Neoliberalism and the Incarceration of Women in Brazil

the Role of the Prison Ministry in the Defense of Rights

Abstract

The significant increase in the Brazilian female prison population in the first two decades of the 21st century and the constant violations of the rights of imprisoned women reveal the interdependence of the state's management of violence based on neoliberal rationality. Therefore, this study attempts to understand and analyze the role of the Prison Ministry in defending the rights of incarcerated women based on an analysis of the documents Maria e as Marias nos cárceres – mulheres atrás das grades (Maria and the Marias in prisons – women behind bars) (2018); the Guia Prático de Direitos para Mulheres em Situação de Prisão (Practical Guide to Rights for Women in Prison) (2025) - and the Agenda Nacional pelo Desencarceramento (National Agenda for Decarceration) (2017). The research is guided by Foucauldian critical references regarding governmentality, power, and devices in neoliberal capitalism, articulating the concepts of Latin American decolonial feminism. It emerges that, although part of the Catholic Church, the Prison Ministry acts in the political-pedagogical training of its agents for the integral defense of human rights, addressing issues of gender, criminal justice, punitive rationality, and confronting violence and inequalities. It thus acts as a counter- apparatus, resisting neoliberal logic in the defense of the rights of incarcerated women.