Marcas do cárcere: a vida das mulheres mães que passaram pelo sistema prisional do estado da Paraíba

Abstract

This research aimed to analyze the consequences of deprivation of liberty for women mothers and their children, based on the experience of graduates from the Maria Júlia Maranhão Reeducation Center, located in the city of João Pessoa - PB. The theoretical perspective focused on the dialogue between Critical Criminology and Feminist Criminology, aiming for a critical conceptual debate about women and prison. Regarding the methodology, it was a field research, whose data were collected from semi-structured interviews with eight interlocutors. The information obtained was subjected to Thematic Analysis, in which nine categories were generated through the most expressive statements of these women. Thus, the following themes were selected for the theoretical debate: “The motivations for crime and the role of care attributed to the female figure”, “Trafficking as work and the precarious performance of women in this activity”, “The various violations of rights in the prison environment”, “Prison activities”, “Visits, abandonment and children”, “The extent of punishment for children”, “Access to the justice system and electronic ankle monitors” “The job market, the penalty of fine and the Social Office” and “Subjective marks in the postprison period.” The results allowed us to identify that the financial need linked to the role of care attributed to the female figure causes many women to resort to illicit practices. Jobs in drug trafficking reproduce the inequalities experienced by women in relation to class, gender and race. When they are incarcerated, the prison system becomes a creator of physical, emotional, social and economic scars for them and their children. Within the prison system, there are several violations of rights, such as physical and psychological violence, lack of access to basic survival items, lack of access to the health system and other precarious situations, such as food restrictions, overcrowding of cells and lack of of work and study that enable the introduction of this population into the formal job market outside of prisons. Problematizing the experiences lived by these women, in the post-prison period, allows us to understand that the prison system is not successful in its declared function of resocializing. The post-prison results demonstrate that there was an increase in the condition of economic, social and subjective vulnerability of female single-parent families. The Justice System's disregard for the ex-prisoner population, the restriction of opportunities and prejudice arising from the use of electronic ankle bracelets and the increased difficulty in finding jobs, due to the stigma of ex-prisoners, can be observed. The subjective marks in the post-prison period indicate that the traumas related to the period of incarceration are still present in the lives of all family members and that the relationships between mothers and their children have been strained or family ties have been broken.