Gender study. Mass incarceration. Drug trafficking.

For a long time, silence was part of women's history, whether from sources or reports. Constructed by the imagination of men, they were represented rather than described or told, they were naturally made invisible. They had their voices stolen and were dwarfed to fit into a costumed identity, which left irreparable marks on the collective psyche, especially on the sense of possibility. However, the process of oppression through silencing and the construction of a mystified identity accepted as universal truth by the community did not reach all women in the same way. If those belonging to the privileged classes, to some extent, escape its effects, those who do not belong suffer more severely. The notion that they were not criminal, but instigators of crime, made the crime, and consequently prison, a matter linked to masculinity. If criminal, then they were male or insane, out of step with their roles. In a patriarchal society, they should be domesticated or medicalized. It is in this context that, supported by theoretical feminist studies about gender oppression, and within an intersectional and historical perspective, through literature review, document analysis (minutes, newspapers and prison reports) and interviews with a prison architect, the course of female incarceration in the state of Alagoas was observed, paying attention to the ruptures and historical continuities, highlighting the periods from 1913 to 1921 and 2006 to 2019. The study understood not only the evolution of the spaces destined to guard them, but also also its relationship with crime. In the end, it was possible to verify that the forms of control of the female body are always updated, as society develops, both in the informal sphere, at home or outside, as well as in the formal sphere, through the criminal justice system. If before they were imprisoned for disorder or madness, today their involvement with trafficking takes on the role of selection that uses brands such as gender, race and class to segregate and reaffirm the condition of being on the sidelines. The result is a mass of young women, mothers, poorly educated, non-white, who pass through the police, receive notes in their criminal records and yet another stigma to be carried after prison.