The Influence of Capitalism in the Labor Force Logic of the Female Prison System and the Effectiveness of Work Programs for Reintegration

Abstract

Work programs in the female prisons of Brazil are far from promoting participants’ dignity, their learning new marketable skills, or even providing a potential source of remuneration.  The real effect of prison work programs is inflicting a painful conscience and imposing atonement.  Critical criminology presents the actual ineffectiveness of prisons and demystifies how capitalism influences thinking about work in European, North American, and Brazilian jails.  Concerning female prisons, critical criminology also reflects the androgynous character of laws, the inadequate architecture in prisons, and the improper work settings for women.  Factual reality reveals programs offering unattractive work, focused on domestic chores, with low pay and no vocational focus, and that are subject to discontinuity due to policy changes in Brazilian prison administrations. Through bibliographic research with a descriptive inductive method, the first stage of this analysis seeks to carry out a theoretical approach to applying critical criminology on the influence of European and North American capitalism and subsequently the differential of Brazilian capitalism in the development of work programs in the prisons of these countries.  Systematizing feminist criminology and its approach to prison issues in Brazil is the aim of the second stage of this analysis.  In the third stage, through the description of empirical works carried out in some Brazilian states, the reality of women inmates inside the walls is presented. The resulting conclusions are that the moral nature of work, as conceived by European liberalism, does not fit into the Brazilian reality that retains traces of slavery and colonialism simultaneously with liberal capitalism.  These characteristics are reflected in prisons, as they hold the lower-class population in inferior jobs and gives the inmates a poor-quality education.  As a result, the work carried out in these programs is not intended to generate adequate compensation, much less emancipate participants, but rather neutralizes, stigmatizes, and exterminates them, as they perish in the worst possible living conditions in prison.Critical feminist criminology denounces the prison system in its architecture and its rules that do not aim at gender differentiation.  Patriarchal policymakers and administrators have created this result with antiquated and conventional perspectives that have not considered gender differences and have failed to visualize female needs inside prisons.  In practice, the work carried out by female inmates does not compensate them at levels comparable to the general labor market.  Their remuneration is inadequate, and the work is unattractive.  There is a discontinuity within the work programs because those who plan and implement them are political appointees, subject to turnover.The conclusion is that, in Brazilian women’s prisons, there are few policies for the implementation of work with an emancipatory capacity such as vocational training that can be absorbed by the labor market outside of prison.  Most of the skills obtained involve manual work and are focused on residential care.  Other factors that block the goal of emancipation include a punitive attitude among policymakers that the State should not reward prisoners by providing training with the same compensation potential as free citizens.  It also includes the lack of continuity of effective training and work policies due to the constant turnover of penitentiary managers by the prison system. 

Keywords: Brazilian prison; critical criminology; female prison work

DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/11-11-01

Publication date:June 30^th 2021