"Symbolic jurisprudence: the unconstitutional state of affairs in relation to the Brazilian penitential system".
Over-incarceration. Power. Judiciary. Constitution. Rationality. Governmentality
The main objective of this research is to describe jurisprudence as an element of a form of rationality that, in turn, is part of the unconstitutional state of affairs (USA) of the penitentiary system. The work will seek to carry out an investigation different from those that, including the problem of over-incarceration as an issue to be resolved only through public policies, end in disputes over spaces of power. Overcoming theories such as sovereignty and the classic discourses on the division of powers, the work will seek to deconstruct the self-exemption discourse created by the STF around the USA in relation to the Brazilian penitentiary system. For this, it will analyze the formation of symbolic jurisprudence, which is part of the realization of the symbolic Constitution, as a meeting point between two rationalities: the legal and the political. The examination of symbolic jurisprudence intends to explain the reasons why over-incarceration is a product of the old and nothing extraordinary USA in which the Brazilian penitentiary system finds itself. In the same way that political discourses overlap with the legal normativity of the Constitution, producing effects different from those explicitly pursued by it, jurisprudence also has a latent function. Demonstrating how symbolic jurisprudence is the result of a form of power exercised by the Judiciary within the governmentality of the prison system, the research will be able to establish a link between over-incarceration and symbolic jurisprudence. In addition, it will be able to explain that, more than over-incarceration, we are facing the phenomenon of mass incarceration.