.), Paradoxos da segurança cidadã. Editorial Tomo, pp. 123–

Iturralde, M. (2019). Neoliberalism and its impact in crime control fields in

(Perú, Chile, Argentina, Brasil y Bolivia). Pontificia Universidad Católica del

Sozzo, M. (2013). Transición a la democracia, política y castigo legal en

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 35

subject of academic reflection, especially in the North American liter-

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