Women, prisons, and freedom: experiences of former female inmates from the prison system in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

This article analyzes vulnerabilities and prospects of restructuring the lives of women who experienced maternity in prison. This qualitative study was performed with a thematic analysis of the reports of women released from the prison system who experienced pregnancy and delivery in a female penitentiary in a Southern Brazilian capital. Three thematic categories were identified: "Between rupture and freedom", a category focused on the description of moments before the borderline date for the child's stay with the mother in prison, which produces great expectations due to the possibility of women managing to get out of prison along with their child; "Freedom is right there", which narrates leaving prison and the first social contacts outside this environment; and "Inmate in daily life", which addresses the difficulties resulting from social exclusion that women were already facing before imprisonment, that is, having the minimum conditions to keep away from the crime dynamics. Leaving the prison system does not necessarily mean freedom. The "identity crossroads" keep following women and their children even after leaving prison. Therefore, vulnerability manifests itself in the same way or more cruelly than before.