Towards a managerial approach to punishment

a critical analysis of the political discourses justifying neoliberal transformations in the Colombian penitentiary system

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.1590/2179-8966/2026/89331

This work aimed to study the transformations which occurred in the Colombian system of deprivation of liberty in the context of neoliberal reforms of the State. In 1998 there was a turning point in the system, marked by agreements with the United States and a series of internal documents referring to a plan to expand the national punitive system. Methodologically, this work carried out a Critical Analysis of the Political Discourses that justified and guided the expansion of the system and resorted to a documentary review from the perspective of Cultural Political Economy. From this original approach, it is concluded that, in the framework of neoliberal reform of the State in Colombia, ideological factors played an important role, which reflected in this case the emergence of a business rationality in the management of the prison system and the prolongation of the suffering of prisoners in the neoliberal era.