Brazil: Drugs, walls and being a woman

By Prison Insider

Brazil’s prison population tripled in 20 years, resulting to a total of 770,000 inmates in 2,600 prisons. This is due to an increased recourse to detention. The incarceration rate of 133 in 2000 has grown to 466 in nearly two decades. The narration of women imprisonment seems to follow the same trajectory. The number of female prisoners multiplied by six between 2000 and 2016. For almost two thirds of them, the usual grounds for imprisonment are drug-related offences. The Land, Work and Citizenship Institute (Instituto Terra, Trabalho e Cidadania, ITTC) focuses on these women as well as issues relating to gender, justice and drugs.

Cátia Kimis a lawyer. She works with ITTC since two years on two projects, ‘Gender and Drugs’ and ‘Migrant Women’. Marcela Verdade Costa Amaral is a lawyer and a researcher. She is working on the ‘Justice Without Walls’ programme. Prison Insider met them and asked them three questions.