Recoverers Helping Recoverers: Discipline and Peer-Facilitated Reform in Brazilian Faith-Based Prisons

Miller, V. and Campbell, J. (eds.) Transnational Penal Cultures: New Perspectives on Discipline, Punishment and Desistance, Routledge, Forthcoming

22 Pages Posted: 19 Aug 2014

Date Written: August 2, 2014

Abstract

At 5pm on 10 July 2012 a scuffle broke out in the semi-open unit of Franz de Castro prison, when an inmate from the unit's prisoner council, the CSS (Conselho de Sinceridade e Solidariedade - Sincerity and Solidarity Council), approached another inmate in the workshop to escort him back to his cell. Both had to be physically restrained by other prisoners. The president of the CSS immediately called for a disciplinary hearing, where, following brief witness testimonies, it was decided that the second prisoner, who had picked up a metal instrument, was mostly to blame. When the president informed the CSS that the governor's immediate reaction to the incident had been to suggest both prisoners return to the closed unit, members were defensive of their colleague. They further complained that the governor was also partly to blame, having only that morning overridden a decision they had made not to allow the second prisoner to work for the day after he had refused to stand up during morning prayers. Later I discovered that while the CSS was solely responsible for dealing with breaches of low-level offences, the governor had been right to insist prison rules only required the offender lose a day's association. Nonetheless, some members insisted it was still a decision that was theirs to make, and the governor had not understood that the culprit, a known troublemaker, was bound to use the fact he had worked all day as an excuse for argument. In a clear show of defiance, each witness, including several CSS members, told the president they had not seen any weapons being raised. Still, at the end of the meeting the CSS explained to the governor they would be recommending the second prisoner return to the closed unit, but that the first receive no more than a few days’ cellular confinement. When the prison's disciplinary committee received the CSS’s formal report on the incident, it agreed to their decision.

Suggested Citation

Darke, Sacha, Recoverers Helping Recoverers: Discipline and Peer-Facilitated Reform in Brazilian Faith-Based Prisons (August 2, 2014). Miller, V. and Campbell, J. (eds.) Transnational Penal Cultures: New Perspectives on Discipline, Punishment and Desistance, Routledge, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2475405

Sacha Darke (Contact Author)

University of Westminster ( email )

309 Regent Street
London, W1R 8AL
United Kingdom

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