Abstract
This is a case study from a Brazilian prison unit, in the state of Ceará. Its aim was to identify and analyze a prison environment user’s perceptions through the expression of their experiences and of the symbology assigned to the place. Through narrative interviews accomplished in November 2017, the research reached six inmates and six prison officers as participants. Their answer went through content analysis, which allowed the identification of macro, meso, exo and micro systemic dimensions of the prison's environmental relations. Grounded in Environmental Psychology, the study concluded that prison causes a social relational break with the outside world. This way, this break demonstrated to bother people more than the forced bondage inside a physically inadequate and overcrowded space. Among other reflections, it was considered that currently the social function of imprisonment is far from the goals of people's social reintegration and recovery. Instead, imprisonment causes negative and derogatory feelings in and about people who experience it.
Keywords:
Environmental Psychology; Environmental perception; Crowding; Prison