Hybrid, Unjust and Weak: Citizenship regimes in Brazilian prisons

Abstract

For Brazilian inmates, prisons are mostly spaces of rights denial, above and beyond the sanctions that have been formally imposed on them. Almost all of them, nonetheless, still enjoy some rights. This paper examines the range and allocation of those, as well as their determinants. This essay understands citizenship as a bundle of rights whose scope and quality are determined by the terms of the bargains through which those rights are allocated. These bundles, together with the mechanisms and institutional arrangements that define their component rights are in turn understood as citizenship regimes. The paper examines three citizenship regimes that are common in male Brazilian prisons: the regime that is fully controlled by the state, and those that are managed either by criminal factions or by inmates (“keyholders” or “chaveiros”) vested of governance authority by prison administrators. The overall system they conform is a hybrid composite of state and non-state rights enforcement arrangements. The allocation of rights it produces is deeply unequal. And the range and quality of the rights enjoyed by the vast majority of inmate is narrow and poor.