Abstract
Sacha Darke’s book is the culmination of ten years of fieldwork in Brazil. It maps out the Brazilian prison system that is centred on co-governance and conviviality within its unique historical, political, social, economic and cultural context. The particular focus of this book is how order is co-produced by prisoners who have to collaborate, organize and self-govern to fill a vacuum created by the systemic overcrowding, understaffing and underfunding of the Brazilian prison system. In this wide-ranging book, Darke weaves together a multilayered and detailed picture of the Brazilian prison system drawing on rich data from prison ethnographies, prisoner biographies and his own fieldwork.
The book is divided into seven chapters. Darke begins his book with an introduction to Brazilian prisons in which order is co-produced through self-governing communities. He explains how decades of systemic underfunding and understaffing have led to a shared understanding that prison staff need prisoner co-governance to run the institutions (Chapter 1). In Chapter 2, he then takes a step back to provide the context for mass incarceration and punitiveness in Brazil. Darke builds on postcolonial voices that critique the homogenization of the ‘Global South’ and argue that concepts and theories from the ‘Global North’ are not easily transferable (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2012; Said, 1978). In the post-colonial era, prisons and law in Brazil are understood as repressive institutions. Brazil’s history of slavery, a largely agricultural economy until late industrialization in the 1950s followed by a military dictatorship (1964–1985) coupled with Brazil’s modernist identity, provide a unique context to understand class and race struggles, poverty, deprivation, high incarceration rates and the existence of self-governing communities. For example, he points to the favelas in Rio de Janeiro and the quebradas in São Paulo. The connection of governance structures between these communities and the self-governing communities in prison are one of the central aspects in this book. In Chapter 4, he demonstrates how prisons are embedded in the co-governance and conviviality on the outside through gangs such as Comando Vermelho in Rio and Primeiro Comando do Capital (PCC) in São Paulo.
To understand the nature of co-governance in prison, Darke provides a detailed account of his three-week research trip to Polinter, a police detention centre in Chapter 5. This centre was co-governed by Comando Vermelho and another “gang” at the time. Drawing on his rich observations, he explains how an institution with over 460 inmates and five official members of staff, including the governor, was run on a negotiated system of co-governance. What becomes clear in Darke’s account is that co-governance is based on the negotiation of spaces. Trusty prisoners, colaboradores, covered administrative functions, such as reception duty, searches on visit days, allocation of food, whereas the wing was self-governed by the comisão of the Comando Vermelho or the other gang respectively. And the representantes managed the cells that housed up to 70 prisoners. (Chapter 5)
In Chapter 6, Darke again takes a step back to depict the rise of the two, dominant prison “gangs”, the Comando Vermelho in the state of Rio de Janeiro and the PCC in São Paulo. What emerges is a picture of their dominance in the prisons in their respective states and the homogenization of governance structures through customary practice, codes of conduct and core principles. Towards the end of the historical account Darke describes the relationship between state authorities and the gangs as symbiotic; they are perceived as “unspoken allies” (251–253). What is striking is the power of the collective to mobilize supporters both on the inside and outside.
Darke concludes his book with a very detailed chapter by chapter summary and an outlook for further research. It may help some readers to start with this chapter to get an overview of the core themes and structure of the book. In his conclusion Darke writes that the book is “unavoidably descriptive”. He creates a picture of the multilayered structures and processes of governance and situates this in the context of mass incarceration, punitiveness, race and class struggles, and poverty. I have to admit that I did miss prisoner and staff voices, in particular in the chapter on the nature of self-governance within the prison. It would have been interesting to find out how prisoners, colaboradores and representantes, understand their roles and make sense of these negotiated power relations. It seems that this is something that he has planned for the future. Darke writes: “[I] have not yet given them voice” (p.304).
In my opinion, a conceptual framework centred on theories of power could provide the foundations for an analysis of the negotiated power relations of self-governance and conviviality in Brazilian prisons. I think the subject position of the foreign researcher is something that could be developed, especially to match the post-colonial framing of the book. When you read the book, it is implied that Darke understands his role as a mediator of knowledge. Therefore a more explicit exploration of the power relations implicit in research within the context of the colonial roots of ethnography as well the role of the prison researcher in the field would strengthen the theoretical framing.
There is also a comparative element to the book between Brazil and the United Kingdom and to a lesser extent the United States. When I first started reading, I was not sure whether it was necessary. On reflection, the comparative approach works, because it puts his description of the Brazilian prison system and concepts in a familiar frame of reference. Darke has a wealth of experience of both the Brazilian and English prison systems. Hereby he overcomes the challenge many of us face when writing about a prison system and penal policy outside of the United Kingdom and United States, namely that concepts are not easily translatable or transferable. An aspect that should be acknowledged and cannot be underestimated is the additional work and craft that goes into writing up research where the interview data, primary sources and many secondary sources are in another language.
Darke’s book should be commended for its breadth. Its most important contribution is that it adds to the literature in the English language on the Global South and Latin American penal systems in particular. The book also opens a window to Brazilian prison ethnographies that provide such a rich account of the interconnectedness of institutional life with their surrounding communities. It lays the groundwork for further research that could bring to light both prisoner and staff voices on their experiences of conviviality and co-governance within the Brazilian context.
