Prison Shock: The Ex-President Jair Bolsonaro Confronts Life Behind Bars

He battled justice and the law triumphed.

Two months after getting a quarter-century plus sentence for seeking to “destroy” the nation's democracy, ex-president Jair Bolsonaro at last seems destined for incarceration.

Imminent Imprisonment

The adjudicated plotter – who's been living under house arrest in his residence while a number of judicial steps and petitions play out – is largely predicted to be jailed in the near future, during increasing talk that he will be transferred to a well-known top-security facility.

Historical Comments on Convicts

Over Bolsonaro’s 40-year public life, the right-wing ex- soldier displayed minimal sympathy for the country's inmates.

“What’s the need to provide these dirtbags a comfortable existence?” he once pondered. “They deserve to be fucked, end of story. That's my view.”

At another time, Bolsonaro proclaimed: “If you don’t want to finish in prison, the only thing required is not sexual assault, abduction or rob.”

Incarceration Facility Discussion

However the possibility of Bolsonaro himself winding up in the Papuda prison top-security prison in Brasília has appalled allies, several of whom this week visited the prison in an obvious attempt to prevent the judiciary from banishing him there.

Izalci Lucas, a senator from Bolsonaro’s allied group who was among that group, claimed he predicted the 70-year-old leader to be imprisoned in the coming fortnight and feared his assigned prison could be Papuda.

He asserted Bolsonaro’s severe gut problems – the result of a life-threatening knife attack during the 2018 presidential political campaign – meant it would be hazardous to keep the ex-leader there. “His condition is extremely serious. He will not be able to handle it if they take him to Papuda … It will be awful,” he added, who also worried about packed cells and the standard of jail cuisine.

When inspecting Papuda, Lucas remembered seeing cells accommodating 40 detainees: “That is virtually one meter squared per detainee.

“We spoke to the inmates and they protest, unsurprisingly, of the horrible meals,” remarked the senator.

Backers Voice Concerns

Lucas is not the only voice voicing opinions before the former president’s predicted imprisonment.

Authoring in a major newspaper, another ally, the ex- communications minister Fábio Wajngarten, bemoaned the “severe” finale to Bolsonaro’s “flawless” political career and asserted Brazil was about to experience “the largest unfairness in its past”.

“It represents an wrong that gnaws the spirits of countless of Brazilians,” he stated.

Varied Public Response

This could be correct due to the significant backing Bolsonaro maintains on the conservative side. Yet his anticipated incarceration has also gladdened the spirits of many other people who feel he deserves to be incarcerated for plotting to block the incoming president from assuming office – and even plotting to have him murdered.

The lawmaker, a congressman for the incumbent administration's allied group, said: “No one wishes Bolsonaro to be placed in a dungeon. Nobody desires Bolsonaro to be put in segregation. Not a soul desires Bolsonaro not to be fed or for him to have to sleep on the floor. We want him to receive proper treatment – but proper handling in prison. He can’t continue being his self-appointed guard for his lifetime.”

He observed how Bolsonaro supporters, who have long applauding the harsh handling of inmates, had suddenly realized to their rights. “Only now has the extreme right – which has consistently claimed that basic rights should not be for offenders – opted to visit a penitentiary to discover what conditions are actually like,” he remarked.

“He is a offender,” the congressman maintained, but that did not mean he earned “humiliating, degrading conduct”.

Potential Incarceration Environment

In spite of talk that Bolsonaro could be sent to Papuda, which now contains about fourteen thousand inmates, his expected location appears to be a close prison for officers and other “special” prisoners called Papudinha (Small Papuda).

His potential cell are much more comfortable than those in the primary facility, although still a world away from the opulence Bolsonaro experienced while residing in the stunning presidential palace, around a short distance away.

Based on sources, the accommodation Bolsonaro could likely reside in in Papudinha measures about 260 square feet – approximately the dimensions of vehicle spaces – and includes a 130 square foot WC with a water facility and a 12 square meter veranda. “The ex-president might be authorized to have a TV and even a cooler in his room as long as they were donated by his loved ones,” the report suggested.

Political Responses

He criticized the speculated plan to send the ex-president to Papuda as “an act of payback” on the part of the supreme court judge who presided over Bolsonaro’s coup trial and will decide his outcome in the {