Política criminal e expansão do punitivismo no Brasil: reflexões sobre o encarceramento no país e os desafios para uma mudança de perspectiva diante da pandemia de covid-19

Abstract

The present study aims to reflect on the Brazilian prison system’s situation and its challenges facing the over-incarceration during the Covid-19 pandemic. From the theoretical point of view, the profiling privileges bibliographic research, highlighting authors like Loic Wacquant, Nilo Batista, Luciana Boiteux e Vera Malaguti Batista, among others. Furthermore, the work contains an analysis of the National Penitentiary Data Survey to examine the current prison system situation and possible factors that contribute to the ongoing state. The work is structured in three topics. Initially, the economical changes from the early 90s and their possible relation to the course taken by the Brazilian criminal policies are presented. Following, a critical approach of the possible elements that stimulated the rising of the prison population, as well as its relation to the violations of human rights that led up to the acknowledgment of the State of Unconstitutional Things in the Brazilian prisons, is made. Lastly, analyzes the challenges of applying criminal policies that go against the ones adopted in the last decades and the impact of Covid-19 on the prison system.