MULHERES E TRÁFICO DE DROGAS: UM ESTUDO SOBRE O INGRESSO DAS MULHERES NO TRÁFICO DE DROGAS E O AUMENTO DO ENCARCERAMENTO FEMININO NO BRASIL

Abstract

The Brazilian reality of over-incarceration and overcrowding in penitentiary institutions has as one of its main causes the prohibitionist drug policy adopted in the country. In Brazil, drug crimes are the second largest cause of incarceration, corresponding to 32.39% of the total prison population in 2020. However, in relation to the female prison population, it is the first cause of incarceration, with 57%. Given this scenario, it is important to identify the motivations of these women to enter the drug trade and the ways in which the selectivity of the criminal justice system affects them. Phenomena such as the feminization of poverty and the reproduction of the sexual division of labor in the drug trade are pointed out as influential for the entrance of many women into the illegal labor market. Trafficking then appears as an alternative way to support oneself, which makes it possible to earn income and, at the same time, take care of the children and the house. However, the positions that women occupy in the hierarchy of the illegal drug trade are usually more precarious and more visible and exposed to police activity, being more easily selected by the criminal justice system. Thus, the general objective of this study is to analyze the main consequence of the prohibitionist and punitive policies of the "war on drugs," which is the increase in incarceration in the country, from a gender perspective by focusing on the incarceration of Brazilian women for drug crimes. For this the method used was the inductive method in order to conduct a qualitative research and indirect documentation, using primary sources, such as documents, and secondary sources, with bibliographic resources, resulting in a bibliographic, descriptive and exploratory research. In this way, after perceiving the impact of gender condition in the entrance of women into the drug trade, in the subordinate positions occupied by them, and in the way they are selected by the criminal system and treated in prison, it is concluded that the "war on drugs", besides being a fallacy formally based on the combat against trafficking and drugs, is one of the cruelest ways through which the State legitimizes the social exclusion of various unwanted groups in society. And, in this specific case, it is demonstrated by the way women in crime are doubly punished: for their criminal condition and for their deviation from the gender standards socially imposed on the condition of women.