The detainees’ families in the second instance

decisions from the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.1590/2179-8966/2023/71116i

The purpose of this text is to carry out as analysis of the decisions issued in the second instance involving family members of prisoners, focusing on the Courts of Justice of Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Decisions published between 1998 and 2021 were collected in the three locations, forming a database, that was scrutinized in a quantitative perspective. Based on this, it was possible to notice that the judicial processes have two main focuses: requests related to the excess term of provisional detention and requests related to difficulties in visiting prisons. In the first point, the importance of families in the persecution of the rights of the inmates is clear. The decisions of the three courts on the matter differ substantially, and the claim is only effective in many cases in Rio de Janeiro. On the second point, there is an indication of how imprisonment goes beyond the person of the prisoner to reach their loved ones. In these cases, the decisions of the three courts have contributed to the transformation of family members of prisoners, especially women, into criminals, authorizing the constant surveillance of their bodies, in addition to the denial or hardening to maintain the bonds of affection between these and their prisoners.

Keywords: Prisoners’ families; Second instance decisions; Courts of Justice; Criminalization; Violations of rights.