Gênero e prisão: a influência dos estereótipos de gênero na criminalização da mulher e no aumento do encarceramento feminino por tráfico de drogas

Abstract

This work aims to understand the influence of gender stereotypes on the criminalization of women, causing an increase in female incarceration for the crime of drug trafficking, which in recent years has become the main offense in the process of criminalizing women, previously constituted, mostly for crimes related to their gender condition (such as abortion, infanticide, prostitution and passionate crimes). For this, we used the inductive method and an essentially qualitative approach, which contained extensive bibliographic research (composed of scientific articles, master's and doctoral theses, monographs, books), as well as quantitative analysis from official data from government agencies (INFOPEN, IBGE, SEAP). Thus, initially, the present work will make a brief analysis of the history of female incarceration, from the penalties in the Middle Ages to the effective creation of prisons destined exclusively for transgressive women in Brazil, also addressing the influence of gender in the construction of the social role of women and profile of the criminal woman. Then, the paper addresses the importance of criminology in understanding female crime and feminist criminological theories. In view of this, the forms of female insertion in the world of drug trafficking will be analyzed from the perspective of Critical and Feminist Criminology, in view of the gender relations and representations and the social role for women in patriarchal society, which influence not only their modes of participation in this practice, but also their selection by the formal punitive system. In the end, it is concluded that the penal system, besides producing the figure of the delinquent woman and promoting criminal selectivity, also reinforces patriarchal control and gender stereotypes. Being the woman's gender condition an essential factor for her entry into the drug trade, during her participation and later when she is incarcerated.