Whose_Criminals_are_These_Church_State

Whose Criminals Are These?
Church, State, and Patronatos and the Rehabilitation of Female

Convicts (Buenos Aires, 1890-1940)
Author(s): Lila M. Caimari
Source: The Americas, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Oct., 1997), pp. 185-208
Published by: Academy of American Franciscan History
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The Americas
54:2 October 1997, 185-208
Copyright by the Academy of American
Franciscan History
WHOSE CRIMINALS ARE THESE? CHURCH,

STATE, AND PATRONATOS AND THE
REHABILITATION OF FEMALE CONVICTS
(BUENOS AIRES, 1890-1940)*
INTRODUCTION
Turn-of-the century Argentine political leaders were deeply in-

fluenced by new ideas about the origin and treatment of crimi-
nality developed by the Italian positivist school of criminology.
According to this school, crime was not the fruit of the criminal's
wickedness, as classic penology had claimed, but was rather the result
of a complex web of social and psycho-biological determinations of
which the criminal had been a victim. This pathology called "crime"
could be corrected if its origin was scientifically determined and if the
new methods of rehabilitation prescribed for criminals and potential
criminals were enforced.1 Although not all of the premises of the crim-
inological school led by Lombroso, Ferri, and Garofalo were accepted
uncritically in Argentina, the basic principles of the new science were
widely adopted by jurists, doctors, hygienists and psychiatrists.2 These
ideas were received in the context of massive European immigration,
accelerated urbanization, and the emergence of a large working class.
* I want to thank Karen Mead, M. Gabriela Nouzeilles and Mariano Plotkin for their
helpful
comments to earlier versions of this article. I wish also to acknowledge the useful suggestions of
the anonymous The Americas reviewer.
1 A summary of the assumptions of positivist criminology, as interpreted by one of the major
Argentine representatives, in the prologue by Jos6 Ingenieros to the popular book by Eusebio
G6mez, La mala vida en Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Ed. Juan Roldain, 1908).
2 A discussion on the reception of positivism in
Argentina in Ricaurte Soler, El positivismo
argentino (Buenos Aires: Paid6s, 1968). 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.
185
186 WHOSE CRIMINALS ARE THESE?
Under the influence of the new scientists of crime, the leading classes
perceived these changes as the cause of the rising crime rate in Buenos
Aires. The fear generated by this diagnosis formed the basis of the
reforms undertaken by the Argentine state to fight urban crime.3 The
new approach to crime had a concrete impact upon Argentine society:
the police, the judiciary and, to a lesser extent, the penal code, were
updated according to the new scientific thinking. One of the areas
where this impact was clear was the prison system. The Penitentiary of
Buenos Aires, created in 1877 and federalized in 1880, became a
"model institution," where inmates benefited from the new therapies.
Prestigious foreign visitors were given tours to look at the efforts made
to enforce penalties according to individual medical and psychological
profiles, the modern facilities, the numerous and well-equipped work-
shops where inmates worked as if employed in an efficient industry,
the primary school, and the courses in music, industrial drawing, typ-
ing, and accounting. According to Eusebio G6mez, director of the
institution and well-known criminologist, the enforcement of the new
(positivist) regulations of the Penitentiary had "fulfilled the expecta-
tions of functionaries and researchers alike."4 The results of peniten-
tiary reform were, however, more limited than such statements may
indicate. On the one hand, the change in provincial prisons was much
less impressive than in the Penitentiary.5 On the other hand, the new
thinking in criminology seems to have applied only to the male of-
fender, since the vast majority of new works in this area barely men-
tioned female cases. This remarkable theoretical gap was matched by
an institutional one. Indeed, the fate of those women who were con-
demned to prison was quite different than that of men: not only were
3 On the misperception of immigrants as responsible for the growing criminality in Buenos

Aires during this period, see: Julia Kirk Blackwelder and Lyman L. Johnson, "Changing Criminal
Patterns in Buenos Aires, 1890 to 1914," Journal of Latin American Studies, 14:2, 359. On the
impact of positivist criminology on turn-of-the-century political leaders, see: Eduardo Zimmer-
mann, Los liberales reformistas. La cuesti6n social en la Argentina, 1890-1916 (Buenos Aires:
Sudamericana/U. de San Andr6s, 1995), chapter 6. On the use of the ideas of positivist crimi-
nology to control the working class, see: Ricardo Salvatore, "Criminology, Prison Reform, and
the Buenos Aires Working Class," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXIII: 2 (Autumn 1992),
279-299. For a "foucauldian" interpretation of this reform see: Beatriz Ruibal, Ideologia del
control social. Buenos Aires (1880-1920) (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de America Latina, 1993).
4 "Memoria de la Penitenciarfa Nacional," Boletin de la Biblioteca Nacional de Criminologia 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; Eusebio G6mez, Criminologia argentina. Resehia bibliogrdfica
(Buenos Aires: Libreria e Imprenta Europea, 1912), XLIII.
LILAM. CAIMARI 187
they not sent to institutions organized along scientific lines, but in 1890
prisons for women were placed under control of a religious order, the
Good Shepherd, naturally dissociated from and quite opposed to the
postulates of the new criminological science. In the 1930s, a private
institution, the Patronato de Recluidas y Liberadas, was created with
the explicit purpose of adapting the treatment of female prisoners to
modern standards and bringing their institutions closer to the level of
those of male inmates. The competing efforts of the members of an
ancient religious order and those of a secular-minded Patronato to
monitor deviant women would result in interesting clashes. Neverthe-
less, the nuns of the Good Shepherd would keep control of the cor-
rectional system, both in the city and province of Buenos Aires, until
as recently as the 1970s.
The purpose of this article is to explain the apparent contradiction
involved in the decision of state leaders, known for their concern for
crime as well as their secular and scientific persuasions, to give control
of female prisons to a religious order. The distance between these two
approaches-that of the nuns and that of positivist criminologists-will
be shown through an analysis of the order's administration of the
Correctional House of Buenos Aires and the therapy given to their
inmates. Finally, a discussion of the conflict between the Good Shep-
herd and the Patronato in the 1930s will lead to possible explanations
of both the failure of the latter to persuade state leaders to adopt its
agenda, and the stunning continuity of the religious approach in the
public policies toward female offenders.
I. THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND THE REHABILITATION OF WOMEN
Among the women who have spent time here, you will find intelligent
domestics, who can serve you with fidelity, tidiness and care, because
they are trainedin all areas suitable for their sex.
-Letter from Mother San Agustin to ManuelaNavarroPacheco, 1890
It seems contradictory that a Government known in Argentine history
for its positivist credo, its zeal for secularization, and its anti-clerical
attitude would give control of female prisons to a religious order. Far
from being an exception, the generaci6n del ochenta was just one of
several Latin American positivist-influenced political elites which del-
egated the job of rehabilitating female offenders to the Good Shep-
herd. Taking control of these prisons was part of the broader expan-
sion of this order in South America, which itself was part of an expan-
sion of several religious congregations in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century. For years to come, these orders would provide the
bulk of the staff for charitable institutions, asylums and schools, domi-
nating in areas where the state was still a marginal presence.6
Although not all sources agree on the details of the complicated
history of correctional institutions for women, we know that this his-
tory begins with the colony. The Laws of Indies called for incarcerated
women to be kept in separate facilities from those of men, "keeping all
honesty and decency." In 1692, an old hospital was used to create a
house where "poor orphans and virtuous maidens" could find shelter,
and there is strong evidence that this institution, which survived just
nine years, was used to shelter criminals as well as other marginal
women. Until 1774, all condemned women were sent to a special sec-
tion of the male prison, in the Cabildo, where they were employed
primarily in the kitchen. In this year, Virrey V6rtiz ordered the cre-
ation of a Casa de Recogidas meant to "control and correct women of
dissolute life," the first known reference to a correctional facility for
women. However, the result of this initiative is unclear. By the end of
the eighteenth century, there were two possible destinies for female
criminals: those who were arrested on common offense charges were
housed in a special section of the public prison; or they could be sent
to the Residencia, an old building that had belonged to the Jesuits, and
where friars of the Bethlemite order had taken care of the sick and
given housing to prostitutes. In 1860 this institution became the new
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 Agustin, a member of a prestigious Catholic family, who was extremely shrewd and aggres-
sive 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, hagiographic, of the order and its
founders in Latin America: P. Juan Isern, El Buen Pastor en las Naciones del Sud de America
(Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay) (Buenos Aires: S. de Amorrortu, 1931); Una
Religiosa del Buen Pastor, Vida de la Madre Maria San Agustin de Jesus Ferndndez Concha
(Montevideo: "Casa A. Barreiro y Ramos" S.A., 1946). For a discussion of the role of the Good
Shepherd in Chilean female prisons, see: Maria S. Zarate Campos, "Vicious Women, Virtuous
Women: The Female Delinquent and the Santiago de Chile Correctional House, 1860-1900" in
R. Salvatore and C. Aguirre, 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). On the important role of certain female religious orders in social institutions of
turn-of-the-century Buenos Aires, see: Karen Mead, 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.
LILA M. CAIMARI 189
Correctional House of the Capital for male and female criminals, who
were housed in separate wings of the building, according to the regu-
lations of 1855.7 In 1877, convicted male prisoners were moved from
the Residencia to the new Penitentiary of Buenos Aires, which became
the National Penitentiary after the city became the official capital of
the country in 1880. The Residencia was renamed the Women's Cor-
rectional House.
The institution's new character forced the administration of Juairez

Celman to provide an infrastructure specifically designed for a female
population. There is evidence that the government was reluctant to
follow the recommendation of a special commission that it hand over
the administration of the prison to the Good Shepherd: the project was
repeatedly postponed until Minister of Justice Posse finally gave in to
the combined pressure of the order and various influential Catholic
women. Furthermore, these two groups had to literally force them-
selves into the building, ejecting the public authorities who had until
then run the institution. As the annals of the order would later state,
"the fortress was taken."8
Why did a national government so interested in controlling crime

and limiting the power of the Catholic Church give up the task of
rehabilitating these criminals to a religious order? Practical consider-
ations were important in this decision. Everyone agreed on the moral
danger involved in leaving it to male administration. This prison
needed a female staff that was trained and willing to live with the
inmates. Such a staff did not exist in the state bureaucracy or in other
religious orders, and it would take a long time to train one. Because
they lived in convents-where they were often secluded in cells and
7 Jose Penna and Horacio Madero, La Administraci6n Sanitaria y Asistencia Pa'blica de la

Ciudad de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Kraft, 1910); Pbro. Manuel J. Sanguinetti, "Antecedentes
de la Circel de Mujeres de Buenos Aires," Revista Penal y Penitenciaria (V, 1940); Rodolfo
Gonzalez Lebrero, "El Asilo de Correcci6n de Mujeres de Buenos Aires. Un proyecto de circel
reformatorio para la America Latina," Revista Penal y Penitenciaria (XII, 1947); Ladislao Thot,
"Bosquejo hist6rico de las instituciones penitenciarias de la Reptiblica Argentina," Boletin del
Patronato de Recluidas y Liberadas (April-October 1937), 10-11, 38; Carlos
Ctineo, Las cdrceles
(Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de Am6rica Latina, 1971).
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 Agustin 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. 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 Sefioras de las Misiones de San Francisco Solano.
used to severe regulations and all kinds of privations-nuns were per-

ceived as naturally adapted to a penitentiary regime. Furthermore,
their investiture gave them an aura of authority, vis-a-vis both inmates
and secular members of the staff. Finally, one should not overlook the
fact that the state would only have to provide a token sum of money-
just enough to cover the essential expenses. Since the nuns sought to
avoid all outside interference, they ran the institution with the person-
nel the order itself could provide-usually twenty to thirty people.
Thus, the Correctional House required of the national state a fraction
of the funds spent on prisons or other correctional institutions for
men.9
Of course, these practical considerations were supported by some

fundamental assumptions on the part of political leaders, the most
obvious being that the administration of prisons for women did not
justify an important investment of money and staff, as in the case of the
National Penitentiary. Neither was it an area where it was worth com-
peting with the Church for the control of certain segments of society,
as had been the case in the areas of education and civil law. After all,
women only accounted for 3 to 18 percent of total arrests.10Rather
than being feared, like male offenders, most of these women were
perceived as occasional criminals, victims of their own moral weak-
nesses, which were most likely the result of irrationality and lack of
intelligence."1 Unlike male criminality, which required a whole battery
of specialists and technical studies to understand, female criminality
was seen primarily as a moral problem, one that could be addressed
adequately by the resources that religion could offer.12Such ideas may
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 Naci6n
(hereafter AGN), Ministerio de Justicia e Instrucci6n Ptiblica, 1898, Legajo 43, Expediente 343.
10 Donna
Guy, "Prostitution and Female Criminality in Buenos Aires, 1875-1937," in Lyman
Johnson, ed., The Problem of Order in Changing Societies.
11The 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: C. Lombroso and G. Ferrero, La Feme criminelle et la prostitute (Paris,
1896). Interestingly, one of the very few authors who would later discuss the question from a
feminist point of view, shared some of these premises; Felicitas Klimpel, La mujer, el delito y la
sociedad (Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1945). For a discussion of the historical explanations of
female crime see: D. Klein, "The Etiology of Female Crime: A Review of the Literature," Issues
in Criminology 8:2 (Fall 1973), 3-29; Coramae Richey Mann, Female Crime and Delinquency
(University, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1984).
12
It seems interesting that the idea of the use of religion as a way to reform women criminals
LILA M. CAIMARI 191
also explain how the leaders of secularization in the 1880s could tol-
erate the religious practices of women in their own families: in their
view, Catholicism and the Church should retreat from the public
sphere, and be relegated to the more innocuous areas of society.
Choosing the Good Shepherd to rehabilitate marginal and criminal
women also reveals the weight of gender considerations in political
decisions that could have an impact on the Argentine labor market.
Although most of the inmates were extremely poor, it was expected
that the prison would confine itself to correcting the moral deviations
that had allegedly driven them to commit crimes, rather than train
women to take an active role in the modern areas of the economy, as
was the case at the National Penitentiary. The Good Shepherd did
attach importance to work, but the nature of the tasks the inmates
were given was limited: sewing, embroidering, washing and ironing. In
other words, they were provided only with the skills needed to find
work as home workers or domestic servants-an area in high demand
in turn-of-the century Buenos Aires, and repeatedly mentioned by the
order's authorities as the most likely and suitable labor market for
their inmates. The ongoing construction of the facility itself limited
these activities even further, since there was little space for workshops,
and overcrowding was often an obstacle to any type of work.
Despite the enormous ideological gap between the nuns of the Good
Shepherd and most state leaders, it seems clear that both shared this
fundamental perception of the vocational possibilities of poor, mar-
ginal women. Not only did successive governments insure the conti-
nuity of this state of affairs by not changing the administration of the
prison for eighty years, but the authorities of the national Penitentiary
system formulated the question along the same lines as Mother San
Agustin. In 1911, the commission charged with advising the govern-
ment about eventual prison reforms made two recommendations con-
cerning female facilities: a) to keep women and girls in separate wings
of the (future) building for indicted women, where they would have
enough land to acquire gardening skills and space to learn domestic
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; Ruth Harris, Murders and Madness. Medicine, Law and Society in the fin the siecle
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 91. A study on the role of religious orders in
French female prisons in Claude Langlois, "L'Introduction des congregations f6minines dans le
systeme p6nitentiaire franqais, 1839-1880," in Jacques Petit, ed., La prison, le bagne et l'histoire
(Paris: Librairie des M6ridiens, 1984), pp. 129-40.
192 WHOSE CRIMINALSARE THESE?
tasks; b) to move women to the temporarily vacant National Prison,

where industrial workshops-considered unnecessary for this popula-
tion-would be demolished and replaced with gardens and sewing
workshops that would "provide appropriate occupation" for these in-
mates.13In any case, no one expected the Good Shepherd to force the
newly fashionable penitentiary techniques on the inmates. From the
order's perspective, the success or failure of this enterprise was mea-
sured in the number of former convicts or abandoned minors who had
gone on to begin Christian families, to take their first communion, or
to be baptized and confirmed in their faith. More importantly: once
converted, they would constitute a source of new recruitment for the
order itself. Such was the case for about 70 women between 1890 and
1923.14The detailed stories of exemplary cases of conversion in prison,
preserved in the annals of the congregation, also give us a profile of the
ideal ex-inmate: a model of humility, subservience and kindness.
The inmates were subjected to a routine that consisted of a mixture
of religious observances, school instruction and manual work. The day
began with prayers, cleaning and the mass, followed by first- and sec-
ond-grade instruction for those who needed it-let us keep in mind
that many inmates were foreigners. Several moral readings for the
whole community took place during the day, interspersed between
periods of recreation. The day culminated with final prayers. Religious
values were introduced to the inmates through other activities: con-
fession, weekly catechism, preaching, annual spiritual exercises, etc.'"
Although the federal government supported the institution throughout
its existence, and though the reports of the Mother Superior to the
Ministry of Justice were full of complaints about the budget and the
lack of staff, it soon became clear that any outside help that might
represent an interference in the nuns' total control over the inmates
was perceived as a threat.16The order was completely interposed be-
tween the inmates and the bureaucracy of the national penitentiary
13 Ministerio de Justicia e Instrucci6n Pdiblica,Proyecto de Reforma Carcelaria. Informe de la

Comisi6n Especial (Buenos Aires: Talleres Graificos de la Penitenciaria Naciona, 1913), pp. 61,
163.
14 Isern, El Buen Pastor, v. III, p. 739.
15 Isern, El Buen Pastor, v. III, p. 586.
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 Instrucci6n Legajo 45, Exped. 153.
Ptiblica,
LILA M. CAIMARI 193
system. The school of the prison, which had functioned as the chapel
when the building was run by the Jesuits, was dismantled and returned
to its old purpose. The teacher, hired and paid by the state, was im-
mediately fired by the Mother Superior, who argued that "serious
problems could arise by the intervention of a stranger who cannot be
as interested in the order and morality of our inmates as are those in
charge of the House." The state gave up the instruction of prisoners,
delegating the direction and support of the school to the order.17More-
over, until 1908 the Correctional House did not have official regula-
tions, and the nuns followed internal rules that were unknown to the
state bureaucracy. The state's ability to monitor was thus reduced to
routine inspections by the Department of Hygiene, the General In-
spection of Justice, as well as the daily visits of the physician who
treated the inmates. The role of the Good Shepherd in the female
prison system expanded further when the government granted to the
order the administration of another prison, the Asylum San Miguel, for
those accused of less serious crimes (contraventoras). By the turn of
the century, the order controlled the entire female prison system of the
city of Buenos Aires.18
II. THE STATE AND FEMALE CRIMINALITY
A brief look at the profile of the inmates of the House will help us
to clarify the impact of the order's treatment of these women, as well
as the decision of state leaders to withdraw from the task of rehabili-
tation of this population. As Michael Ignatieff points out, the popula-
tion of prisons is not a good indicator of the punitive function of the
state or the real criminality in a given society-only a very small por-
tion of all crimes committed are actually punished-but is rather a sign
of which crimes and criminals are selected to be punished.19 As we
17Isern, El Buen Pastor, v. III, p. 596.

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 pun-
ishments 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.
19Michael Ignatieff, "Historiographie critique du systhme penitentiaire" in J. Petit, La prison,
pp. 9-17.
shall see, in this case the profile of the population of prisons is also an
interesting indicator of which criminals and crimes were selected to be
punished in this way, i.e., by sending sentenced and indicted women to
prison, as opposed to other forms of punishment. Also, the study of
public policies toward this population will reveal to what extent the
perception and treatment of female criminality by the state bureau-
cracy relied on assumptions deeply influenced by traditional concep-
tions of gender, crime, and work. The object of this therapy of reha-
bilitation was an extremely complex population. Surprisingly, con-
victed offenders accounted for a minority of the women living in the
House. The majority of inmates consisted of women who had been
indicted and whose trials were pending. After October 1890-when
the last male prisoners were sent to other institutions-growing num-
bers of minors were sent to the Correctional House, and they soon
became the majority of the population.20 Very soon, the number of
girls sent by Jueces de Menores, the Courts, the Police and the Welfare
Society exceeded the capacity of the institution. There was an average
of 225 minors using an infrastructure intended for 80, and many ended
up sleeping on the floor. The House became a hybrid between a cor-
rectional facility for criminals and a home for abandoned girls. Besides
consuming most of the budget, the presence of the latter challenged
the correctional mission of the institution, since the rapid pace of
arrivals and exits-some would stay for less than a week before being
sent to a family-often prevented beginning the planned moral reha-
bilitation.21
This diverse population was housed in a 200 year-old building which

was quite inappropriate for this purpose, both because it was small and
because it forced dangerous and non-dangerous condemned criminals
to live with innocent women and delinquent or abandoned minors.
Criminologists and penal lawyers demanded that the state intervene in
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 "cor-
rected" 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 Instrucci6n Ptiblica, 1895, Legajo 38.
LILAM. CAIMARI 195
Crimes for which Female Inmates Were Sent to Prison (In Percentage)*
40
35
0
30
25
20
15 ".
10
1900 1915 1932
Theft or suspicion of theft

Injuries
Infanticide
Abortion
*The charts and table included in this section are based on the official reports of the
Correctional House of Buenos Aires published in: Argentine Republic, Ministry of Justice
and Public Instruction, Memoria, 1900,1915, and 1932
this "breeding place for prostitutes," and saw in this mixing of women
the main explanation of the high rate of recidivism of female crimi-
nals.22Most of those who were serving sentences had committed lesser
crimes against persons or property (theft, suspicion of theft, and com-
plicity in theft accounted for nearly 50 percent of the cases, followed by
injuries [lesiones]).23 Women accused of typically female crimes, such
as abortion or infanticide, represented only 1 to 3 percent of the cases.
As the following chart shows, the nature of the crimes women were
sent to prison for did not vary significantly over time. Most of these
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 Instrucci6n
Ptiblica, Memoria, 1899
and ss; Asilo Correccional de Mujeres, Libro de Visitas e Inspecciones (1912-1966). The com-
plaints of outside observers in Klimpel, "Circeles"; Gonzalez 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 catego-
ries. 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.
Professional Profileof Female Inmates (in Percentage)
50i
40-
30
20
1900 1915 1932
SDomestic Servants
Seamstresses/Laundry Workers
Prostitutes
F-l No Profession/Unspecified
HomeWorkers
E Other
women worked in traditional female jobs-i.e., seamstresses, laundry

workers, and other unspecified categories of home workers.24Domes-
tic servants (maids, servants, cooks) also accounted for an important
percentage of the prison population. The over-representation of this
profession in the prisons is not surprising when one recalls that police
records show that most women arrested for theft were domestic ser-
vants, a professional category perceived by criminologists as one of the
most "dangerous."25 Almost none of the inmates was classified as
industrial worker. It might seem surprising that relatively few prosti-
tutes were sent to prison. Given the stigma attached to this profession,
which was legal until 1934, it is likely that this figure understates the
number of inmates who actually practiced prostitution, as they may
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 unre-
ported home workers, we have grouped this category with that of unspecified "domestic work-
ers". On the methodological problems to identify informal female sweat workers, see: Maria del
Carme Feijoo, "Las trabajadoras portefias a comienzos de siglo", in Diego Armus, ed., Mundo
urbano y cultura popular: Estudios de Historia Social Argentina (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana,
1990), p. 291. See also: Asunci6n Lavrin, Women, Feminism and Social Change in Argentina,
Chile, and Uruguay (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), p. 72.
25Buenos Aires (City), Boletin de estadisticas; delitos en general; suicidio, accidentes y contra-
venciones diversas (1914-1944). Comisario Jose Rossi, "Profesiones peligrosas. El servicio do-
m6stico," Archivos de Psiquiatria, Criminologia y Ciencias Afines (VI, 1907), 71.
LILAM. CAIMARI 197
have declared another profession. Still, the figures are very low when
we consider the hundreds of prostitutes who were arrested annually by
the police on lesser charges, such as "public scandal", and the fact that
state leaders perceived these women as a threat to the moral standards
of the city of Buenos Aires. Despite all the rhetoric about the danger
that these "bad women" represented, prostitutes did not seem to fit
the profile of the average inmate of the Correctional House for
Women. The paradox, however, is a superficial one: if prostitutes sel-
dom ended up in prison it was not because they were not perceived as
a threat to society. On the contrary, because they were seen as posing
such a threat, they were being closely monitored by the state by means
of a battery of medical and police controls. Indeed, the ability to
monitor had been precisely one of the main purposes of the legaliza-
tion of the profession.
The profile of the inmates of the Correctional House may help us to
situate the state's lack of interest in their transformation in a broader
context: this population of domestic servants, home workers and the
poor unemployed was also ignored by Congress in terms of legislation
to limit the length of their work day or to give them Sunday off. While
their counterparts in the industrial sector-who were numerically
much less important-were wrongly perceived as the most vulnerable
sector of female workers and were granted these rights since 1907, the
more traditional female professions would remain underreported and
unprotected for many years to come.26
Another obvious reason for the open indifference of the state was
the relatively small number of female convicts, a fact which seemed to
confirm well-accepted ideas about women's lesser proclivity to commit
crimes. The census of prisons undertaken by Ballv6 in 1906 showed a
population of 8,011 people, of whom only 270 were women, most of
them housed at the Correctional House of Buenos Aires.27 However,
a census is a particularly inaccurate indicator of the female prison
population because it shows only the number of inmates at a given
moment. Because of the nature of the crimes they were accused of,
most of these criminals were condemned to short terms, usually less
26 On the
misperception of female work reported in official census, see: Maria del Carmen
Feijoo, "Las trabajadoras." See also: Hector Recalde, Mujer, condiciones de vida, de trabajo y
salud (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de America Latina, 1993), p. 14; Donna Guy, "Lower-Class
Families, Women and the Law in Nineteenth Century Argentina," Journal of Family History 10:3
(Fall 1985), pp. 318-331.
27E.
G6mez, Criminologia, p. X.
PRISONERS AND MINORS AT THE CORRECTIONAL HOUSE OF

BUENOS AIRES
Prisoners Minors*
Admissions Exits Total** Admissions Exits
1900 402 334 68 1087 965

1915 432 330 102 1770 1857
1932 501 412 89 1244 1267
* The reports do not include totals for minors housed in the institution at a given time.
** Total of prisoners at the moment of the report.
than a year. The majority of them left the prison just a few months
after arriving. Thus, the floating population of the prison was much
larger than the number of residents at any one time: if in an average
year the official annual report talked about 100 prisoners being
housed, the reality was that between 400 and 500 women had passed
through the institution during that year.28 In addition, these numbers
did not include juvenile delinquents, who were counted with the mi-
nors. The figures of the floating population of the latter, who appeared
in the reports without having been assigned to categories (orphans,
abandoned, delinquents, mentally disturbed, etc.), were much higher:
an average of 1,000 per year by 1900, with later peaks close to 2,000.29
By 1915, twenty-five years after the Good Shepherd took over the
institution, over 30,000 people (prisoners and minors) had been housed
in the institution. Furthermore, other categories of criminals were be-
ing sent to smaller but equally overwhelmed institutions: by 1923, over
38,000 contraventoras had been sent to the Asylum San Miguel, also
administered by the Good Shepherd.
The premise that the population of a prison is a less accurate indi-
cator of real criminality than it is a revealing sign of official attitudes
toward criminality seems to be borne out by another aspect of the fate
of female offenders: records both of the penal and penitentiary na-
tional systems of this period show an obvious reluctance of the state to
imprison women. The awful conditions of the Correctional House, as
well as the non-existence of female prisons in most provinces, led many
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. III, p. 739.
29
These figures are representative until 1938, when girls younger than 18 years old were placed
in the Patronato de la Infancia.
LILAM. CAIMARI 199
judges to choose either not to send these condemned women to prison,

or to send them to serve their terms in other "respectable" institutions,
frequently asylums run by religious orders.30 If the House of Buenos
Aires was full, which was often the case, women in the provinces who
were condemned to prison had no place to serve their terms, and were
sentenced otherwise. Records seem to show that there were as many
women condemned to prison as there were beds available at the Cor-
rectional House for Women in Buenos Aires. Besides, the co-
habitation of prisoners of all categories increased the danger of cor-
rupting primary delinquents. The efficacy of keeping female criminals
away from prison could be argued by as prestigious a criminologist as
Jos6 Ingenieros who, referring to widespread but hardly dangerous
female criminality, advised emptying prisons of women serving short
terms, since they would only be targets of corruption.31 The Penal
Code sanctioned in 1921 partially formalized this practice. Article 10
stated that when a prison sentence did not exceed six months, "honest
women and people older than 60 or sick" could serve their sentences
in their own houses.32 This law was part of a broader tendency to
reduce prison penalties by applying the sentence of house arrest when-
ever possible. Although the enforcement of this article is still to be
studied, it is clear that it reinforced the tendency to keep non-
dangerous criminals away from prisons. A new law dealing with pro-
bation gave further legitimacy to this practice. Probation (condena
condicional) consisted of the conditional suspension of the penalty, as
long as the criminal in question was a first time offender and had been
sentenced to a term shorter than two years.33The use of probation in
the sentencing of women was widespread: historically, nearly 80 per-
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. Maria A. Diez,
"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. On the "depositing" of women
in alternative institutions see Kristin Ruggiero, "Wives on 'Deposit': Internment and the Pres-
ervation of Husbands' Honor in Late Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires," Journal of Family
History 17:3 (1992), pp. 253-270.
31 This
argument appeared as the conclusion of his review of a book on female delinquency in
Naples; Archivos de Psiquiatria, Criminologia 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 sen-
tences (art. 62). C6digo Penal de la RepaiblicaArgentina, en vigencia desde el 1 de marzo de 1887
(Buenos Aires: Felix Lajouane, 1972), p. 116. Jorge de la Rtia, C6digo Penal Argentino (Buenos
Aires: Lerner Ediciones, 1972), p. 116; Ley no. 11 179, C6digo Penal de la Naci6n sancionado en
1921, in C6digos de la Repablica Argentina (Buenos Aires: Rodriguez Giles, 1924), p. 306.
33 Ley 11 179. C6digo Penal de la Naci6n sancionado en 1921, in C6digos. A discussion on
cent of women condemned to prison served their sentences in this way,

while only about 40 percent of men were granted this privilege.34
House arrest seemed to be especially well-suited to women, because
it did not entail seclusion, considered particularly damaging for female
sensibilities.35 More importantly, in this way women could continue to
fulfill their roles in their families, relieving the state or private chari-
table institutions from the responsibility of taking care of abandoned
children. Home and family, and not prisons, were perceived as the key
instruments by means of which lost and marginal criminals could be
transformed into respectable women. It was by returning women to
their homes, and not by locking them up in prisons, that state leaders
intended to control the reproduction and transformation of "danger-
ous classes."
III. THE PATRONATO DE RECLUIDAS Y LIBERADAS AND THE QUESTION

OF WORK
It is not with love, with kindnessor with charity,that thingsget done. We

need intelligence,will, and a scientific orientation.There is always an
end to every road. Some have chosen the ideal of the expiationof sinful
souls. For others, the goal is the adaptationof criminalsto social life.
Prayerfor some; mandatorywork for others. Such are the elements of
action."
-Boletin del Patronatode Recluidasy Liberadas,Editorial,March1935.
In November 1932, the prestigious penal lawyer and criminologist Eu-
sebio G6mez took a group of female students to visit the Correctional
House for Women.36 Having found the inmates in a shocking state of
neglect, they decided to create a Patronato of Secluded and Released
Women (Patronato de Recluidas y Liberadas, or PRL), officially
founded in May 1933.
probation in Roberto Parry, Libertad Condicional y Condena Condicional. Proyectos de ley y

exposici6n de motivos (Buenos Aires: Talleres Grnficos Argentinos de L. J. Rosso y Cia., 1920),
p. 18.
34 Argentine Republic, Secretaria
de Estado y Justicia, Registro Nacional de Reincidencia y
Estadistica Criminal y Carcelaria (1926 and ss.).
35 This argument was advanced by Criminal Judge Artemio Moreno,
Boletin del Patronato de
Recluidas y Liberadas (I, no. 1, 1933), p. 16.
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 Pifiero and Juan P. Ramos, Eusebio G6mez was
one of the main popularizers of positivist penal law at the University of Buenos Aires; Abelardo
Levaggi, Historia del derecho Penal Argentino (Buenos Aires: Perrot, 1978), p. 209.
LILA M. CAIMARI 201
The genesis of this institution seems linked to changes in the scien-
tific field, rather than to any particular deterioration of the situation at
the Correctional House, which, in any case, had never in the past been
a cause enough to attract public attention. By the beginning if the
1930s, large numbers of women had access to professions such as law
or medicine, although the male population was still overwhelmingly
dominant. For the first time, there existed a population which was both
specifically interested in women's problems, and trained to take sci-
entific approaches to these problems, using intellectual skills acquired
at the University. Such was the profile of the members of the PRL,
exclusively run by lawyers or law students, some of whom would go on
to brilliant careers. Certain members also developed close ties with
other organizations dedicated to the legal protection of women, such
as the "Female Law Office" at the National Council for Women.37The
institution arose from within the establishment of penal law and crimi-
nology: Eusebio G6mez himself was appointed honorary president,
and the members of the PRL belonged to all the most important
professional associations, sending delegations to many congresses on
the question.
One of the main purposes of the PRL was to legitimize the scientific
study of female criminality, and to re-introduce it into the political
debate. From the beginning, the "active" members (about one hun-
dred) could count on the support of the most recognized penal lawyers
and criminologists, most of whom became "protector" members and
published articles in the bulletin of the institution.38These intellectual
leaders of the legal establishment also participated in the conferences
organized by the PRL, where issues relating to female criminality and
rehabilitation were discussed. By visiting authorities, sending letters to
37
Alma G6mez 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 Lavi6, 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 Repaiblica 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 Zavalifa,
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 Garcia, 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 Insti-
tutes, Paz Anchorena.
Congress, and participating in the elaboration of projects for new pris-

ons, the PRL also tried to generate some consensus in official spheres
about the need for change in the penitentiary policies for women.
However, the main purpose of the organization was to work directly

with the "lost" and criminal women. These young lawyers and students
wanted to apply to this complex population the principles of crime
prevention and rehabilitation prescribed by modern criminology, the
same principles whose application they had studied and admired in
European and North American prisons. In this huge task, the first
focus of attention for the PRL would be those women who left prison
under the new system of parole. The Penal Code of 1921 had intro-
duced this new provision, another effort to individualize the enforce-
ment of prison penalties. Since the law giving parole to prisoners im-
posed a series of conditions, it was necessary to create an institution
that would make sure that these conditions were respected.39 Like the
Patronato de Recluidos y Liberados (for men), the PRL was a private
enterprise, and claimed not to expect anything from the state other
than encouragement and some very limited material help. There was a
broad consensus that the task of moralization and rehabilitation could
not be accomplished by the state bureaucracy, and that the terms of
parole were less traumatic for released convicts if they were adminis-
tered without the involvement of the police. Thus, patronatos had a
particular status: while technically the state gave them license to work
outside the penitentiaries, they could not have access to the prisoners
or have any information about them unless they worked with these
institutions. In the case of the PRL, this forced its members to be in
constant contact with the order in charge of the administration of
female prisons. The desire for independence that had led these orga-
9 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. C6digo Penal de la Naci6n,
sancionado en 1921, in C6digos, 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.
LILA M. CAIMARI 203
nizations to seek a private status, combined with their links to the
ecclesiastical and governmental authorities, left them in an ill-defined
position. As we shall see, this ambivalence would be the cause of much
friction.
The work of the PRL with paroled women would involve not only
control over the terms of the law, but would also entail both material
and psychological support. Once the prisoner was released, the PRL
appointed a visitadora who would attempt to downplay the relation-
ship of "controller-controlled" by making an effort to gain the trust
and affection of the ex-convict. This relationship could manifest itself
materially (i.e. lending money or providing housing for the woman in
question during the first days of freedom). In addition, the newly
released women were also immediately given medical and psychologi-
cal exams that would provide information for individualized treatment.
The first task of the visitadora was to make sure that the woman had
been re-integrated into a fulfilling home life, believing that for women,
"normal life almost always means home life."40The most difficult task
was, however, to find work for those who needed it. It would be
difficult to exaggerate the importance that the PRL attached to work
as a source of prevention and rehabilitation for criminals, an idea that
was a direct result of their support of the postulates of positivist crimi-
nology.41 The ideal of this group was to "turn each prison into a trade
school, using work as an element of punishment, discipline and reform,
instilling in prisoners the habit of honest activity which would give her
useful tools in the struggle of life."42 Because they could see that
released women almost never found dignified jobs, the lawyers of the
PRL began putting pressure on the Good Shepherd to let them have
access to the inmates in order to teach them a skill.43 Here, the PRL
had to deal with the well-known reluctance of the order to allow
40
Telma Reca, "Directivas para la organizaci6n de una caircel de mujeres," Revista de Crimi-
nologia, Psiquiatria y Medicina Legal (1935), 729.
41
In his well-known book Estudios Penitenciarios (Buenos Aires: Talleres Graificos de la
Penitenciaria Nacional, 1906), p. 34, Eusebio G6mez 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," Boletin del PRL
(I, no. 3) p. 11.
42 Hortensia Yuseim, "El Patronato de Recluidas
y Liberadas," Boletin (II, no. 4, March 1935),
23.
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.
outside interference in their work: the Mother Superior Sor Maria del
Sacramento never allowed the PRL into the Correctional House to
work with these soon to be released inmates. Nor would she accept the
manual work that the PRL wanted to supply the inmates with.44 Of
course, these long-standing reservations were in this case encouraged
by the fact that the PRL was composed of women who were foreign to
the Catholic world. Alternatively aggressive or paternalistic, the first
references of these students and lawyers to the work of the Good
Shepherd were decidedly negative: the "sweet nuns," totally "dissoci-
ated from the stream of the century" could not keep up with the needs
of the times.45 Naturally, the objection went beyond the Good Shep-
herd: as a rule, the PRL was against giving the administration of pris-
ons to nuns, and its members were quite vocal in their view that reli-
gion was not relevant to the task of reforming and rehabilitating crimi-
nals. The emphasis on the uselessness of religion in the reform of
women is even more interesting when one recalls that these articles
were being published at a time when Argentine society was entering a
phase of "Catholization" in educational and political culture, with a
symbolic turning-point being the Eucharistic Congress of 1934. Not
only did the PRL avoid mentioning the event, but that same year their
bulletin published articles dealing with the advantages of eugenesic
abortion, using the example of the Soviet Union.46 Naturally, their
polite skepticism about the regenerative powers of religion barely dis-
guised a strong anti-clericalism, undoubtedly perceived by the nuns of
the Good Shepherd. According to Eusebio G6mez, advisor and pro-
tector of the PRL, religion was not only useless in the moral regen-
eration of prisoners, it was also dangerous, because it tended to base
morality and respect for authority only on religious grounds, not civil
grounds. For G6mez, religion was also at the root of hypocritical or
fearful personalities, and generated the sort of weak natures that were
more inclined to commit crimes.47
44 Alma G6mez Paz,

"Conversando con Sor Maria del Sacramento," Boletin del PRL (I, no. 1,
December 1933); Zulema Branca, "Inauguraci6n de una muestra de trabajo realizada en la Casa
Correccional de Mujeres," Boletin (I, no. 3, October 1934), 5.
45 Lucila de Gregorio Lavi6, "Reeducaci6n prictica
de las liberadas," Boletin (I, May 1934), 9.
46 Ibid., I, no. 2, May 1934, p. 22. On the reception of eugenics in Latin America, see Nancy L.
Stepan, The Hour of Eugenics. Race, Gender and Nation in Latin America (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1991).
47Gomez's views on the clergy were no better: these "parasites of superstition" were tolerated
only because G6mez expected their complete extinction. Estudios Penitenciarios, p. 45; La mala
vida p. 215.
LILA M. CAIMARI 205
For the PRL, the treatment of these women needed to be in secular
hands, just as it was for men.48 If this was not possible, (the lack of
trained female staff continued to be a problem) institutions of reha-
bilitation for women should at least be directed by secular-minded
people: nuns could participate, as long as they did so as individuals,
and not as members of an order capable of resisting the instructions of
the administration.49 According to the PRL, the existing system vio-
lated every principle of modern penal theory. Individual enforcement
of penalties was ignored: the nuns were completely overwhelmed by
their tasks, and the movement of inmates was so rapid that there was
no hope of familiarizing themselves with each case. Instead of endeav-
oring to rehabilitate through individual treatment, inmates were col-
lectively subjected to endless, useless religious speeches that forced
them to see their crimes in terms of sin and forgiveness, completely
dissociated from the reality around them.
The instruction given to the prisoners was also questionable: the first
and second grade classes were tailored to teach basic notions of read-
ing and writing, and did not include any of the practical knowledge
these women would need in the future, such as domestic economy,
nutrition, hygiene, child care, etc.50 In order to add some variety to this
curriculum, the PRL donated nearly one hundred books covering ev-
erything from world and national literature, to practical books on
cooking and hygiene, as well as primary and secondary textbooks. No
religious texts were included in this library. Ironically, this initiative
gives us an example of the PRL's inability to exert any influence on
these inmates: when they tried to organize a reading contest to make
sure the material was being used, the Mother Superior successfully
opposed the idea, arguing that it would be a source of jealousy and
envy among inmates.
Of all the PRL's objections to the Correctional House, the most
important involved the lack of any kind of work discipline. First, the
absence of such work violated the Penal Code, which called for man-
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; Boletin de la Biblioteca Nacional de Criminologia y Ciencias Afines (I,
no. 1, July 1926), 158.
49 Telma Reca, "Directivas para la organizaci6n."
50 Boletin (II, no. 4, March 1935).
datory work for all inmates and the accumulation of some money to
help the prisoners after their release. More importantly, the PRL ob-
jected because the lack of work was returning to society women who
were ill-prepared to fend for themselves, and therefore likely to com-
mit crimes again. Everything conspired against work in this prison: the
lack of space for workshops, the lack of interest of state authorities in
investing in an appropriate building, the non-cooperation of the nuns,
the mixed nature of the population of the institution, etc.
The manual work the prisoners were given was also the object of
severe criticism: at best, these women would become domestic ser-
vants. Even if they had been properly trained for this purpose, the PRL
had trouble finding families willing to accept them, despite the efforts
of the National Department of Labor, where former convicts under the
control of the PRL were given priority in the domestic service labor
market.
The demands of the PRL to build a new prison in the suburbs, with
a section for workshops, much like the Penitentiary, never received
much interest from the authorities.51 Despite partial successes, it was
clear that the work of the PRL had had limited results. The impossi-
bility of having any access to the inmates, one result of the tension with
the nuns, was a major obstacle in their work as a Patronato. Besides,
even under more favorable conditions, their work with women on
parole would have little impact because the short penalties and the
high level of recidivism made female convicts ineligible for parole. To
maximize its influence, the PRL extended its services to other former
convicts and to their families. Still, the number of people under their
aegis remained limited.
By the end of the 1930s, it was clear that national state leaders had
not altered their basic approach to the problem of the rehabilitation of
female crime. Furthermore, their policies were now imitated by the
government of the Province of Buenos Aires, which in 1936 handed
the new female prison of Olmos to the Good Shepherd. The obstacles
51 In 1938, however, the new Director of Penal Institutions, Jose 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.
LILA M. CAIMARI 207
that the PRL met seem linked to the misperception of its young mem-
bers about their place in the scientific debate, as well as the dimensions
of the problem they were dealing with.
First, in order to promote a debate on female criminality among
specialists, the PRL should have actively solicited the regular partici-
pation of professional women in fields such as medicine and psychia-
try. The exclusive definition of the institution as a lawyer's organiza-
tion limited its visibility and kept the focus and the support too de-
pendent on the legal world.
Second, and more importantly, it seems clear that the PRL failed to
convey its view of female criminality to state leaders and the bureau-
cracy of the penitentiary system. Despite all the theoretical and intel-
lectual support found in official spheres, no national government
seemed to consider controlling the rehabilitation of these criminals a
priority. For one thing: prisons were simply not seen as the right place
for this rehabilitation. As women, the place of these criminals was in
the home. And if they were sent to prison, it was not to be trained in
a trade that could prepare them to join the ranks of the new industrial
working class, but to receive religious counseling and learn some me-
nial work that would keep them at home, either as domiciliary workers
or domestic servants. The approach of state authorities to the problem
of female criminality seems to have been deeply determined by tradi-
tional ideas about gender, crime and work, rather than by positivist
criminological theory.52 Modern criminological theory had provided a
framework for many changes in the perception of male crime and
rehabilitation. These ideas, however, had not been equally developed
either to interpret female crime or to prescribe in detail how women
criminals might be rehabilitated. This difference at the theoretical level
was even more striking when these principles were enforced, even
after the PRL had generated a broad consensus in the scientific com-
munity about the need for such change. This gap is yet another re-
minder of the complexity of any assessment of the influence of science
on an official agenda. Even where these governments are supposed to
have been deeply influenced by the scientific developments of their
time, the use of "new ideas" in official initiatives is determined by a
complex web of factors. Limited material resources, combined with
52 Even social reformers like Bialet Mass6 rejected women's

participation in industry, or even
objected to the idea of women working at all. Donna Guy, "Women, Peonage, and Industrial-
ization: Argentina, 1810-1914," Latin American Research Review (16, no. 3, 1981) 65-89.
dominant conceptions about gender, crime, and work seem to have

conspired against applying the new criminological approach to the
question of female crime. Indeed, the issue was placed at the bottom
of the list of priorities of subsequent governments. The project of
rehabilitation advanced by the Good Shepherd was closer to state
leader's expectations than it seemed at first glance, and its meager
financial demands made it even more attractive.
It can also be argued that the official indifference toward the prob-
lem was made possible by the fact that these women were not consid-
ered a major threat to the project of the modern Argentine state. The
late and abrupt change in the official attitude seems linked to the
arrival of a new politically active population to these prisons: in the
early 1970s, hundreds of young women accused of being activists in
subversive political movements flooded the prisons of the Good Shep-
herd. In just a few years, most female correctional institutions were
placed under the control of the state.
Mercy College LILAM. CAIMARI

Dobbs Ferry, New York

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Whose Criminals Are These?

Church, State, and Patronatos and the Rehabilitation of Female

WHOSE CRIMINALS ARE THESE? CHURCH,

Turn-of-the century Argentine political leaders were deeply in-

3 On the misperception of immigrants as responsible for the growing criminality in Buenos

Ciencias Afines, 1926.

I. THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND THE REHABILITATION OF WOMEN

The institution's new character forced the administration of Juairez

Why did a national government so interested in controlling crime

7 Jose Penna and Horacio Madero, La Administraci6n Sanitaria y Asistencia Pa'blica de la

used to severe regulations and all kinds of privations-nuns were per-

Of course, these practical considerations were supported by some

tasks; b) to move women to the temporarily vacant National Prison,

13 Ministerio de Justicia e Instrucci6n Pdiblica,Proyecto de Reforma Carcelaria. Informe de la

II. THE STATE AND FEMALE CRIMINALITY

17Isern, El Buen Pastor, v. III, p. 596.

This diverse population was housed in a 200 year-old building which

1900 1915 1932

Theft or suspicion of theft

Professional Profileof Female Inmates (in Percentage)

1900 1915 1932

women worked in traditional female jobs-i.e., seamstresses, laundry

PRISONERS AND MINORS AT THE CORRECTIONAL HOUSE OF

1900 402 334 68 1087 965

judges to choose either not to send these condemned women to prison,

cent of women condemned to prison served their sentences in this way,

III. THE PATRONATO DE RECLUIDAS Y LIBERADAS AND THE QUESTION

It is not with love, with kindnessor with charity,that thingsget done. We

probation in Roberto Parry, Libertad Condicional y Condena Condicional. Proyectos de ley y

Congress, and participating in the elaboration of projects for new pris-

However, the main purpose of the organization was to work directly

44 Alma G6mez Paz,

48 Let us keep in mind that the

52 Even social reformers like Bialet Mass6 rejected women's

dominant conceptions about gender, crime, and work seem to have

Mercy College LILAM. CAIMARI

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