Políticas e práticas no sistema prisional português sobre a igualdade de género

: o caso da comunidade LGBT

Abstract

With the establishment of feminist and queer movements over the last few decades and, consequently, the changes made in Portuguese legislation, ensuring LGBT rights, it has become important to understand the impact of these movements on the Portuguese justice system. For the LGBT population, if there are already challenges, these increase in a situation of imprisonment. Thus, this study aims to understand how the recommendations of feminist and queer movements had an impact on practices in the Portuguese justice system and in the prison system in particular. For this, 3 international and national documents were analyzed as well as 5 interviews to people in leadership positions in prisons. The results of the document analysis and interviews suggest that, in general, there is a need for a more rigorous policy for the implementation of practices in Portuguese prisons related to the LGBT community. It is also concluded that the existing guidelines and regulation are created only after the incident of the cases. In addition, part of the measures, in addition to being reactive, take place by establishment, depending on the “sensitivity” and characteristics of each department and leadership elements to face the challenges. Several challenges arising from the Portuguese law of self-determination and gender identity are also identified, such as the reactions of the prison population to this law, the adaptation of prison staff, situations of transgender people in which there is no physical transformation and the management of expectations regarding the gender transition process.

Date of Award	11 Jul 2023
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Raquel Matos (Supervisor)