Based on works by Georg RUSCHE and Michel FOUCAULT, the article proposes that, in the current context of the mass incarceration, the prison has assumed a clear biopolitical conformation. Despite the disciplinary hypothesis, present in the speeches (political, juridical, mediatic, etc.) that permeate the penal system, the efforts to legitimize the punishment were simply abandoned, in the same measure as the prison perfected its role of control of the multitude (here used in the sense given by DE GIORGI). Methodologically, the text relies on the dialogue between those works, in contrast to some data on unemployment and imprisonment in Brazil. Considering the current situation of the national penitentiary system, it is of fundamental importance to undertake comprehension efforts based on wellestablished theoretical frameworks on criminal matters research, but it is also essential to submit such conclusions to data that are connected to the reality of the penal system. Besides, the study finds the role that pretrial detention has played in the contemporary biopolitical conformation of imprisonment.