Abstract
The category “prison guards” may be classified as a risky and stressful occupation and their work routine can lead to physical and psychological disturbances. Although some studies express concern with the health condition of these workers, only a few discuss the impact of work on the subjectivity of prison guards. This research is aimed to map the subjectivity process in the daily life of workers in the prison system, in a city in northeastern Brazil. The work routine of a prison guard team was monitored for five months, resulting in 168 hours of observation. In addition, interviews with prison staff and their relatives were carried out. The results point to the construction of the figure of the “dangerous bandit”, who in prison daily helps to forge police and punitive subjectivities, and above all, subjectivities that violate rights. In addition, such power lines act by producing frightened and depotencialized ways of life, producing a biopolitical control over agents and their relatives.
Prison System; Prison Guard; Subjectivity; Biopolitics