A produção social e racializada da dor : tortura estrutural e as violações ao direito à saúde no Complexo Penitenciário Manoel Carvalho Neto (COPEMCAN)

Abstract

This study analyzes the social and racialized production of suffering within the Manoel Carvalho Neto Penitentiary Complex (COPEMCAN), located in São Cristóvão, Sergipe, Brazil. The central objective of the investigation is to examine the extent to which the institutional conditions and dynamics described in the Inspection Report of the National Mechanism for the Prevention and Combat of Torture (MNPCT) constitute expressions of structural torture within COPEMCAN, particularly in the area of health care and psychosocial assistance. Grounded in the historical-dialectical materialist framework, this qualitative research employs bibliographical and documentary analysis, utilizing the MNPCT report as the primary empirical source to unveil the essence of the object of study beyond institutional narratives. The theoretical analysis articulates the categories of the penal State, the social question, and structural racism, demonstrating that the prison system operates as a mechanism of control and neutralization of the surplus working class in contemporary capitalism. The findings demonstrate that COPEMCAN functions under an alarming state of overcrowding, housing over 2,700 individuals in a space designed for 800, which institutionalizes precariousness and unsanitary conditions as the norm. Regarding health care, the study identified the deliberate production of illness, characterized by endemic tuberculosis, chronic lack of access to medication, and predominantly extractive dental practices. Penal selectivity is confirmed by the sociodemographic profile, in which 88.2% of the identified incarcerated population is Black, revealing that structural torture has a defined racial and class target. The study concludes that institutional violence at COPEMCAN does not constitute a management failure, but rather a political strategy for managing institutional cruelty and expropriating life, reaffirming the ethical-political commitment of Social Work to denouncing human rights violations perpetrated by the State.