MOTHERHOOD IN PRISON: INSTITUTIONAL VIOLENCE AGAINST THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN PRISONERS

Abstract

Humans are social beings, and the vast majority live in communities, developing social skills from childhood that allow them to act in inter-relational situations in their usual habitat. However, ever since humans began living collectively, there has been a need to regulate their conduct toward their peers in the social environment in which they find themselves. This has been the case since ancient times, from antiquity to the present day. When they break these rules and laws, they may be punished and lose their right to enjoy their freedom, becoming segregated, separated from family and society. They are torn from their place and taken to prison, where they can remain for several years, paying the price for their violation with the deprivation of their liberty, losing the right to stay, go, or stay wherever they wish. This research, aiming to understand the world of the offender, aims to investigate the conditions in which female prisoners, mothers, or pregnant women, experience their freedom restricted. It also aims to determine whether these women are victims of institutional violence to the detriment of their status within Brazilian prisons, with blatant disregard for their rights (and those of their offspring) as human beings.

To this end, the texts were prepared using law, doctrine, and jurisprudence as sources, as well as theses, dissertations, articles, and official websites of the federal and state governments of Brazil, periodicals, and books by various authors.

As a result of this research, some considerations regarding the Brazilian criminal legal system are first outlined, addressing the concepts of crime and punishment, which give rise to imprisonment for the commission of criminal offenses by a specific individual, resulting in the loss of liberty and prison segregation. It further states that a crime is an isolated or collective unlawful conduct that violates the law or regulations, and such conduct is subject to punishment in the same manner as provided for in the legal system.

Regarding the definition of a crime, Decree-Law No. 3,914/1941, in its Article 1, states that "a crime is considered a criminal offense for which the law imposes a penalty of imprisonment or detention, either alone or alternatively or cumulatively with a fine; a misdemeanor is a criminal offense for which the law imposes, alone, a simple imprisonment penalty or a fine, or both, alternatively or cumulatively." This is the legal provision, the letter of the law.

Crime is a violation of a legal precept, an insurgency, an infraction against a legal norm committed by a person, generally by choice or driven by extreme poverty, illness, misery, or social vulnerability. However, regardless of the circumstances, violating behavior is punishable, including deprivation of liberty, for both men and women.

The prison system arises from the need to organize conditions for serving sentences for individuals convicted of intentional or negligent crimes, whether in closed, semi-open, or open regimes in our country, which has a considerable number of people deprived of liberty in all states of the Federation.

Initially, the discussion focuses on imprisonment, criminal execution, and the rights of prisoners, as well as the legal structure of prisons and disciplinary power within penal units and their hierarchy, resulting in imprisonment and exclusion, as well as the social and economic costs of this segregational system in effect in Brazil. In the second chapter, the argument revolves around the human rights of prisoners, considering prison segregation from an institutional perspective (the placement of prisoners in the prison system based on their sex, the sentencing regime, and their subsequent implementation within the prison). The proportionality of the sentence is also discussed in this chapter, as well as the individual deprived of liberty and their social vulnerabilities within the system.

It also considers the social, not just criminal, prejudiced condemnation of those released from the prison system, treating racial prejudice as a relevant factor in social condemnation, which primarily affects Black people, as well as poor and peripheral people, in communities throughout the country.

The issue of female incarceration was also highlighted, as were questions related to house arrest in Brazil and in the context of modernity. Gender, incarceration, and poverty are considered in light of potential violations of the human rights of female prisoners. How does the State treat these female prisoners? Whose well-being is interested in their well-being? What are the possible perspectives on these women deprived of their liberty? How is it possible to look at mothers and children in Brazilian prisons?

Furthermore, Critical Criminology and its relationship to female incarceration were the subject of research, as was the profile of female criminality and its relationship to the feminization of poverty. Furthermore, the social context of female incarceration (prejudice and selectivity) was analyzed. At the end of the chapter, criminal recidivism and female criminality in Brazil and Pernambuco were the subject of study.

The implications of being a mother while segregated in a prison in Brazil and the experiences of these women and their children within the prison constitute the discursive context contained in chapter three. Carrying on, giving birth, and raising children is not as simple as people are often led to believe. Imagine living this situation in prison, with your freedom restricted, having to obey rules in an unhealthy environment, surrounded by strangers, distanced from your family and your affection. Human rights violations of women who experience motherhood in prison and the issue of children or adolescents living with a mother or father deprived of their liberty are also the subject of study in this chapter.

Chapter four addresses the issue of being a mother in prison and the challenges of carrying, giving birth to, and raising children within a prison unit, with its implications, fragilities, and vulnerabilities, especially regarding healthy living conditions during this period, including factors that negatively affect the physical and mental health of these mothers and their children.

Finally, the aim was to develop a more comprehensive, specific, and detailed mapping of individuals deprived of liberty who are mothers, breastfeeding mothers, or pregnant women, and the care provided for their physical, mental, and maternal well-being within prison units throughout the country. It also addresses the invisibility of children (including babies and newborns) segregated with their mothers in prison spaces and cells. Understanding the profile of these women and their children is a fundamental prerequisite for truly understanding their reality, as well as investigating the preservation and/or violations of their rights while in state custody while serving their sentences.

Even though it's common knowledge that prisons don't rehabilitate, transform, or socialize individuals, or improve them in any way (on the contrary, they mutilate and castrate their identity, their name, their integrity...), they continue to exist. In this vein, the research questions were explored in depth, the proposed objectives were carefully analyzed, and the results presented in the following chapters and subtopics.

1.1 OBJECTIVES
1.1.1 General Objective

To understand the main types of institutional violence against the rights of pregnant, mothering, or breastfeeding women incarcerated in Brazilian prisons, their main causes, and mechanisms to combat these abject practices that violate the law and disrespect the human rights of those deprived of liberty.

1.1.2 Specific Objectives
a) To assess the prevalence of practices that disrespect the rights of women experiencing motherhood in prison within the Brazilian women's prison system.
b) To investigate, based on sources and facts, whether the rights of those deprived of liberty, especially mothers or pregnant women, are in fact respected by those who hold that person's liberty, leading to situations of institutional violence against these women's rights.
c) To interpret the context of poverty and vulnerability that can lead women to the world of crime and, consequently, to prison. d) List the criminal and personal causes that lead women to commit crimes, according to data collected in the study, regarding women of mixed race, Black, poor, and peripheral origin.
e) Investigate violations of the rights of pregnant women or incarcerated mothers, from prenatal care to childbirth, including whether prisons provide the necessary conditions (own space, nurseries, physical and psychological health care, etc.) for mothers and children to coexist with dignity within the prison unit.
f) Understand the factual context of what it means to be a mother in prison, considering the challenges of gestating, giving birth, and raising children in prison, and the implications for the physical and mental health of these mothers and their children, given their fragile and vulnerable conditions during their time in prison. g) To determine whether children who are imprisoned with their mothers are visible to the system and society as a whole, and whether they also suffer violence that compromises their healthy development, given their vulnerable condition.
h) To understand why some women are granted the benefit of house arrest and obtain legal permission to serve their sentences in their own homes, outside prison walls.