A cidade "perigosa" e sua instituição "tranquilizadora": o Recife no contexto da reforma prisional do Oitocentos

Abstract

This article emphasizes the discussion around the representations and effective uses of the House of Detention in Recife in the context of the empire's prison reform. Symbol of civility and penal modernity, but also of control and public security, the House of Detention in Recife was perceived by city managers as an instrument whose purpose was to settle and remedy the criminal practices of a portion of the population considered to be unruly and prone to crime. On the other hand, a group of popular segments, far from endorsing this representation of the prison institution, appropriated the prison as a commercial zone. Between the "reassuring institution" and the "house of commerce", between the representations of the elite and the effective uses of the institution, we will reconstruct aspects of the history of prison reform as experienced in Recife in the second half of the 19th century.