Between Medicalization, Criminalization, and Moralization: Drug Users in Brazil's Forensic Psychiatric Hospitals

• Grant number: 25/02223-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: February 28, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Urban Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Sérgio Resende Carvalho
• Grantee: Sara Vieira Antunes
• Supervisor: Frederic Le Marcis
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Médicas (FCM). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: École Normale Supérieure, Lyon (ENS), France
• Associated to the scholarship: 23/10776-8 - Between Justice and Psychiatry: Drug users in the cracks of the judicial asylum, BP.PD

Abstract

Over the past thirty years, Brazil has undergone three major transformations in the fields of mental health and the penal system: the reorientation of the mental health care model, the intensification of the political and media agenda of the "war on drugs," and the exponential rise in incarceration rates. Drug users caught up in the criminal justice system find themselves at the intersection of these three phenomena. Mostly poor and from marginalized areas, individuals criminalized for drug-related offenses are more frequently sentenced to prison. However, if a psychiatric report indicates the presence of a mental disorder, they may be subjected to psychiatric hospitalization in a forensic psychiatric institution through the legal mechanism of security measures. In my current postdoctoral research, I examine and discuss how, over the past decade, forensic psychiatric institutions in Brazil - particularly in the state of São Paulo - have increasingly admitted individuals diagnosed with disorders related to alcohol and drug use. This trend suggests that these institutions have become part of the institutional circuit of control and containment of this population. In this context, the objective of my research abroad is to conduct a literature review and deepen theoretical studies on the intersection of drug policies, incarceration, and mental health. This work will be carried out under the supervision of Professor Frédéric Le Marcis and through exchanges with the team of researchers from Team 3 ("Local Cultures, Global Health") at the TransVIHMI research laboratory. (AU)