Encarcelamiento y tráfico de drogas: un estudio desde la condición de mujeres extranjeras latinoamericanas en Antofagasta

Abstract

In this research, experiences from Latin American women incarcerated in the Centro Penitenciario Femenino Antofagasta, Chile, under drug trafficking, are gathered. For analysis of data a questionnaire and in-depth interviews to 15 foreign, and legally accused and sentenced women, during June and July 2018, from the above mentioned correctional facility. First of all, a Latin American and Chilean contextualization is carried out, considering female criminal records, drug related crimes, the prisons as well as statistical data from “Gendarmería de Chile” and “Defensoría Penal Pública”. Then, 3 specific objectives are addressed: First, their social and family profile, secondly, their engagement process regarding drug trafficking as an illegal activity, which has caused an increasing level of female imprisonment in the last few decades, and finally, their own experiences as inmates. Studies from Portuguese and Spanish authors about "triple condena”, which explain at a structural level the intersections between foreign women, as well as studies researched by authors from the same countries (and Brazil) on the porosity of the prison’s borders, known as “interface” are considered, which, ultimately helped the researcher to understand, that given their foreign and ethnic origin situations, alongside with racism and discrimination in their interactions both inside and outside prison, these women experience a violation of access to their rights as well as the chance to exercise them. Two immediate effects were observed from the imprisonment and the limited, although present, margin of agency and adaptation strategies these women develop, which in the end determines the individualities of their own imprisonment in the Latin American outlook.