This article reviews the recent history of prison policy in Sao Paulo, the Brazilian state with the largest number of inmates. From a qualitative approach, was carried out research examining the different contexts and policies adopted, highlighting the difficulties in its institutionalization. The study shows that prison facilities expansion is followed by a tightening rule, ending a brief period of humanization in the 1980's. The hardening actions of "prison gangs", the spread of tough controls, such as the differentiated disciplinary regime, the political and mediatic brunt, reinforced a vicious cycle toward increase repression. We conclude that the paradoxical characteristics were kept in the prison system, in which one side of society takes custody of it's offenders and defends their human dignity as a moral obligation, while failing in the perspective of ensuring their basic needs. Thus, the balance between the strategies of expansion of the prison system and other actions concerning the rights of inmates will only be effective when processes of social inclusion of the inmates are tightly adopted.
prison; prison gangs; penitentiary policy
