Sentence remission and tensions between law and the reality of the Brazilian prison system: a case study based on the PED/MS

Abstract

This article reports and critically analyzes an ethnography conducted in the context of the Dourados State Penitentiary (PED), in Mato Grosso do Sul, focusing on the tensions surrounding the right to sentence remission through study and work. Based on the observation of an administrative meeting, the analysis highlights the clash between formal law, promoted by federal and state agents from SENAPPEN and AGEPEN, and the arbitrariness of local prison management. The prison director's decision to restrict access to sentence remission to a single wing ("Raio I"), under the pretext of "security" and "discipline", is examined as a symptom of a structural problem. It is argued that such discretion reflects Brazilian cultural authoritarianism, characterized by the triumph of the logic of the "House" (hierarchical particularism) over that of the "Street" (legal universalism) (Damatta, 1979), as well as by legal inequality, which results in the particularized application of the law  (Kant de Lima, 2019; Kant de Lima; Lima, 2022; Cardoso de Oliveira, 2025). Furthermore, the imposition of "security" as the ultimate justification is interpreted as an institutional manifestation of the Culture of Control (Garland, 2001), which replaces the rehabilitative rationality established by the Penal Execution Law with a logic of punitive segregation and intolerance toward incarcerated individuals. It is concluded that the struggle for sentence remission in Brazil constitutes a broader struggle for the guarantee of legal equality and against the authoritarianism embedded in prison management.