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In Brazil, the presence of psychology in prisons was established by the Criminal Sentence Execution Act, in 1984, and it was intensified in the past three decades. In the paper, the results of a study are discussed to understand the activity of psychologists in the prisons in Minas Gerais, based on clinical approaches to the work. We performed a qualitative research, with content analysis of documents, observations in five prisons, and interviews with 14 psychologists who work at these prisons. We verified that the role of psychology in prisons has been controversial, with different institutional intersections resulting from the security and punishment logic, which seems to frequently oppose professional ethical principles. The institutional demand for classifying prisoners overlaps with the monitoring of rehabilitation programs, set forth by law. This scenario, worsened by the lack of professionals, results in obstructions in the activity, the distress of the worker, trivialization of the violation of rights, and uncritical adhesion to the repressive mechanism of the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present an experience report about the work of scholar psychologists in Elementary School, emphasizing the development of a teaching project. This project intended to improve the interpersonal relationship between students in a fourth grade class. Through group work, method proposed by the new pedagogy of Jean Piaget (1998), and problematizing education of Paulo Freire (1997), systematic meetings were held with students to reflect on ethical values, bullying and protection of child rights. It was observed throughout this project relationship and communication improvements between peers, what suggests that interventions have contributed to improve the relationship between students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]