WOMEN IN JAIL: HEALTH BEHIND BARS

Abstract

The significant increase in the incarceration of women in Brazil has had an impact on security policies, penitentiary administration, as well as policies specific to gender inequality. This text is based on the mapping of literature accessed in database and aims to increase the discussion on women's health in the Prison System, focusing on the gender approach that circulates in national and international articles published between 2004 and 2015. To build the object of study, these scientific productions were accessed from the initial survey in the databases- Scientific Electronic Library Online (SCIELO); Journals from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) and Virtual Health Library (Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS))- using the descriptors: women in prison and women in jail. 74 articles were selected, in which the following themes were identified: profile (9), everyday life (22), health (16), family (16), resocialization (11) and media (1); the study fields in which they were produced: Nursing (5), Psychology (15), Public/collective Health (16), Social Work (1), Medicine (10), Social Sciences (10), Law (8), Education (9); regions and countries. The articles were selected by its identification with the health discussion and the subtopics were defined through the summaries of each text and guided by the research objective. In a dialogical review of the literature, it was identified that the productions point to gender differences, without, however, presenting a discussion about any specific gender theory. Most refer to gender as all forms of social, cultural and linguistic construction that differentiate women from men and produce their bodies as bodies endowed with sex, gender and sexuality.