Methodological challenges in building a database on prison deaths

• Grant number: 24/02845-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: August 15, 2024
• End date: February 14, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law
• Principal Investigator: Maira Rocha Machado
• Grantee: Mariana Morais Zambom
• Supervisor: Sharon Dolovich
• Host Institution: Escola de Direito de São Paulo. Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 23/04022-0 - Deaths in prison custody: between accesses and erasures of the imprisoned person and the conditions of life in prison in the sanction management processes in São Paulo, BP.DR

Abstract

This research internship abroad project seeks to develop methodological approaches capable of enhancing the study of the relationship between prison, person, and death, considering the similarities and differences between the contexts of the United States and Brazil. The aim is to: a) map the methodological strategies adopted by the UCLA research team in the Behind Bars Data Project to access and systematize official data on deaths behind bars in the United States, in particular to address underreporting problems and deal with ethical issues of research and personal data management; b) identify what information about the person in custody and the death event was obtained in the UCLA project, as well as the methods adopted to analyze the data and carry out studies focused on specific correlations, such as racial disparities and life expectancy; c) to assess how public health knowledge is being mobilized by the research team and what strategies have been adopted to analyze the classifications of causes of death and identify possible inconsistencies; and d) build a database with the main information on the person, the type of death event and the prison in the state of São Paulo between 2018 and 2023. The proposal is characterized as a study with a methodological approach, based on learning and perfecting specific methodological strategies and tools to carry out the organization, systematization, and analyze data on deaths in prisons in São Paulo, enabling the construction of a database available to the public and the development of in-depth analyses of who dies, from what causes, what are the dynamics of the actors' actions and how they perceive their actions.