The Reversed Panopticon: A History of the Prison and the inmate’s view in Brazil. Dissertação de Mestrado em Direito, UERJ, 2000.
In view of the Panopticon’s architectural and ideological model described by Jeremy Bentham, which inspired our penal institutions and wherein the inmate is subject to an unremitting control and surveillance, we propose a reflection to be made on the History of the Prison in Brazil. Our focus will be targeted to the evolution of Brazil’s laws and penal institutions as well as to the brazilian inmate’s own view in respect of the prison, trying to confront the criminal laws and the prison reality, normally invisible to the remainder of the society. Within this context, having in sight the alleged failure of the liberty depriving penalty and the serious situation of the Brazilian prisons, we situate the transformation of the penalty system and the criminal policy movements on a historical basis. Our purpose is to study the Prison in Brazil, facing the reality of our marginal region, in order to inquire its operating aspects, as well as the cause for so wide an application of the liberty depriving penalty and the rejection of alternate measures.