The rise of prisoner governance schemes in Latin American prisons.Conditions, strategies and struggles
No. 14 (2025-04-30)Author(s)
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Máximo SozzoUniversidad de A Coruña
Abstract
This paper addresses the process of multiplication and expansion of prisoner governance schemes in Latin American prisons in recent decades, as a forceful phenomenon, but one marked by high levels of variation, within the more general framework of the punitive turn that the region has undergone.
A frequent explanation for this process is critically presented, which points to the decline
in the state’s capacity to control prison life, in turn linked to the extraordinary growth of the prison population during this period. It is pointed out that this factor surely plays an important role —especially in certain contexts— but that in order to understand this phenomenon it is necessary to go beyond it and take into account the strategies and struggles between the various state and non-state actors in relation to power and order in Latin American prisons, within the framework of specific historical dynamics, building an agonistic perspective that emphasises the centrality of the agency of these actors. To exemplify this alternative view, the case of the multiplication and expansion of evangelical wings in men’s prisons in some Argentine provincial jurisdictions is used.
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