Abstract
Despite being a common element in interviews conducted in the context of social research, silence is poorly understood in sociological reflections about crime and prisons. However, it is a fundamental issue for some analyzes, such as the expansion process of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) criminal organization from São Paulo to Minas Gerais. Based on conversations with people deprived of their liberty in the Nelson Hungary Penitentiary, located in the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte, the article analyzes the silencing around certain subjects and, yet, to what extent this silencing allows us to understand the diffusion of the group beyond its territory source. In fact, silence was not always achieved through the absence of sounds, so that the prisoners’ narratives constituted a kind of rehearsed repertoire, which can be understood in the light of the conjuncture and the historical characteristics of the PCC’s action.
Keywords:
Silence; PCC; Difusion; Minas Gerais; Rehearsed repertoire.