Unlawful repression of Riot Acts

In 1992, São Paulo Military Police Officers invaded the Carandiru Prison that had been taken by an inmates’ uprising. The police shot point-blank killing 111 prisoners. In spite of evidence of an unlawful massacre, many years passed and no police officer was ever condemned by the courts. Nor did the State make provisions against future riots. The prisoners, on the other hand, organized themselves in a criminal gang called PCC that committed several rebellions and promoted attacks on police officers all around the state. This episode is just another one in a wide array of cases concerning illicit violence in response to prison riots in many countries. Criminology has not yet made a significant effort to understand the repression of prison riots and the societal means of massacre prevention. But there is a significant literature from different criminological approaches to draw from. First of all, broad critical criminology bibliography – beyond a behaviourist-individual analysis. Secondly, there is literature in the prison inmates’ reality, which informs about day-to-day inmates life and relationship with the institution. Thirdly, state crime literature, concerned with the interactions between unlawful, and frequently unpunished, state deviance that deals with substantial harm to citizens and forms of resistances to it. Fourth, the concrete historical documentation that describes these cases and sheds light onto the wide situational, economic and political process of the event. Finally, the feasibility of the project calls for a noteworthy research in the area that can finally fill this criminological gap.