Bolsonaro and the end of prison assistance: reality and fiction

By continuing with the electoral tactic of spreading misinformation to reap support, the Bolsonaro government, it seems, will demand more from those who claim to defend citizens' rights.

The victim of the fake news spread by the president-elect on January 04th was the prison assistance program.

Criticism of the benefit is nothing new, including from the president himself when he held the position of federal deputy.

Within conservative circles, numerous pieces of misinformation have always been spread, labeling the benefit as "bandit's allowance" and similar terms, exaggerating the amount paid and criticizing the source of the funds as being diverted from other purposes.

The first "misconception" is that the prison allowance is paid to the inmate when, in fact, the amount is remuneration paid to their dependents, including spouses, children up to 21 years of age and not emancipated, disabled children or children with some type of disability, stepchildren or minors under guardianship, such as siblings, elderly parents, and mothers who depended on the income of their son or daughter before being incarcerated.

This is because, with the restriction of freedom, their dependents are left financially destitute, just as happens with a survivor's pension.

The second deception is to make people believe that the benefit is paid to the families of all prisoners.

In fact, regulated by Law No. 8.213/1991 and reaffirmed in Decree No. 3.048/1999, the benefit is paid only to inmates who have contributed to social security and who are in the group of low-income workers in the country, that is, in classes C, D and E.

The amount, therefore, comes from the contribution of the insured person who is imprisoned, and not from taxes paid by citizens in general.

And it varies according to the inmate's contribution in the year prior to their imprisonment, divided by the number of dependents.

If implemented by the Bolsonaro government, this restriction will affect very low-income families and have serious social consequences, such as making these families vulnerable to criminal organizations, which will have an economic tool to carry out their harassment of prisoners and poor family members lacking sources of income.

In the macro-political debate, the numbers from the Brazilian prison system have been occupying newspaper and magazine pages for some time, especially when rebellions break out in state prisons.

It is when the media focuses on showing the lack of prison spaces and the human latrines that we call prisons.

Numerically, we occupy the unfortunate third position worldwide. There are approximately 720 prisoners, in an ever-increasing curve, which leaves no doubt about the logic of mass incarceration by the Brazilian State.

In the social imagination, there is resistance to considering an alternative policy to incarceration, primarily due to the misconception of associating prison with the practice of violence.

Society is generally led to assume that prisoners in Brazil are murderers and rapists, perpetuating a stigmatization of incarcerated citizens as "criminals" when, in fact, those imprisoned for violent crimes account for less than 20% of the total, according to statistics from the Penitentiary Department of the Ministry of Justice and the Brazilian Forum on Public Security.

The vast majority of the prison population committed property crimes and were involved with drugs.

Approximately 40% of those arrested have not even been tried and are being held in pretrial detention.

In other words, the illusion is created that imprisonment can reduce violence, when in fact violence increases in direct proportion to the increase in the number of prisoners. There is no correlation.

In turn, denying rights to prisoners, coupled with the lack of a consistent rehabilitation policy, can only lead to more crimes and the strengthening of factions that seek to compensate for the State's failure to provide benefits to prisoners and their families.

To deprive dependents of a legitimate right belonging to a citizen who is imprisoned and who has fulfilled the requirements to contribute to social security is to obstruct a fundamental human right, which could compromise their survival.

By using the removal of the right to prison benefits as a rallying cry to target "criminals," Bolsonaro will certainly not change the serious situation of violence in the country, nor will he be taking any step towards addressing the issue of prison system statistics.

This will, however, extend the social stigma surrounding prisoners to their families, harming legally incapacitated and vulnerable individuals, including children and the elderly.

Thus, under the guise of fighting "criminals' rights," it reveals not only ignorance and a lack of empathy for the suffering of others, but also an inability to seek non-fictional and media-driven solutions to a serious real problem.