Abstract

MACANA GUTIERREZ, Nataly  and  TAMAYO ARBOLEDA, Fernando León. Expendable Lives: Law and Resistance in Colombian Prisons. Díkaion [online]. 2023, vol.32, n.1, e32114.  Epub Mar 16, 2023. ISSN 0120-8942.  https://doi.org/10.5294/dika.2023.32.1.14.

This article analyses how the Colombian State has governed inmates' resistance. We will show how the State has encouraged the use of formal mechanisms to resolve the disagreements and concerns of inmates and discouraged protest inside prisons. The Constitutional Court's judicial interventions have recognized massive violations of fundamental rights, and attempted to channel fundamental rights' protection through the legal system. However, the persistence of violations, accompanied by the exclusion of protest as a mechanism of resistance, leaves the inmates immobilized between a constitutional discourse without material effectiveness and the threat of violent repression of their acts of resistance. To this end, this article presents a case study about the fight for fundamental rights and the collective resistance of the inmates of the Modelo Prison in Bogotá.

Keywords : Prison; unconstitutional state of things; criminal law; protest; resistance; special restrain relationship.