The Creation and Extinction of the First Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Brazil

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss two periods in the history of Hospital de Custódia e Tratamento Psiquiátrico Heitor Carrilho (Secure Psychiatric Hospital) - its creation and extinction - investigating the links between the latter event and the effects of the Psychiatric Reform Law (Lei Paulo Delgado) and the movement against asylums. The topic is developed around the restructuring of the secure psychiatric hospitals in the state of Rio de Janeiro, especially Heitor Carrilho, and the history of criminal lunatic asylums, their sociopolitical contexts and the ideas that underpin these total institutions both structurally and functionally.

Secure psychiatric hospital; forensic psychiatry; mental disorder; social memory