The unconstitutional state of affairs and the consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic on the prison system

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the Unconstitutional State of Things and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Brazilian prison system, given the vulnerability of the prison population, resulting from overcrowding, violation of fundamental rights and omission of the Public Power. Therefore, the consequences of the proliferation of the coronavirus among prisoners are investigated and what attitudes the government has been adopting to reduce the impacts of the pandemic on prisons. To analyze these reflexes, the Hypothetical-Deductive Method will be applied, which discusses the researched arguments, in order to submit them to tests, to prove their veracity. Thus, it is evident that preventive measures were adopted by the Public Power, in the figure of the Executive and Judiciary Power. However, the social right to health continues to be violated and the risk of exposure to the new virus is increasingly recurrent, since the sanitary problems, constant in the prison system, remained unchanged. Thus, it is clear that the Government continues to fail in its responsibility to ensure the fundamental rights and dignity of the human person.