Cities, organized crime and prisons

Prisons and ‘organized crime’ affect people’s perceptions about the urban space, the institutions of social control, and the legitimacy of their agents. As a result, the studies addressing these issues serve as a complement to the findings of the program’s different research lines. Our intent is to inter-correlate urban spaces, illegal markets, public security policies, criminal justice institutions, and the prison system with the constitutive elements behind the perceptions on territories, the law, social order, and their institutional dimensions. Questions about prisons and organized crime were included in the survey conducted with the population of São Paulo. The research bases itself on the Brazilian experience of crime control and prison organization over the past decades. The investigation will make use of archival and bibliographic research, interviews with prison workers, and case studies.