Conscription versus penal servitude: Army reform's influence on the Brazilian state's management of social control, 1870-1930

The army's centrality to Brazil's penal justice system in the late 1800s hi ndered attempts to implement enlisted recruitment reforms. The army coerciv ely inducted non-homicidal "criminals," guarded civil convict populations, incorporated orphans and juvenile deliquents, and conducted police function s in provinces across the nation. To facilitate the adoption of military co nscription, however, authorities undertook a series of institutional change s that had a deep but largely unrecognized impact on public disciplining st rategies. Army enlisted service slowly changed from a punitive to a prevent ative institution of social reform as Brazil's national draft lottery repla ced military impressment (coercive recruitment) in 1916. The State began to focus more energy on incorporating and indoctrinating young men from "hono rable" poor households and simultaneously largely turned its back on the re fractory elements of society who had routinely been the targets of press ga ngs. These reforms had an impact on prisons, police forces, poor houses, or phanages, and other public disciplining institutions. The Brazilian case ma y illuminate patterns common to of her emerging nations, and it demonstrate s the need to situate institutional studies more firmly within the context of the web of institutions in State building projects for comparative histo ry.