FORMER WOMEN WORKERS OF THE PRISON SYSTEM OF ESPÍRITO SANTO: FROM THE PRODUCTION OF LIFE TO THE PRODUCTION OF SCARCITY, DEHUMANIZATION, AND DEATH
Name: MARIANA CHRYSTÊLLO MARTINS MINCHIO
Publication date: 18/12/2025
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| ARELYS ESQUENAZI BORREGO | Examinador Interno |
| CAMILLA MARCONDES MASSARO | Examinador Externo |
| CARLA BENITEZ MARTINS | Examinador Externo |
| JEANE ANDREIA FERRAZ SILVA | Examinador Interno |
| LIVIA DE CASSIA GODOI MORAES | Presidente |
Summary: The present thesis analyzes the reproduction of life and, more specifically, the labor power of women released from the prison system of Espírito Santo who worked while serving their sentences. Grounded in Social Reproduction Theory, the study starts
from the understanding that the women's prison is not a marginal space, but a central device for the reproduction of inequality, scarcity, and dehumanization in dependent capitalism. The research, qualitative in nature, was based on interviews with ten
formerly incarcerated women who worked on the factory production line installed at the Cariacica/ES Women’s Prison. The analysis demonstrates that, after their release, these women remain embedded in dynamics of scarcity, under the individualized
responsibility of managing their own conditions of survival. In short, the transition from prison to freedom expresses a unitary social movement: the shift from the production of life to the production of scarcity, dehumanization, and death. In this trajectory, family, work, health, and access to public policies do not appear as autonomous spheres, but as interconnected dimensions of the reproduction process of female and racialized labor power under dependent capitalism. It is concluded that the State, while
penalizing, fails to guarantee the material conditions of existence, delegating the solitary management of their lives to the released women. Thus, unequal access to public policies is not only a consequence of inequalities but a mechanism through
which capital maintains and renews the devaluation of life.
