The (un)efficiency of budget allocation in the prison system: material and human consequences

Abstract

The article tries to understand whether, in budgetary terms, the prison system is effective or not. A study in this sense is of fundamental importance for good practices in politics/criminal area, since efficient investments presuppose the perception of the deficiencies that are intended to cure. First, it seeks to elucidate the mechanisms of the public budget, as well as some particularities relating to its non-binding. Second, there is a brief history of the public budget, specific emphasis on the system of the National Penitentiary Fund and the topic of its contingency. It uses the deductive methodology, descriptive and exploratory qualitative research, as well as the documentary analysis of the indices presented by the government at the national level. In this way, it will be possible to fulfill the main objective of the study that is to evaluate, in economic terms, the prison system is feasible, clarifying, showing numbers, the current state of the art in Brazil. Our conclusion is that the policy of public spending and prisons has no symmetry, and that imprisonment is ineffective in fighting crime. Given the numbers, it is possible to affirm that the budget deficit of the prison system is practically irrecoverable.