Os corpos que ninguém vê: as mulheres invisibilizadas e o encarceramento em massa

Abstract

The mass incarceration of women is a contemporary and invisible phenomenon in society and, in turn, also in academic research on themes related to the brazilian prison system. In the last 16 years, the rate of women's imprisonment has grown by 525 % and, despite this massive increase, the DEPEN (Penitentiary Department) only published the first report on women incarcerated in 2014. The majority profile of these women is described as follows: young, black, poor, with incomplete elementary education, mother and imprisoned for drug trafficking crimes and crimes against private property. Despite being a contemporary phenomenon, we emphasize that its origins refer to our historical, colonial and slave-making past, presenting itself as another perverse mechanism of social control legitimized by the State, in which racism, sexism and class society played central roles. The objective of this work was to address and problematize the phenomenon of mass incarceration of women, also considering the trans women and the specificities of violations they face in prisons, highlighting the historical processes of exclusion and social invisibility and the way with which these processes appear today. In order to discuss issues of gender violence, racism, social discrimination and pathologization of marginalized women who, according to our hypotheses, determine and cross the mechanisms of incarceration of certain groups of women, we use the method of document analysis by through which we analyze the statements of women in prison, raised in the following documentaries: “If I had no love” (2010) and “Passages- Being LGBT in prison” (2018). We also used the book “Prisoners who menstruate” (2015) as data source. We finished the work with the exposition of the intensification of rights violations during the Covid-19 pandemic in female prisons and, without intending to end the discussion, we concluded that the prisons are a reconfiguration of the technologies of control and violence of our slavery past and colonial, thus opening up the issues of racism, sexism and class division in the processes of State control over the diverse women in Brazil.