Da escravidão ao cárcere: o sistema penal brasileiro sob a perspectiva do racismo estrutural e da punição seletiva

Abstract

This study investigates mass incarceration in the state of Minas Gerais, emphasizing the racial inequalities that structure the Brazilian penal system by analyzing its historical roots in the colonial and slavery periods and its rearticulation through post-abolition policies. Using qualitative methodology and empirical data analysis, it demonstrates how structural racism guides penal selectivity, transforming Black and peripheral bodies into preferential targets of a repressive apparatus that normalizes rights violations, such as prison overcrowding and the absence of custody hearings. The social construction of the "racialized enemy" is discussed, linked to public order discourses that legitimize the militarization of peripheral territories and the criminalization of poverty, while welfare policies assimilate securitized logics, penalizing access to basic rights. The results highlight the continuity between the slaveholding legacy and contemporary hyperincarceration, revealing that the justice system, far from promoting equity, operates as a mechanism for maintaining racial hierarchies, reinforced by legal elites whose training reproduces stereotypes and punitive practices.