Reflexões sobre a casa dos mortos em tempos de pandemia: as prisões brasileiras

Abstract

The aim of this brief essay is to reflect on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on brazilian prisons and their repercussions on the daily lives of the families of incarcerated people. We initially describe the deleterious conditions of these prisons, including overcrowding, the lack of adequate health care in the environment, the unhealthy environment and the lack of conditions for personal care and hygiene, which accelerates contagion in an airtight institution at the mercy of government decisions that underpin such a degraded condition representing great social risk. In this context we alert to the situation of extermination of the imprisoned youth and discuss the decision to suspend visits of family members and lawyers to detainees and inmates without proposing alternative forms of communication, which constitutes degrading and cruel treatment for both the prison population and their families who suffer from the lack of news and are prevented from providing the essential that the state repeatedly misses. We conclude by observing that there is no hope for a country that allows such a situation to exist.