Human rights and health: reflections on life and politics in the context of the incarcerated population

Abstract

This essay seeks to discuss notions of human rights and health of the incarcerated population in contemporary Brazil, particularly in São Paulo. The article points out the current framework of mass incarceration, aiming to address the issues involving the health phenomenon and its articulations to human rights. From the questions raised, we develop a reflection on the concept of biopolitics, seeking to renew its vitality as we revisit the work of Georges Canguilhem and the results of ethnographic research that focused on readings on the life among people involved with the “world of crime”. Facing the issue about the health rights of the incarcerated population opens a potent analytical key to understand the challenges of the public health field, given that producing knowledge about the increase in deaths and illness from external causes, the expansion mental health problems in the poor and black population, and the social reproduction of violence is possible.