Inmate wives: expressions of violence inside a prison in southern Brazil

Abstract This study analyzes how structural and institutional violence is manifested in the lives of women who are partners of men deprived of liberty in a prison in southern Brazil. Ethnographic research was conducted over a five-month period in 2022 with six women who visited their partners in prison. Gender and socioeconomic status, characterized by structural violence, emerged as social markers responsible for limiting women’s choices and rendering them vulnerable. Institutional violence was evident in episodes of moral and psychological violence experienced by the women, revealing the effects of indirect institutionalization. It is concluded that incarceration represents a repository of social exclusion. It is marked by structural violence and is responsible for perpetuating unjust institutional structures, which condition women to social experiences marked by precarity, privation of opportunities, and lack of legal protections.