Prison Gangs

Abstract

The CV and PCC both emerged from increased levels of prisoner organisation in the wake of the country’s 1964–1985 military dictatorship. The CV was founded by a group of bank robbers held under emergency legislation who considered themselves political prisoners. The PCC was formed following the police massacre of more than 100 prisoners at Carandiru prison in 1992. Both gangs explicitly aim to increase inmate solidarity and collective action, promising to protect prisoners from state brutality and to reduce prison violence and exploitation among prisoners. In time, the two gangs have taken on responsibility for governing the cell blocks across most of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo’s prisons as well as the poor, urban areas most prisoners come from. In their own words, they have “unified” the existing system of falanges (postcode gangs created by allocating different wings to people from different areas) under the banner of one state-wide coletivo, raised prisoners’ consciousness (of injustice and oppression), and introduced them to the political ideals of egalitarianism and equality. These ideals have been corrupted to some extent by the lure of the money to be made from illicit markets, especially drugs, but they are far from irrelevant, at least in the eyes of ordinary prisoners who expect them to be delivered. Gang leaders continue to rely on the support of their coletivos. Their authority depends on them maintaining legitimacy among other prisoners. The more established an institution of governance becomes, the more able it is to regulate violence and abuse in its territory, by its servants as well as those under its authority. At the same time, few governance institutions survive in the long term if they continue to rule through authoritarianism and violence, and do not take steps to be accountable to, integrate and provide for the needs of people they govern. Brazilian prisoners refer to gang leaders as their representantes. Gang leadership regularly changes hands in CV prisons as individuals lose their peers’ confidence. In PCC prisons, many wings operate under gang authority despite none of their occupants being gang members. As the CV and PCC spread–or more accurately, the ideals of CV and PCC spread–to other parts of the country, horrific displays of power tend to be followed by reductions in prison violence and inmate exploitation. Prisoner organisation also facilitates the work of officers. Prison governors and the few guards that work in the country’s cell blocks have a say in which inmates they deal with, that is which inmates work on the gang side of the ligação (link) between the coletivo and the prison administration. Prisoner organisation also absolves state authorities of their own responsibilities and gives them something else to blame (“gang culture”) when things go wrong.