The "left" and "right" arm of the prison: Prison work and the local legal culture of the penitentiary
Keywords:
legal culture, prison officer, healthcare professional, prison, ethnography, Italy, cultura jurídica, funcionario de prisiones, profesional sanitario, prisión, etnografía, ItaliaAbstract
This contribution aims to explore the tension between the juridical dimension of the prison system and the everyday practices that take place within it. The article focus on prison officers’ and health professionals’ legal culture, drawing from ethnographic researches made by the authors in 4 correctional facilities in Northern Italy. Prison officers’ and health professionals’ working practices can be representative of two ideal-typical patterns of prison staff's action, that we exemplified using the “right” and “left arm" metaphor. The empirical researches conducted by the authors, while highlighting differences and affinities between the two working styles, describe the mutual adaptation of both groups to the peculiarities of the “local legal culture” that characterizes the prison environment. Both groups, grafting within this local legal culture of the prison, contribute to reproducing the maintenance of order and the pursuit of security, which are the main aims of the prison itself.
Esta contribución pretende explorar la tensión entre la dimensión jurídica del sistema penitenciario y las prácticas cotidianas que tienen lugar en él. El artículo se centra en la cultura jurídica de los funcionarios de prisiones y de los profesionales de la salud, a partir de investigaciones etnográficas realizadas por los autores en 4 centros penitenciarios del norte de Italia. Las prácticas de trabajo de los funcionarios de prisiones y de los profesionales de la salud pueden ser representativas de dos patrones ideales-típicos de actuación del personal penitenciario, que ejemplificamos utilizando la metáfora del “brazo derecho” y del “brazo izquierdo”. Las investigaciones empíricas realizadas por los autores, a la vez que ponen de manifiesto las diferencias y afinidades entre los dos estilos de trabajo, describen la adaptación mutua de ambos grupos a las peculiaridades de la “cultura jurídica local” que caracteriza el entorno penitenciario. Ambos grupos, injertados en esta cultura jurídica local de la prisión, contribuyen a reproducir el mantenimiento del orden y la búsqueda de la seguridad, que son los principales objetivos de la propia prisión.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1310
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Copyright (c) 2022 Alessandro Maculan, Luca Sterchele
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