Heard, Catherine (2025) Working prisoners in Brazil: laws, policies and practical realities. Technical Report. Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research, London, UK.
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Abstract
This briefing describes the law, policy and practice of prison work in Brazil; and offers an analysis of official statistics on working prisoners (as at May 2025, based on government data for the six months to December 2024). It explains how prison work is framed and governed under federal law and describes the challenging operating context in which work and training are provided in the country’s 1,382 state prisons. The briefing draws on the extensive datasets published biannually by the federal government, which provide information on the numbers of prisoners reported to be working (broken down by state), the economic sectors in which work is provided, the extent of private, public and voluntary sector involvement, and whether prison work is remunerated as required under federal law. Given the diversity between states in the amount and type of work done by prisoners, the briefing provides information on three contrasting states (São Paulo, Santa Catarina and Maranhão). Just over a quarter of all Brazil's prisoners were working in the second half of 2024--the highest number since records began in 2016. Prisons themselves are the main providers of work, rather than private or public sector partners. Most work is unpaid or paid below the statutory minimum for prisoners. Over half of the jobs are in the category of ‘prison services’, covering cleaning, maintenance, and similar tasks. This kind of work may be preferable to life in cramped, often dangerous cells; and it has the advantage of earning a day’s remission on the sentence for every day worked. However, it does little to equip prisoners for employment in the formal economy on their release.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Monograph (Technical Report) |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | Prisoners, prisons, imprisonment, prison labour, working prisoners, resocialisation, rehabilitation, prisoner reentry, sentence progression, prison policy, prisoner pay, wages of working prisoners |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences |
| Research Centres and Institutes: | Crime & Justice Policy Research, Institute for |
| Depositing User: | Catherine Heard |
| Date Deposited: | 03 Jun 2025 12:53 |
| Last Modified: | 05 Sep 2025 12:38 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/55685 |
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