Significados de la reinserción social en funcionarios de un centro de cumplimiento penitenciario

Abstract

Social rehabilitation (SR) of people who break the law is the key objective of intervention programs in Chilean jails. The goal of this research was to elicit the meaning that prison officers attach to social rehabilitation and their implications for relational practices. We conducted semi-structured interviews to fifteen officers: uniformed staff, professional staff, chaplains and instructors. The full texts of the interviews were analyzed in terms of contents and topic. Results were organized around four categories: political-institutional; subjective-formative; inter-jail; and significance to the intern. The first conceives SR as an institutional goal related to its value-based mandate. In the second category, SR anchors on the acquisition of technical skills and on personal experience. The third category sees it as a way to regulate different types of intra-jail dynamics. In the last category, SR centers on the intern, including his/her personal dimension, family and community. These forms of understanding the concept make a contribution to establish the social practices that generate inside jails.