Abstract

The judicial asylums are institutions designed to accommodate individuals who commit crimes and who, because of illness or mental disability, are considered not imputable, also treated as “judicial patient” or “crazy offender”. This article, based on critical assumptions of work psychology, discusses results obtained from a master’s research carried out in a judicial asylum of Minas Gerais. The study searched to understand the activity of the prison guards, responsible for ensuring the order and safety of the establishment and of all individuals present there. It was found that their activity is not restricted to security, but that it includes care, affective involvement and concern with the individuals guarded in that institution. If the work of penitentiary agent is socially marginalized, we could verify that it is valued by the subjects who execute it, even if they are faced with the ambivalence inherent in the nature of the judiciary asylum. Between the prescription of repression and the call to care, the agents face a reality marked by the double suffering of the “judicial patient”: the label of madness and the deprivation of freedom.

Prison System; Madness; Work Psychology; Judicial Asylum; Prison Guard