¹ A summary of the assumptions of positivist criminology, as interpreted by one of the major Argentine representatives, in the prologue by José Ingenieros to the popular book by Gómez, Eusebio, La mala vida en Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Ed. Juan Roldán, 1908).Google Scholar

² A discussion on the reception of positivism in Argentina in Soler, Ricaurte, El positivismo argentino (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1968).Google Scholar The individualization of the penalty (the adaptation of the sanction to the particular circumstances of each case, requiring a detailed study if the physical, psychological and social characteristics of each individual), the “state of danger” (a concept applied to those who were seen as likely to commit crimes, justifying further forms of treatment), the right of societies to defend themselves, and the importance of work in the rehabilitation of the criminal, were all vital principles in the penal and penitentiary reform.

³ On the misperception of immigrants as responsible for the growing criminality in Buenos Aires during this period, see: Blackwelder, Julia Kirk and Johnson, Lyman L., “Changing Criminal Patterns in Buenos Aires, 1890 to 1914,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 14:2, 359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the impact of positivist criminology on turn-of-the-century political leaders, see: Zimmermann, Eduardo, Los liberales reformistas. La cuestión social en la Argentina, 1890–1916 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana/U. de San Andrés, 1995),Google Scholar chapter 6. On the use of the ideas of positivist criminology to control the working class, see: Salvatore, Ricardo, “Criminology, Prison Reform, and the Buenos Aires Working Class,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 23: 2 (Autumn 1992), 279–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a “foucauldian” interpretation of this reform see: Ruibal, Beatriz, Ideología del control social. Buenos Aires (1880–1920) (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1993).Google Scholar

⁴ “Memoria de la Penitenciaría Nacional,” Boletín de la Biblioteca Nacional de Criminología y Ciencias Afines, 1926.

⁵ Although technically the penal code established the system of penalties for the whole country, in fact in each province the situation in the prisons was different, and each provincial government imposed different regulations; Gómez, Eusebio, Criminología argentina. Reseña bibliográfica (Buenos Aires: Librería e Imprenta Europea, 1912), XLIII.Google Scholar

⁶ Founded in Angers, France, in 1835, the first Latin American branch of the Good Shepherd was established in 1855, and would rapidly expand to the rest of the continent. Eminent Catholic families gave generously to the order in the form of buildings and funding. Within a few years, the Good Shepherd had expanded to Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. This momentum was to a great extent the result of the efforts of the mother superior of Santiago de Chile, Mother San Agustín, a member of a prestigious Catholic family, who was extremely shrewd and aggressive in her negotiations with the governments of the countries where new branches were founded. The information about this order comes from its “annals”. Using this source, two members of the clergy have written detailed chronicles, not surprisingly, hagiographie, of the order and its founders in Latin America: Isern, P. Juan, El Buen Pastor en las Naciones del Sud de América (Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay) (Buenos Aires: S. de Amorrortu, 1931);Google Scholar del Buen Pastor, Una Religiosa, Vida de la Madre María San Agustín de Jesús Fernández Concha (Montevideo: “Casa A. Barreiro y Ramos” S.A., 1946).Google Scholar For a discussion of the role of the Good Shepherd in Chilean female prisons, see: Zárate Campos, María S., “Vicious Women, Virtuous Women: The Female Delinquent and the Santiago de Chile Correctional House, 1860–1900” in Salvatore, R. and Aguirre, C., eds. The Birth of the Penitentiary in Latin America. Essays on Criminology, Prison Reform, and Social Control, 1830–1940 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1996).Google Scholar On the important role of certain female religious orders in social institutions of turn-of-the-century Buenos Aires, see: Mead, Karen, Oligarchs, Doctors and Nuns: Public Health and Beneficence in Buenos Aires, 1880–1914 (Ph.D. Dissertation U. of California: Santa Barbara, CA, 1994), chapter 5.Google Scholar

⁷ Penna, José and Madero, Horacio, La Administración Sanitaria y Asistencia Pública de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Kraft, 1910);Google Scholar Pbro. Sanguinetti, Manuel J., “Antecedentes de la Cárcel de Mujeres de Buenos Aires,” Revista Penal y Penitenciaria (5, 1940);Google Scholar Lebrero, Rodolfo Gonzalez, “El Asilo de Corrección de Mujeres de Buenos Aires. Un proyecto de cárcel reformatorio para la América Latina,” Revista Penal y Penitenciaria (12, 1947);Google Scholar Thot, Ladislao, “Bosquejo histórico de las instituciones penitenciarias de la República Argentina,” Boletín del Patronato de Recluidas y Liberadas (April-October 1937), 10–11,Google Scholar 38; Cúneo, Carlos, Las cárceles (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1971).Google Scholar

⁸ When the group got to the building of the Correctional House, the director of the facility refused to let the nuns in. In a context of great confusion, Mother San Agustín managed to sneak in her nuns and stay for the night. Before the fact, Posse chose to support the order; Isern, , El Buen Pastor, vol. I, p. 500.Google Scholar According to Good Shepherd’s sources, the idea of handing the prison to them came to the government indirectly, through a pious female organization to whom it had been originally handed, the Señoras de las Misiones de San Francisco Solano.

⁹ This conclusion becomes obvious when comparing the budget for the prison in question with any other correctional facility for males. For a striking example, see: Archivo General de la Nación (hereafter AGN), Ministerio de Justicia e Instrucción Pública, 1898, Legajo 43, Expediente 343.

¹⁰ Guy, Donna, “Prostitution and Female Criminality in Buenos Aires, 1875–1937,” in Johnson, Lyman, ed., The Problem of Order in Changing Societies.Google Scholar

¹¹ The use of the idea of the intrinsic intellectual and moral weakness of women to explain their criminal behavior had been advanced by Lombroso, and adopted more or less explicitly by “official” Argentine criminology, although none of the leading criminologists developed these theories any further. See: Lombroso, C. and Ferrero, G., La Feme criminelle et la prostituée (Paris, 1896).Google Scholar Interestingly, one of the very few authors who would later discuss the question from a feminist point of view, shared some of these premises; Klimpel, Felicitas, La mujer, el delito y la sociedad (Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1945).Google Scholar For a discussion of the historical explanations of female crime see: Klein, D., “The Etiology of Female Crime: A Review of the Literature,” Issues in Criminology 8:2 (Fall 1973), 3–29;Google Scholar Mann, Coramae Richey, Female Crime and Delinquency (University, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1984).Google Scholar

¹² It seems interesting that the idea of the use of religion as a way to reform women criminals was also present in countries like France, where criminology, psychiatry and medicine had an enormous influence in the perception of crime and where secularization had reached female prisons in 1880; Harris, Ruth, Murders and Madness. Medicine, Law and Society in the fin the siècle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 91.Google Scholar A study on the role of religious orders in French female prisons in Langlois, Claude, “L’Introduction des congrégations féminines dans le système pénitentiaire français,.1839–1880,” in Petit, Jacques, ed., La prison, le bagne et l’histoire (Paris: Librairie des Méridiens, 1984), pp. 129–40.Google Scholar

¹³ Ministerio de Justicia e Instrucción Pública, Proyecto de Reforma Carcelaria. Informe de la Comisión Especial (Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos de la Penitenciaría Naciona, 1913), pp. 61, 163.

¹⁴ Isern, , El Buen Pastor, v. 3, p. 739.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Isern, , El Buen Pastor, v. 3, p. 586.Google Scholar

¹⁶ This was obvious, for instance, when the newspaper La Prensa complained about the meager funds and staff the state was willing to provide to the House. Obviously fearing an outside intervention, the Mother Superior immediately wrote to the Minister criticizing the inaccuracy of the article and thanking national authorities for their consideration toward the order; AGN, Ministerio de Justicia, Culto, e Instrucción Pública, Legajo 45, Exped. 153.

¹⁷ Isern, , El Buen Pastor, v. 3, p. 596.Google Scholar

¹⁸ In 1903, however, denunciations of abuses against prisoners of the Correctional House forced the government to undertake an exhaustive inspection of the institution. The accusations came from anti-clerical groups, who had never been satisfied with the amount of power given to the Good Shepherd. The newspaper El Siglo published an article addressed to the Minister of Justice accusing the nuns of making prisoners work without pay, subjecting them to cruel punishments and corrupting minors under their supervision. Not surprisingly, the article asked the government to fire the nuns and re-assume the administration of the institution. However, the inspection—which included interviews with the inmates—did not reveal any major irregularities, and the incident would remain as another episode in the war between Catholics and anti-clerical groups. Ibid, III, 280.

¹⁹ Ignatieff, Michael, “Historiographie critique du système pénitentiaire” in Petit, J., La prison, pp. 9–17.Google Scholar

²⁰ Until 1926, when a new Civil Code was enacted, women under 22 years old were considered minors, although the Penal Code established majority at the age of 18.

²¹ The Good Shepherd had received the minors at their request, and against the advice of the Defensores de Menores to the Minister. However, the constant movement of girls was a major concern. In 1901, the Mother Superior of the House decided to ask a judge not to remove any girls without the consent of the administration of the prison. The government’s response says something about the rumors surrounding the Good Shepherd: inmates who were already “corrected” could not be kept in the institution to make them work in manual tasks that were giving profit to the House: Letter of the Minister of Justice to the Mother Superior reproduced in Isern, El Buen Pastor, vol. II, p. 287. The request of the order to house girls, and the opposition of the Defensores in AGN, Ministerio de Justicia, Culto e Instrucción Pública, 1895, Legajo 38.

²² In the minors section, the danger of the building crumbling forced the government to spend money on construction. The information used in this section is drawn fron the annual reports of the Casa Correccional de Mujeres in Ministerio de Justicia e Instrucción Pública, Memoria, 1899 and ss: Asilo Correccional de Mujeres, Libro de Visitas e Inspecciones (1912–1966). The complaints of outside observers in Klimpel, “Cárceles”; González Lebrero, “El Asilo.”

²³ In some cases, the classification of the crimes that the inmates were accused of having committed was changed over the years, i.e., “injuries” could be divided into two distinct categories. The same problem happened to the declared profession of those detained, i.e. the category “sirvienta” (servant) was sometimes replaced by “mucama” (maid). The category “without profession” was sometimes replaced by, or added to, “domestic work,” which sometimes makes it difficult to know the exact proportion of each category.

²⁴ This population of domiciliary workers is extremely hard to identify accurately, because of the unclear definition of their professional space and time, mixed as it was with their personal home work. Since the category “without profession” undoubtedly masked many of these unreported home workers, we have grouped this category with that of unspecified “domestic workers”. On the methodological problems to identify informal female sweat workers, see: Carme Feijoo, Maria del, “Las trabajadoras porteñas a comienzos de siglo”, in Armus, Diego, ed., Mundo urbano y cultura popular: Estudios de Historia Social Argentina (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1990), p. 291.Google Scholar See also: Lavrin, Asunción, Women, Feminism and Social Change in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), p. 72.Google Scholar

²⁵ Buenos Aires (City), Boletín de estadísticas; delitos en general; suicidio, accidentes y contravenciones diversas (1914–1944). Rossi, Comisario José, “Profesiones peligrosas. El servicio doméstico,” Archivos de Psiquiatría, Criminología y Ciencias Afines (6, 1907), 71.Google Scholar

²⁶ On the misperception of female work reported in official census, see: Carmen Feijoo, Maria del, “Las trabajadoras.” See also: Héctor Recalde, Mujer, condiciones de vida, de trabajo y salud (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1993), p. 14;Google Scholar Guy, Donna, “Lower-Class Families, Women and the Law in Nineteenth Century Argentina,” Journal of Family History 10:3 (Fall 1985), pp. 318–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁷ Gómez, E., Criminología, p. 10.Google Scholar

²⁸ According to the annals of the order, between 1890 and 1923 the House received 18,629 prisoners and 34,623 minors; Isern, , El Buen Pastor, vol. 3, p. 739.Google Scholar

²⁹ These figures are representative until 1938, when girls younger than 18 years old were placed in the Patronato de la Infancia.

³⁰ Although there is as yet no body of empirical work on judicial sources on which to rely, existing research clearly confirms this tendency. Due to the lack of facilities in provincial prisons, many judges sent convicted women to the Correctional House in Buenos Aires. Diez, María A., “Una imagen delictiva en torno del amor y la sexualidad (Territorio Nacional de La Pampa, 1885–1905),” in Knecher, and Panaia, , eds., La mitad, pp. 120–128.Google Scholar On the “depositing” of women in alternative institutions see Ruggiero, Kristin, “Wives on ‘Deposit’: Internment and the Preservation of Husbands’ Honor in Late Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires,” Journal of Family History 17:3 (1992), pp. 253–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³¹ This argument appeared as the conclusion of his review of a book on female delinquency in Naples; Archivos de Psiquiatría, Criminología y Ciencias Afines (I, 1902), 700.

³² The Penal Code of 1886 already included a similar provision: weak or sick men, minors, people older than 60 and women who were condemned to hard work could serve milder sentences (art. 62). Código Penal de la República Argentina, en vigencia desde el 1 de marzo de 1887 (Buenos Aires: Felix Lajouane, 1972), p. 116. de la Rúa, Jorge, Código Penal Argentino (Buenos Aires: Lerner Ediciones, 1972), p. 116;Google Scholar Ley no. 11 179, Código Penal de la Nación sancionado en 1921, in Códigos de la República Argentina (Buenos Aires: Rodríguez Giles, 1924), p. 306.

³³ Ley 11 179. Código Penal de la Nación sancionado en 1921, in Códigos. A discussion on probation in Parry, Roberto, Libertad Condicional y Condena Condicional. Proyectos de ley y exposición de motivos (Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos Argentinos de L. J. Rosso y Cia., 1920), p. 18.Google Scholar

³⁴ Argentine Republic, Secretaría de Estado y Justicia, Registro Nacional de Reincidencia y Estadística Criminal y Carcelaria (1926 and ss.).

³⁵ This argument was advanced by Artemio Moreno, Criminal Judge, Boletín del Patronato de Recluidas y Liberadas (I, no. 1, 1933), p. 16.Google Scholar

³⁶ It was not uncommon for Law professors to visit penitentiary institutions with their students. A list of all visitors to the Correctional House in Asilo Correccional de Mujeres, Visitas e Inspecciones. Along with Jorge E. Coll, Osvaldo Piñero and Juan P. Ramos, Eusebio Gómez was one of the main popularizers of positivist penal law at the University of Buenos Aires; Levaggi, Abelardo, Historia del derecho Penal Argentino (Buenos Aires: Perrot, 1978), p. 209.Google Scholar

³⁷ Alma Gómez Paz, who would be the President of the PRL for many years, would later have a brilliant diplomatic career. Along with Zulema Branca and Lucila de Gregorio Lavié, she taught courses on “Women before legislation” at the Nacional Council for Women. Telma Reca, who was not an active member of the PRL because she was not a lawyer, but who participated in the activities of the institution, published often in prestigious scientific journals on the subject of juvenile delinquency. Revista del Consejo de Mujeres de la República Argentina (July-September 1938, XXXVIII, no. 133), p. 23.

³⁸ Among the letters of support for the creation of the PRL were those of Clodomiro Zavalía, Dean of The Law School of the University of Buenos Aires; Gonzalo Bosch, Director of the Hospicio de las Mercedes and Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical School of the University of Buenos Aires; Luis García, Chief of Police of the City of Buenos Aires, and Artemio Moreno, Criminal Judge of the City of Buenos Aires. Among those who contributed with articles were the future Minister of Justice and Public Instruction, Eduardo Coll, and the Director of Penal Institutes, Paz Anchorena.

³⁹ The idea of introducing parole in penal legislation was very old, but for various reasons, previous formal attempts had failed. Finally, article 13 of the Penal Code of 1922 introduced this possibility for those convicts who had served a portion of their penalty. The article stipulated that the convict respect the following conditions: 1) to reside in the place determined by the judge in the document of release; 2) to observe the rules of inspection fixed in the same document, especially those concerning the interdiction of drinking alcohol; 3) to adopt a profession or an employment if no other means of subsistence are available; 4) not to commit any crimes; 5) to subject himself/herself to the care of a Patronato; Ley 11 179. Código Penal de la Nación, sancionado en 1921, in Códigos, p. 306. See the debate on parole in Parry, Libertad Condicional. Patronatos for Released Men, whose purpose was to help former prisoners to rejoin society by finding them jobs and resources for the first days of freedom, were institutions that existed in all countries that had adopted parole. The first had been created in Philadelphia (1776) and France (1819). In Argentina, the first Patronato de Liberados had been created in 1918 in anticipation of the imminent introduction of the system of parole.

⁴⁰ Reca, Telma, “Directivas para la organización de una cárcel de mujeres,” Revista de Criminología, Psiquiatría y Medicina Legal (1935), 729.Google Scholar

⁴¹ In his well-known book Estudios Penitenciarios (Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos de la Penitenciaría Nacional, 1906), p. 34, Eusebio Gómez said “by regulating the psychological and organic life of inmates, work represents the most important moralizing agent that can be used in the struggle of society against crime”; see also his article “Trabajo carcelario,” Boletín del PRL (I, no. 3) p. 11.

⁴² Yuseim, Hortensia, “El Patronato de Recluidas y Liberadas,” Boletín (II, no. 4, March 1935), 23.Google Scholar

⁴³ The PRL had had the intention of participating in the instruction of the inmates from the very start, which explains the name Patronato de Recluidas y Liberadas, as opposed to Patronato de Liberados.

⁴⁴ Gómez Paz, Alma, “Conversando con Sor María del Sacramento,” Boletín del PRL (I, no. 1, December 1933);Google Scholar Branca, Zulema, “Inauguración de una muestra de trabajo realizada en la Casa Correccional de Mujeres,” Boletín (I, no. 3, October 1934), 5.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ de Gregorio Lavié, Lucila, “Reeducación práctica de las liberadas,” Boletín (I, May 1934), 9.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ibid., I, no. 2, May 1934, p. 22. On the reception of eugenics in Latin America, see Stepan, Nancy L., The Hour of Eugenics. Race, Gender and Nation in Latin America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Gomez’s views on the clergy were no better: these “parasites of superstition” were tolerated only because Gómez expected their complete extinction. Estudios Penitenciarios, p. 45; La mala vida p. 215.

⁴⁸ Let us keep in mind that the regulations for the National Penitentiary, considered the model institution for the re-education of male criminals, had not completely eliminated religion. There were official chaplains who taught Catholic religion and moral education, but only for those who asked for it, and this group seems to have been small and unenthusiastic. All other religious propaganda was banned; Boletín de la Biblioteca Nacional de Criminología y Ciencias Afines (I, no. 1, July 1926), 158.

⁴⁹ Telma Reca, “Directivas para la organización.”

⁵⁰ Boletín (II, no. 4, March 1935).

⁵¹ In 1938, however, the new Director of Penal Institutions, José M. Paz Anchorena, linked to the PRL, supported the construction of two workshops at the Correctional House, one for mechanical sewing and another for book binding. This represents the first attempt to train the inmates in jobs other than those that were strictly domestic. That same year the Minister of Justice, E. Coll, another supporter of the PRL, finally decided to remove girls under 18 from the House, leaving only those between 18 and 22. In addition, the state also revoked the Good Shepherd's legal rights over these young women.

⁵² Even social reformers like Bialet Massé rejected women’s participation in industry, or even objected to the idea of women working at all. Guy, Donna, “Women, Peonage, and Industrialization: Argentina, 1810–1914,” Latin American Research Review (16, no. 3, 1981) 65–89.Google Scholar