A MATTER OF FORCE? DEBATES ON FEDERAL PRISONS AND THE EXPANSION OF THE PCC CRIMINAL GROUP

Abstract

The proposal of this article is the analysis of the narratives of public authorities and the press about Brazilian federal prisons and, also, understand insofar as these perspectives relates such units of deprivation of liberty to the criminal dynamics established by First Command of the Capital (PCC) – criminal group in different parts of the country. Newspaper articles and public documents were collected, as well as unstructured diversions were developed with federal managers. Although there has not been much consensus on a possible relationship between federal units and the promotion of the PCC’s expansion in Brazil, it was recognized that state actions in general give effect to new criminal dynamics. State control bodies, such as the federal penitentiary system, and the PCC would configure a new social order in prisons throughout the national territory, regardless of whether these spaces adopted a “stronger” or “weaker” outcome from a penal point of view.

Federal prison system; prisons; Primeiro Comando da Capital; diffusion; Brazil