As Brazil consolidates itself as the global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, little is being said about one of its most affected populations – prisoners, or, to use human rights jargon, persons deprived of liberty.
Amid the COVID-19 crisis, observers point out that the government is condemning the incarcerated population to death. Brazil has the world’s third-largest prison population – 773.151 prisoners — and a system in which some facilities operate at 300% over capacity and pronounced gaps in the welfare of detainees predate the pandemic.
The current scenario in Brazilian prisons can be interpreted as the continuation of President Jair Bolsonaro's campaign platform based in necropolitics, in which the State decides who lives and, above all, who dies. In this project, some lives are deemed “disposable.” It is no small detail that that Bolsonaro’s campaign motto was: “A good criminal is a dead criminal”.
