The objective of this paper is to investigate social practices developed by inmates of the Instituto Penal Cândido Mendes (IPCM) as well as by those who lived in Ilha Grande, the island where the prison was settled, through the analysis of different narratives about the escape of a group of convicts. The author also analyzed the escape on the news and on the official reports. The point the author makes is that despite the different reports on the escape it is possible to relate the narrative to collective memories, that is, to common rules and perspectives, which allow us to understand social conflicts, processes and contexts inherent to the lives of the narrators.
Collective memory; Ilha Grande; Prison; Penitentiary; Violence