Vencer as grades: mobilizações em torno da prisão em contexto pandêmico

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic brought to the surface issues related to social, political, legal, and sanitary vulnerabilities. In unhealthy, overcrowded, and precarious spaces, such as Brazilian prisons, the worsening of this situation and the need for preventive measures compatible with those environments were foreseen. In this scenario, Paraíba adopted a contingency plan against Covid-19 focused on the prison system, which led me to explore the contours of Paraíba's prisons. In this sense, the object of study of this research, focuses on the mobilizations around the Paraíba prison system in a pandemic context, concentrating on the Contingency Plan against the "Sars-Cov-2" virus, which sought the effectiveness of the rights of people deprived of liberty and the guarantee of their survival. Simultaneously, I address the articulations undertaken by State agents (representative of the Ombudsman's Office of the Public Defender, Public Defenders, Experts of the Committee to Combat Torture in Paraíba, members of the Commission on Human Rights of the OAB / PB, among others), as well as the representative of the Association of Mothers and Wives of Apenados - AMEA and family members of prisoners, in the period from May 2020 until January 2021. To this end, this study is based on theoretical references from the Anthropology of Law and Critical Criminology. I use the qualitative methodology, through online ethnography and the daily monitoring of the interlocutors. The research instrument used was the semistructured online interview with the participants of the study and I conducted a documentary research in normative, state guidelines, ordinances, among others. The results of the research indicated that several mobilizations occurred on the part of the studied social subjects, who were committed to the containment of the "Sars-Cov-2" virus in the prison environment. Despite the situation of vulnerability to which prisoners were exposed, the initiatives taken by state agents, civil society and family members of prisoners were fruitful in facing this health crisis, although they did not cover the complexity of the prison reality in the pandemic context.