The costs of prison

Abstract

The prison context can`t be conceived as a homogeneous whole, but rather, as a social order from which population control is exercised, through various mechanisms, these imply maximization of surveillance strategies with various fines, However, the different forms of control converge in the constant discipline of subjectivities. These mechanisms make the prison work as a machine independent of those who inhabit it, but supported by themselves. The stories of life in Argentine, Colombian and American prisons are examples of this type of control, however, although their dynamics of internal functioning are different, they do not escape an economic dimension of population control, where people deprived of Their freedom is the basic input for the operation of the machine, and the recipients of the subjective consequences of it. This essay is based on memories that account for the daily experience of those who at one time were part and input of said machinery, who from their memories identify a clear portrait of the meaning and costs of confinement beyond borders.