The bourgeois state and prison: some considerations about the functionality of the imprisonment in the capitalist system

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the functionality of prison in the capitalist system of production. It makes a theoretical discussion, based on authors who analyze the essence of the state and prison, the bourgeois state and the imprisonment in capitalism. Part of the conception that prison is one of the material elements that constitute the force of the bourgeois state and, consequently, plays a fundamental role in class domination and exploitation. It notes that, like the bourgeois state itself, the functions of imprisonment are determined according to the stages of capitalist development, evidencing the fact that this institution presents itself as an important state instrument in the sphere of labor force regulation, especially in the terrain on which Marx called relative overpopulation.