Back to the glossary Penitentiary

💡 Ward

Also known as: Housing Units

Physical and social section within a penitentiary unit where a group of incarcerated people live together, with its own internal dynamics.

The pabellón is the basic unit of communal living inside a prison: a physical space — typically a cell block with shared common areas — where a group of incarcerated people live under their own rules and dynamics. Each pabellón has an internal culture that sets it apart from the others: ways of relating, codes of coexistence, and unequal access to activities and resources.

In the context of Cooperativa Liberté, the pabellón is also a point of contrast and tension: participating in educational, work, or cooperative spaces often means navigating logics very different from those that prevail in one's home pabellón — which can generate friction, but also processes of personal and collective transformation.

Examples / usage

the culture that emerges in prison from the cell blocks and the contrast that is deeply felt