PWG - Hunger in Brazilian Prisons: social impacts and implications in the logic of the prison-warehouse in the global south.

• In Event: PWG - More than a meal: The role of nutrition and food practices in prisons

Abstract

This study explores hunger in Brazilian prisons, examining how the lack of adequate food is configured as a form of additional punishment for inmates and also affects their families. The methodology used includes the analysis of prison inspection reports, interviews with prisoners at different stages of serving their sentences, former inmates and their families. Based on this data, the aim is to understand how the scarcity of food in prisons worsens the living conditions of inmates, dehumanizing them and intensifying the human rights violations already present in the prison system. In addition to the direct implications for the physical health of inmates, food deprivation is addressed as a mechanism of control and oppression, which extends its impacts beyond the cells, affecting family members who often have to assume the responsibility of providing food resources.

The reports collected show how the inmates themselves perceive hunger as part of a punitive logic that goes beyond incarceration and materializes in the denial of basic needs. The research is theoretically based on the long tradition of Brazilian social sciences in conceptualizing hunger and its consequences in a country still marked by this scourge. Furthermore, the research helps to reveal the role of Brazilian prisons as an example of a prison-warehouse in the global south, which, however, does not have the same incapacitation bias traditionally associated with this prison model.

The aim is to present the results of the research and contribute to the deepening of the debate on punishment based on the prison reality of the global south.

Author

• PATRICK CACICEDO, University of São Paulo