Between Care and Custody: How Prison Officers Perceive Their Work in Minas Gerais

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4322/dilemas.v16n1.49811

Keywords:

perception of work, prison system, prison officer, comparative analysis, gender

Abstract

This paper reveals how prison officers in Minas Gerais perceive their work, whether it is focused on guaranteeing order or on care—a word traditionally associated with resocialization activities in prison. We analyzed whether the workers’ sex has any influence on how they perceive their work, through the analysis of 1,525 online questionnaires self-administered between 2014 and 2015, and semi-structured interviews carried out with 10 women and 13 men working in prisons between 2016 and 2018. In their perception, the maintenance of order and security is the main objective of the profession. The similarities of the discourses of women and men indicate the adoption of masculinity values, such as the use of force and brutality, seen as essential to maintain order in the prison.

Author Biographies

Isabela Cristina Alves Araujo, Universidade Federal de São Carlos

Doutoranda do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Sociologia (PPGS) da Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar, Brasil), mestre pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Sociologia (PPGS) da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG, Belo Horizonte, Brasil) e graduada em ciências sociais pela UFMG. É pesquisadora do Centro de Estudos em Criminalidade e Segurança Pública (Crisp) da UFMG e membro do Grupo de Estudos sobre Violência e Administração de Conflitos (Gevac) da UFSCar.

Ludmila Ribeiro, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Professora associada do Departamento de Sociologia da UFMG. Tem doutorado em sociologia pelo Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro (Iuperj, Brasil), mestrado e graduação em administração pública pela Fundação João Pinheiro (FJP, Belo Horizonte, Brasil) e graduação em direito pela UFMG. É pesquisadora no Crisp/UFMG.

Downloads

Additional Files

Published

2023-01-17

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 1 (2023): JAN/FEV/MAR/ABR

Section

Articles

License

Upon submitting a text, the authors retain copyright and grant DILEMAS - Revista de Estudos de Conflito e Controle Social the right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons License type attribution BY (CC-BY), which permits sharing of the work with acknowledgment of authorship and initial publication in this journal.