From the liberal esteem for the sovereign’s restraint to the chaos in prisons: reactions of liberal right-wing collective actors towards the January 2017’s events within the prison system

Abstract

The present work investigates the reactions of collective actors of the civil society situated to the right side of the political-ideological spectrum and
self-identified with liberal values regarding tragic episodes occurred inside prisons in several states of Brazil in January 2017, a period marked by
reiterated rebellions, escapes and deaths which took place in prisons, a subject that has gained prominence in social networks with manifestations of
a wide range of tonalities in the political-ideological spectrum. It starts from the premise that the subject’s civil rights of defense against sovereign’s
abuses are in the roots of political liberalism. Although most of the results verified are in the sense of silence and omission, we found manifestations
varying from liberal appreciation for sovereign’s restraint to authoritarian propensity of some actors. The actors with a stronger institutional structure
and more dedicated to the formation of people and the diffusion of liberal values showed more esteem for the principle of sovereign’s restraint than
the less institutionalized actors and more directed toward direct political action.