Abstract

FRINHANI, Fernanda de Magalhães Dias  and  SOUZA, Lídio de. Imprisoned women and prison universe: a social representations analyses. Psicol. teor. prat. [online]. 2005, vol.7, n.1, pp. 61-79. ISSN 1516-3687.

The objective of this work was to investigate the social representations of the prison space of women inmates in a State Female Penitentiary. For this study, we opted for a semi-structured interview as data collection instrument. Ten women inmates were interviewed, utilizing a script which focused the following aspects of their daily life: social-demographic data; moment of crime; how the sentence functions are perceived; relation with family prior and after incarceration; life before incarceration; penitentiary day-to-day; vision of the treatment received in the penitentiary; what are the main difficulties encountered in prison; future projects. The data were organized from the content analysis of the interviews. Data revealed that the practices and the experiences lived and shared by the interviewees are fundamental for the construction and transformation of their representations on the different aspects of the prison quotidian. Revealed strategies that permit the support of being in prison, some gender characteristics and, for many, the prison was the salvation of their lives.

Keywords : Women; Prison; Social representations.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )