Intimacy and power: body searches and intimate visits in the prison system of São Paulo, Brazil

In this article, I discuss some injunctions and constraints that enable and regulate heterosexual intimate encounters inside male prisons in São Paulo, Brazil. From considerations about the body searches of prisoners´ relatives and intimate visits inside these prisons, I intend to contribute to the field of prison studies in three main areas. First, I reveal certain elements that improve the characterization of the prisons of São Paulo and Brazil that has prevailed in the international literature; second, I aim to problematize current forms of the phenomenon of mass incarceration based on the dynamics and prison conditions specific to the context of the global south; finally, I intend to widen the field of empirical and conceptual references in the analysis of the social experience of families of prison members, especially women who visit their partners who are behind bars.