Growing in and from Crisis: Environment, Labor, and Capital in Brazil’s Exponential Prison Expansion

Although there is widespread academic recognition of the damage effected by carceral systems, of the accelerating climate fallout, and of the unequal and crisis-ridden nature of capitalism, these three dimensions are rarely conceptualized in relation to each other. Drawing on extensive primary research conducted across Brazil, we document how managers have increasingly sought to make claims about the prison’s usefulness for combatting problems of the economy and environment, such as by using prisoners in climate-saving efforts and attracting private capital into prisons. We argue these claims to the prison’s social good do not promote social inclusion, reverse climate change, or secure the competitiveness of the Brazilian economy, but, in offering an always-escapable claim to the prison’s usefulness, they entrench the growing momentum of the carceral system.