Entre grades e discursos: da falácia da ressocialização à educação como prática de resistência

Abstract

This study aims to critically analyze the use of education as a tool for resocialization within the Brazilian prison system, as well as to understand education as a potential space for resistance and the development of emancipatory practices in the context of incarceration, especially regarding the discourse of resocialization, which is widely disseminated in legal and institutional fields. It is based on the understanding that, although education is recognized as a fundamental right, its implementation in prisons often occurs in a limited, instrumentalized manner and is subordinated to the punitive logic that structures the penal system. Methodologically, this is a qualitative research study, developed through the survey and analysis of academic productions, including scientific articles, books, dissertations, theses, legislation, and official data addressing prison education and its multiple social, political, and pedagogical implications. The study is structured around three main axes: the social function of prison, the critique of the notion of resocialization, and the analysis of educational practices in the prison context. The results of the research show that the discourse of resocialization, although legitimized by legal frameworks such as the Brazilian Penal Execution Law, proves, in practice, to be a contradictory and often ineffective promise, since the prison system itself operates through mechanisms of control, discipline, and social exclusion. In this sense, education, when inserted into this context, tends to assume a functional and compensatory character, often linked to sentence reduction, which may weaken its formative and emancipatory potential. Furthermore, it was found that the logic of so-called “social orthopedics” contributes to maintaining a model that seeks to correct individuals without addressing the social structures that produce inequality and criminalization. On the other hand, the study also points to the existence of experiences and possibilities that challenge this logic, showing that education can constitute itself as a practice of resistance, especially when guided by critical perspectives and grounded in human rights principles. Thus, it is concluded that the implementation of emancipatory education in the prison system requires not only formal compliance with legal norms, but also a structural transformation of the conditions under which this education is offered, in order to ensure the dignity, autonomy, and recognition of incarcerated individuals as subjects of rights.