The author presents the law as a social mechanism that determines the relationships between what is forbidden and what is permitted. The law operates in the sense of domination and coercion and this includes penal law, which is a repressive reality because its efficiency is based on sanctions that are defined for every offence. One of the sanctions imposed by penal law is imprisonment A penitentiary in which a prison sentence is served is thus a public, formal and symbolic space, which includes contents of the law, the ideology of sentencing, and the orientation of total institutions. A penitentiary is a rehabilitation institution aimed at controlling the individual’s mind and no longer at corporal punishment. It is a space where the individual is placed in a world of necessity, supervision, limitations, apathy, and routine.