Thu, Sep 28, 2023
What are the routines like for people who are deprived of their liberty? Working, studying, taking part in projects, these tasks are interspersed with phone calls that last a few minutes and are never enough to make you miss your home, your family and your loved ones. In Caxias Prison, the days go by, it's life and coping mechanisms are found within an entropic circuit, where those who are imprisoned seem to matter the least.
Thu, Oct 5, 2023
We find ourselves in the gym, which is essential for maintaining some physical and mental sanity and an alternative space to the cramped cells, which are almost always overcrowded. A cell is divided into areas: a pantry, where food and belongings are stored, bunk beds, usually for four people, a space with a table and a chair and a bathroom area. How is this space negotiated? Who declares that it's time to talk, read, eat, sleep or smoke?
Thu, Oct 12, 2023
In the barbershop at Caxias Prison you get a haircut, a shave and a chat. How many years did you get? When do you expect to get out? Have you got your papers in order? It would be expected that the social reintegration of people deprived of their liberty would begin while they were still in prison, but amidst the Kafkaesque administrative problems of day-to-day survival, the space for everyone to imagine and prepare for a better future seems non-existent.
Thu, Oct 19, 2023
This episode reveals another prison, the psychological one, and how people deprived of their liberty find ways to overcome the feelings of guilt, trauma, pain, fear and violence to which they have been and are subjected. How can time spent in prison help transform these vulnerabilities, how can humiliation and punishment be transformed into humility and self-awareness?
Thu, Oct 26, 2023
Entering a prison implies learning new relationships based on multiple hierarchies and an inhumane system of oppression and violence. The manco, or punishment cell, is considered a place that destroys a man. What happens inside a prison leaves scars and traumas, which are often not processed because the focus is on surviving. Someone once said, "the dead file is not consulted".
Thu, Nov 2, 2023
Contact with family members is vital for maintaining the emotional and social ties of those who are deprived of their liberty. Those who have the right to visits and those who have someone to visit them await that moment with hope and anxiety. In the meeting room, between the separation glass, daily life is exchanged, futures are envisaged, pasts are remembered, but words are not enough for the looks, laughter and bodily expressions exchanged between them.
Thu, Nov 9, 2023
Those whose family members are in prison also experience a kind of imprisonment, either through the anguish, fear and anxiety they feel, or through the prejudice that society shows, oppressing and condemning the family members of people deprived of their liberty. They live with the weight of the stigma and in permanent fear. This is a difficult burden to explain to children with imprisoned parents, who end up growing up entangled in strategies and subterfuges that only reinforce structural dehumanization.
Thu, Nov 16, 2023
We follow Pablo, who is finishing his sentence at home, wearing an electronic bracelet. While receiving support from his family, neighbours and friends, Pablo reflects on those times and the existential implications of what he experienced. The dynamics experienced in prison are based on principles that are opposed to any plan for social reintegration.
Thu, Nov 23, 2023
What kind of support do people who leave a prison have? They often leave the building itself without money to catch public transport, without a place to sleep, in other words, they leave without any support or reintegration plan. The public organisations that are supposed to provide this kind of support are unable to respond. The result is often a return to prison.
Thu, Nov 30, 2023
Having been in prison and having been in a prison is compounded by the stigma based on social prejudices. The person is seen as marginalised and it becomes difficult to integrate, with difficulties in finding work due to their record, or difficulties in obtaining psychological support for themselves and their families, but it is the social reintegration technicians themselves who replicate discourses, which in turn replicate society's own stigma and prejudice. It's a difficult cycle to break.
Thu, Dec 7, 2023
The end of the sentence is approaching and anxiety is growing. You dream of the sea, the beach, hugs, mum's or grandma's cooking. Starting again always means preparing yourself psychologically for the emotions that lie ahead. There's an urgency to make up for lost time, to be present, to recover conversations. Going out into the open, returning to life, can be paralysing, and the memory of prison doesn't disappear overnight.
Thu, Dec 14, 2023
Life isn't easy out here, so it's best to take it one day at a time. Catching up with family, friends, neighbours, returning home, catching up... "You have to have a lot of willpower!". There are documents to update, you have to find work, rebuild affections and make up for lost time. It seems that social reintegration is done exclusively by the person themselves. Why is that?