SELECTIVE ABSENCE OF THE STATE: THE RISE OF PCC AS A REFLECTION OF THE COLONIALITY OF POWER

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the prison uprisings that occurred in Brazil in 2016 as expressions of a logic of criminal governance rooted in the coloniality of power and historically constructed racial hierarchies. From a postcolonial perspective, the study investigates how the prison system reproduces colonial structures that perpetuate the exclusion and marginalization of non-white bodies. It is argued that these uprisings are not isolated events, but symptoms of a selective and strategic absence of the State in territories marked by historical vulnerabilities. The article also exposes the myth of racial democracy as a tool for silencing inequalities, showing how this discourse legitimizes institutional violence. Based on the analysis by Bruno Paes Manso and Camila Dias in "A Guerra: Ascensão do PCC e o Mundo do Crime no Brasil", a critical reading of the 2016 uprisings is proposed, understanding them as milestones in a prison system shaped by logics of exclusion, resistance, and power.