INTRODUCTION:
This paper presents preliminary findings from a research study linked to an ongoing international project that investigates the functioning of institutions that promote long-term institutionalization of people with harmful use of alcohol and other drugs. The study covers five countries—Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, the Philippines, and Indonesia—and is grounded in concerns about the compatibility of these institutions with legal and human rights frameworks, as well as their impacts on public care policies.

METHODS:
The research adopts an institutional and legal-normative analysis combined with a case study approach. It examines the compatibility of institutional practices with national and international legal frameworks, their funding mechanisms, potential human rights violations, and the role of civil society organizations that resist these practices. In the Brazilian case, the analysis focuses on guidelines, legislation, and narratives that sustain long-term institutionalization in asylum-like institutions known as therapeutic communities.

RESULTS:
Preliminary results indicate that these institutions, largely guided by an abstinence-based model, have been criticized by human rights–oriented actors for adopting coercive and rights-violating practices that contradict the principles of the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS), the Psychiatric Reform, and the anti-asylum movement.

CONCLUSIONS:
Reported violations include forced labor, religious imposition, kidnappings, and social isolation, revealing the persistence of asylum-based care models incompatible with care in freedom. Despite these criticisms, such institutions continue to receive public funding, contributing to the weakening of effective public care policies.