Abstract
Abstract The criminalization of indigenous people in the prisons of Roraima state, Brazil, is examined, in which the justice system, as throughout Brazil, has no mechanisms to identify indigenous people and recognize their differentiated constitutional rights, reinforcing the inequalities and injustices for indigenous people, the most oppressed and discriminated since colonial times. Over the past decade, indigenous organizations in the state capital have drawn attention to this problem and taken protagonist measures to try to change it. The Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR), through their lawyer, Joênia Wapichana, elected, in 2018 the first Indigenous woman to be a federal deputy, set up a project to write down indigenous oral law so that it could be used locally to deal with criminal cases, encouraging indigenous communities to resolve accusations of crimes through councils of local leaders and thereby avoid them being handed over to the mainstream criminal justice system.
Highlights
I have been doing research in anthropology in the North Amazon region since 1982, when I started fieldwork for my PhD at the University of Brasília (UnB) with the Waimiri-Atroari people (Amazonas/Roraima) (19821985)1
In late 2007, I was invited by the Brazilian Association of Anthropology (Associação Brasileira de Antropologia - ABA), to coordinate a survey on the situation of indigenous people in prisons in the state of Roraima2
The Conselho Indígena de Roraima (CIR), through their lawyer, Joênia Wapichana, who has been elected, in 2018, the first indigenous woman to be a federal deputy and the second indigenous deputy ever elected in Brazil, set up a project to write down indigenous oral law so that it could be used locally to deal with criminal cases, encouraging indigenous communities to judge their own people through their local Council of Tuxauas and thereby avoid handing them over to the mainstream criminal justice system
Summary
I have been doing research in anthropology in the North Amazon region since 1982, when I started fieldwork for my PhD at the University of Brasília (UnB) with the Waimiri-Atroari people (Amazonas/Roraima) (19821985). The actions of the APIB, the CIR, the Coordination of Indigenous Peoples of the Brazilian Amazon (Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira - COIAB), other indigenous organizations, and the Mixed Parliamentary Front in Defense of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Frente Parlamentar Mista em Defesa dos Direitos dos Povos Indígenas7), launched by the Federal Deputy Joênia Wapichana on 08/04/2019, reveal that indigenous peoples are only successful, pressuring this government to provide basic emergency health services, as the pandemic spreads, through the protagonism of their political organizations This Parliamentary Front elaborated the Law Project No 1.142/2020, which deals with measures of social protection to prevent the dissemination of the Covid-19 in indigenous territories and creates an Emergency Plan to Cope with this virus in indigenous territories, among other measures. The most effective results are coming from indigenous people themselves, who through their protagonism are working to change a desperate situation
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
