ABSTRACT
Based on the study of Ilha Grande’s prisons in the first half of the twentieth century, this paper investigates the construction of a punitive culture that criminalized social groups in poor living conditions. The term “vagabundo” [vagrant], which justified the arrest and mistreatment of thousands of individuals in the post-abolitionist period, was present in laws and penal codes, in legislators’ thought, and in so-called scientific texts. The meeting between political leaders opposed to Vargas’ government and the so-called vagrants indicated differential treatments and the naturalization of the concept. Interviews with prison guards of the Colônia Agrícola do Distrito Federal, built in 1942, indicate how these classifications were operating within the prison system, and how they were deployed.
Keywords:
Ilha Grande; prison system; Colônia Correcional de Dois Rios; Colônia Agrícola do Distrito Federal; punitive culture.