Emoção e penalidade: mulheres no Complexo Penal Dr. João Chaves

Abstract

The current work was made from a field research at Dr. João Chaves Penal Complex female ward. Female inmates and prison guards were interviewed. This work has the objective of comprehend the influence of emotions in a specified period in the interviewed life stories, from the beginning of their life crimes to their everyday life in the prison. The manuscript is structured in three parts. The first brings up the debate (in historical and social terms) about the relation between woman and the prison system, in a national and local scale. The second and the third part were written with the intention to scrutinize the two central questions that guided this work: 1) what are the influences of emotions in a crime and justice perception? 2) What is the role of the affection and power relation in a prison everyday life? The second part examined the insertion process of the inmates in a total institution. Herein, I analyze the forms and motivations that led the woman to crime and prison. In the context, I address the love feelings, humiliation and indignation through two distinct examples, the former from the idea of insulto moral (moral insult) and the latter from the term amor bandido (prison love). The third part of this work discusses the relationship rules among the female inmates and prison guards. At a first instance, I debate the internalization process of the rules and its practice, approaching the role of who does the normative coercion and who is subjected to it. Afterwards, I present how the homosexual relationship occurs inside a prison, even this practice being disencouraged and susceptible to punishment. In the last chapter, I study some forms of control practiced at the establishment, analyzing the methods and objectives. At last, I present some final consideration discussing over themes approached in the current manuscript and the answers found through anthropological investigation.