Criminology, Prision Reform and The Buenos Aires Working Class - Salvatore

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal of
Interdisciplinary History
Criminology, Prison Reform, and the Buenos Aires Working Class
Author(s): Ricardo D. Salvatore
Source: The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 279-299
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Journal of Interdisciplinary History,
xxIII:2
(Autumn 1992), 279-299.
Ricardo D. Salvatore
Criminology,
Prison
Reform,
and the Buenos
Aires
Working
Class Between
900o
and
1920,
positivist
criminologists
introduced
important
reforms into the
Argentine
prison system.
Influenced
by
the work of
Jose
Ingenieros,
who
redefined crime as a
moral-social-psychological pathology
that
could be treated and
cured,
a new
group
of
experts
and
prison
administrators
organized
the transformation of old
repressive pris-
ons into
experimental
clinics for the rehabilitation of inmates.
Their finest achievement-the National
Penitentiary
of Buenos
Aires-hosted a new
disciplinary system
that combined the most
current trends in the science of
punishment:
the humanist
positiv-
ism of the "Italian
School,"
and the methods of rehabilitation of
leading penitentiaries
and reformatories in the United States. Cen-
tral to this
disciplinary strategy
was the use of
confinement,
re-
demptive
work,
elementary
education,
and
religious
instruction.
Other methods borrowed from
Europe
and the United
States,
such as
"grading"
and the modification of sentences
according
to
inmates'
behavior,
added to the
novelty
of the reform.
The
impetus
of reform reached various institutions of the
justice system
in the
capital-the police,
the
prison
for indicted
felons,
the
juvenile reformatories,
and the courts-and
swept
the
old,
classical
penology
from
university
chairs and academic cir-
cles. In
modifying
the criminal
code,
the reform
proved
less
impressive.
The revised Criminal Code of
1920
supported posi-
tivist
principles
without
completely eliminating
the
penalties
ad-
vocated
by
the old
penology. Similarly, prison
facilities in the
Ricardo D. Salvatore is Research
Fellow,
Instituto Torcuato Di
Tella,
Buenos Aires.
He is the author of "Modes of Labor Control in
Cattle-Ranching
Economies: Cali-
fornia,
Southern
Brazil,
and
Argentina,
1800-1870," Journal
of
Economic
History,
LI
(1991),
441-451;
"The Old Problem of Gauchos and Rural
Society,"
Hispanic
American Historical
Review,
LXIX
(1989), 733-745.
The author thanks Monica Gomez for
helping
with the tabulation of censuses and
Carla
Feldpausch
for
helping
to locate
bibliographical
sources. He also thanks
Jonathan
C.
Brown,
Donna
J. Guy, Joan
W.
Scott,
Wilfred
Spohn,
Peter
Linebaugh, Harry
Cleaver,
and an
anonymous
reviewer for their
helpful
comments. He is
grateful
for funds from
CONICOR
(Council
for Scientific Research of the Province of
Cordoba, Argentina).
?
1992 by
The Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
and the editors of The
Journal of
Interdisciplinary History.
280
I
RICARDO D. SALVATORE
interior
provinces lagged
behind the establishments in the nation's
capital
in
adopting
the new methods.
Despite
these
limitations,
the reforms
produced long-lasting
effects on the
Argentine prison
system.
A
profound change
in the
city's working
class,
triggered by
the arrival of a massive number of
European immigrants
at the
turn of the
century, provided
both the context and the
impetus
for
prison
reform. In the
eyes
of
policymakers,
mass
immigration
brought
about
problems
of
housing, unemployment,
and crime.
Another
disturbing
attribute of the
immigrant
workers was their
capacity
for
organization
and
struggle.
The
foreign-born prole-
tariat of the
city
led the
way
in the
rapid
unionization drive of
the late
i89os,
participated
in the strikes that
paralyzed export
production
in
1901-02,
and
organized
the first socialist- and an-
archist-led labor confederations. Less visible
changes
also affected
the
composition
of the
city's working
class. The
seasonality
of
export agriculture,
the nature of domestic
demand,
and
periodic
economic crises caused the increase of
temporary
and unskilled
jobs
in number and in
proportion
to the total amount of
employ-
ment,
forcing newly
arrived
immigrants
to move
constantly
in
search
ofjobs.
This "casualization" of the urban labor market was
contemporaneous
with the "feminization" of some
segments
of
this market. In services and
manufacturing particularly, underpaid
women and children were hired instead of
men,
experiencing
the
insecurity
of a
highly fluctuating
labor demand with them.
This article examines the connections between the new crim-
inology,
the
prison
reform movement,
and the
changed
compo-
sition of Buenos Aires'
working
class. These three
phenomena
are linked
by
the
perceptions
of
positivist criminologists
about
the
city's emerging
"social
problems."
The
spread
of
positivist
criminology
contributed more than new methods of rehabilitation
of inmates. It
provided
the rhetorical devices and the
images
within which the
newly
formed
working
class could be
compre-
hended, classified,
and ordered. At a time of
great occupational
mobility
and social
conflict,
prison
reformers
produced
novel
interpretations
of the
urgent
"social
problems"
facing
the
ruling
class. New
conceptions
about crime and criminals centered
around work habits and attitudes served to divide the new work-
ing
class into an honest
core,
an
endangered
middle
ground,
and
an irredeemable
margin-the
"criminal class."
Constructing
social
PRISON REFORM IN BUENOS AIRES
I
281
problems
as the summation of individual anomalies
(moral,
vo-
litional,
and
intellectual), criminologists
were able to
provide
"ex-
planations"
for
questions
of
immigration policy, working-class
culture,
and work
discipline.
In
particular, criminologists'
em-
phasis
on the
relationship
between crime and the refusal to work
brought
to
public
attention an issue
insufficiently
articulated
by
private
sector
employers:
labor
discipline.
Often viewed as iso-
lated reformers
swimming against
the current of the
republica
conservadora,
positivists
contributed
important ideological
and dis-
ciplinary
instruments for the renovation and
continuity
of the
oligarchy's
rule.
As in
every
construction,
positivists' perceptions
of crime
and class obscured as much as
they
revealed. Unable to
perceive
the
changes operating
in the sexual
composition
of the
city's
work
force and
incapable
of
separating
work from
manhood,
crimi-
nologists
concentrated their reform efforts on male offenders. The
question
of women and crime-and the
possible implications
for
issues of
gender,
class,
and social control-received little or no
attention. In their
writings
about
crime,
prison
reform,
and the
"social
question,"
reformers
relegated
the
political,
collective
struggles
of workers to a second
plane. Collapsing
the manifes-
tations of workers'
protests
with other "anomalies"
resulting
from
individuals'
"struggles
for subsistence,"
criminologists
failed to
appreciate
the
importance
of class
struggle
in the formation of the
new Buenos Aires
working
class.
CASUAL
LABOR, WOMEN,
AND LABOR DISCIPLINE
Changes
in the
composition
of the work force
during
the
period
I880-I9I0
pro-
vided the context for the
experimentation
with modern refor-
matory practices.
Mass
immigration
transformed the character of
the Buenos Aires
working
class. Between I900 and
I908, 1.9
million
immigrants
entered the
port; by
1914
foreigners
consti-
tuted
46
percent
of the total work force.' Several authors have
underlined the
impact
of mass
immigration
on
government pol-
icy,
elite
perceptions,
and
working-class
culture. Other
important
aspects
of the
recomposition
of the work force-the casualization
I Ronaldo
Munck,
Argentina
from
Anarchism to Peronism
(London, 1987), 43;
Ernesto
Kritz,
"La formaci6n de la fuerza de
trabajo
en la
Argentina,
I890-I914,"
Cuaderno del
CENEP, (Centro
de Estudios de la
Poblaci6n) (Buenos Aires, I985),
I8.
282
|
and the feminization of a
large portion
of the
jobs
created
during
this
period-are
less known.
Casual
laborers-engaged
for short
periods
of time in activ-
ities
requiring
no
previous training
or
particular
skills-consti-
tuted an
important
and
growing segment
of the
city's
work force.
In the censuses of
1895
and
1914,
categories
such as
"peons," "day
laborers,"
(jornaleros),
and "workers without fixed
occupation"
constituted between io to i8
percent
of the
economically
active
population
of Buenos Aires. As much as
45
percent
of the new
jobs
created
during
this
period
fell under these
categories.2
Other
groups
of workers shared some of the characteristics of casual
laborers.
Occupations requiring
no initial skills
(such
as domestic
servant,
messenger, gardener,
stevedore, charcoalman,
cart-
driver, waiter, clothes-washer,
and
ironer)
and those
(due
to their
low
wage
and
irregularity) constituting disguised unemployment
(witch
doctor,
street
artist, boxer,
flower
vendor,
bottle
peddler,
paper boy,
street
vendor,
shoe
shiner,
and stable
boy) comprised
at least another I I to 12
percent
of the new
jobs
created between
1895
and
1914.
Unskilled labor
pervaded
the
employment
structure of the
city.
In a
survey
of
544
firms
by
the National
Department
of
Labor in
1913, 50
percent
of the work force was classified as
obreros sin
oficio (unskilled workers).
Railroads,
construction
firms,
and
manufacturing plants ancillary
to construction showed the
highest proportion
of unskilled workers
(76,
6i,
and
58
percent
respectively).
Labor contracts tended to be
temporary;
seasonal
and
cyclical
fluctuations limited the duration of
employment.
For
the
country
as a
whole,
Kritz estimates that
44
percent
of the
average growth
in
employment
between
I895
and
1914
was tem-
porary
in nature. In Buenos
Aires,
where
employment
was more
influenced
by
seasonal variations in
key
economic activities
(for
example,
the
shipping, handling,
and
storage
of
exports,
and the
manufacturing
of
clothing),
the
proportion
of
temporary
em-
ployment
must have been
higher. Cyclical
economic crises created
additional
unemployment.
The crisis of
1899-1902,
which coin-
cided with one of the
peaks
in
immigration, generated
tens of
2
Edgardo Bilsky,
La F.O.R.A.
y
el movimiento obrero
(Buenos
Aires, I985), I, 37-39.
Calculation based on data
provided by
the national
population
censuses of
1895
and
I914.
Republica Argentina, Segundo
Censo de la
Republica
Argentina, mayo
de
1895 (Buenos Aires,
1898),
II, 47-50;
Tercer Censo
Nacional, junio
de
1914 (Buenos Aires, 1917), IV,
201-212.
| 283
thousands of
unemployed people, particularly affecting
the situ-
ation of casual laborers.3
The seasonal nature of labor demand in the
countryside
added
to the
occupational
and
spatial mobility
of the
city's
work force.
Production
directly
related to the
export sector-grains,
livestock,
sheep shearing,
and the
transportation
and
shipment
of these
products-demanded large
numbers of workers
only
in late
spring
and summer.
Temporary
workers hired
by
the task or
by
the
day
comprised approximately
30
percent
of the active male
population
of the
major cereal-growing provinces.
Part of this seasonal de-
mand was filled with
golondrina
("swallow") immigrants
who
came
only
to work in the
grain
harvest-close to
50,000
a
year
in the I89os and over
Ioo,ooo
a
year
in the
I9oos.
When the
harvest was
over,
these workers had to return to the
city
and
work
temporarily
until their scheduled
departure
for
Europe.
Urban workers
joined
recent
immigrants
in their
journey
to the
countryside. Workshop
and
factory
workers as well as construc-
tion and railroad laborers
usually
abandoned their
jobs
temporar-
ily
in order to earn better
wages shearing
wool,
threshing
wheat,
or
harvesting
corn.4
Casual
labor,
temporary employment,
and
high occupational
mobility
became constant realities for
many immigrants.
An in-
creasing proportion
of them had to
accept
unskilled
engagements
upon
their arrival at Buenos Aires and, in order to
get
these
jobs,
more declared themselves as unskilled.
Although
in time immi-
grants managed
to save
enough
to return to
Italy
or
Spain,
or to
install a
shop
in
Argentina; they spent
the first
years
in a constant
search for
employment
and were
ready
to
accept, temporarily,
occupations
not in accordance with their
expectations
nor their
skills. Not
surprisingly,
for the few
immigrants
who wrote about
their
experiences,
life in
Argentina
was
presented
as a
long journey
through many places
and
occupations.5
3
"Grado de
ocupaci6n
obrera en la
Capital
Federal,"
Boletin del
Departamento
Nacional
del
Trabajo,
XXX
(1915), 158-161; Kritz,
"La
formaci6n," 35;
Guido Di Tella and Manuel
Zymelman,
Ciclos economicos en la
Argentina (Buenos
Aires,
1973),
62-86.
4
Hilda
Sabato,
"La formaci6n del mercado de
trabajo
en Buenos
Aires, I850-I880,"
Desarrollo
Economico,
XXIV
(I985), 570-574;
Ofelia
Pianetto,
"Mercado de
trabajo y
acci6n
sindical en la
Argentina,
I890-I922,"
Desarrollo
Econdmico,
XXIV
(1984), 300-302;
Roberto
Cortes
Conde,
El
pr6greso argentino, 1880-1914 (Buenos
Aires, 1979), 200, 207; James
Scobie,
Buenos
Aires;
Plaza to Suburb
(New
York, 1974), 136.
5 See,
e.g.,
the
story
of Felix
Serret,
a French
immigrant,
in
Guy
Bourde,
Urbanisation
284
I
Another characteristic of the
city's
labor market was the
feminization of the lowest tier of the work force. In the first
decade of the
century
women entered
occupations
that could be
characterized as
low-paying,
unstable,
and unskilled.
They
com-
prised
an
important proportion
of the work force in four sectors
of the urban
economy: personal
and social
services,
manufactur-
ing,
commerce, and "not well
specified
activities"-a
category
including
those without a fixed
employment. By
1914, 30
percent
of
manufacturing
workers, 39
percent
of finance and insurance
employees,
53
percent
of workers in
personal
services,
and 66
percent
of those without a fixed
occupation
were women.6
Women made
significant gains
in
employment
between
1895
and
I909
vis-a-vis their male
counterparts, gains
that concentrated
precisely
in
services,
manufacturing,
and commerce. The most
impressive growth
in female
employment corresponded
to the
residual
categories
identified with casual labor.
If,
in
1895,
women
represented
68
percent
of the
category
"workers without a fixed
occupation,"
in
I909
that
proportion
rose to 88
percent.
Between
1895
and
1914
five of the ten fastest
growing occupational
cate-
gories
were dominated
by
women. Casual workers
topped
the
list;
domestic
servants, dressmakers,
and cooks came fifth to sev-
enth;
and commercial
employees occupied
the ninth rank.
As
factories,
workshops,
and domestic work
opened oppor-
tunities for
partial
or
temporary employment,
women
began
to
switch back and forth between
paid
and
unpaid
work.
Among
female out-workers
(women working
at home for a distant boss
providing
the raw
materials)
of the "needle
trades,"
for
example,
the
intermittency
of work was
pervasive.
Work loads could be
excessive or insufficient
according
to the season's demand for a
particular
kind of
clothing.
A
survey
of domestic
industry
taken
by
the
Department
of Labor in
1913
showed that
only 45
percent
of the women interviewed worked
year-round.7
These women
et
immigration
en
Amerique
Latine
(Paris, 1974), 233-234;
the account of Oreste
Sola,
an
Italian
immigrant,
in Samuel
Baily
et al.
(eds.),
One
Family,
Two Worlds
(New Brunswick,
I988), 33-7I.
Similar stories are told in the interviews with Roberto
Rojas
and Victor
Elmez,
Chileans detained at the Viedma
prison,
Rufino
Marin,
Hablan desde la cdrcel los
hijos
de Martin Fierro
(Buenos
Aires, I934), 43-56, 9I-134.
6 Calculation based on data
provided by
the Tercer Censo
Nacional, IV,
201-212.
7
"El
trabajo
a domicilio en la
Capital
Federal,"
Boletin del
Departamento
Nacional del
Trabajo,
XXX
(1915), 75-126.
| 285
were in a similar situation to that of casual male laborers,
except
for one difference: their
wages
were half those of men.
Conditions of labor markets in the
city (casual
labor,
tem-
porary engagements,
and constant
spatial
and
occupational
mo-
bility)
made it difficult for
employers
to instill
regular,
industrial
work habits in their workers.
Moreover,
except
for
large
work-
shops demanding
skilled and semiskilled
labor,
most work
places
did not confront this
problem;
market mechanisms and authori-
tarian bosses were sufficient to maintain work
discipline.
Four forms of
organizing
labor
power-the factory,
the ar-
tisan
shop,
the
putting-out system,
and the
work-gang-served
to mobilize most of the
city's
work force.
Craftsmen,
motivated
by
the desire to move
upward
in the social ladder and
pressed by
foreign
and local
competitors, disciplined
themselves into the
ethic of hard work and
productivity. They
needed no other stim-
ulation than the market. On the other
hand,
factories-medium
or
large workshops employing
skilled workers and
apprentices
in
a
largely
manual
process-experienced
bitter
struggles
over the
imposition
of work
discipline.
Manufacturers' introduction of
reglamentos
internos
(internal rules)
which were aimed at the im-
position
of
greater regularity
of
work,
better
compliance
with
schedules,
and stricter control of the labor
process,
faced fierce
opposition
from workers
organized
in craft unions.
In these
confrontations, however,
manufacturers dealt di-
rectly
with their
workers,
often
resisting
state intrusion in what
they
considered matters of
private
business.8 The factories of the
I99os-larger
establishments
using machinery
and
employing
mainly
children and women-also resisted state intervention.
Women and
children,
perceived
as a docile work force which
adapted
more
easily
to new work
conditions,
also
provided
a
way
of
red-cing
the costs of
production
at a time of acute
competition
from
imports.
The
authority
of
fathers, husbands,
and
foremen,
combined with the threat of
dismissal,
was deemed sufficient to
keep
these workers under control.
Among
male casual
laborers,
the
work-gang
served as the
principal
form of recruitment. Contratistas
(labor contractors),
or
8 Ricardo
Falc6n,
El mundo del
trabajo urbano, 1890-1914 (Buenos Aires, I986), 102-105,
108;
Hobart
Spalding,
La clase
trabajadora argentina (Buenos Aires, 1970), I8-I9;
Juan
Alsina,
El obrero en la
Republica Argentina (Buenos Aires, I905), II, II2-113.
286 | RICARDO D. SALVATORE
foremen,
arbitrarily
selected,
day-to-day,
a
group
of laborers for
the
performance
of a
specific
task. This method of
organizing
labor left little room for the infusion of work
discipline.
Most of
these workers were not confined to a closed work
place-they
wandered
through dockyards, municipal
markets,
railroad sta-
tions,
and construction sites-and did not
stay long enough
to
learn norms of
punctuality, regularity,
and
sobriety.
As a
result,
employers
found little incentive to teach them new attitudes to-
ward
work;
they
relied instead on authoritarian foremen and on
dismissals.
Similarly, employers
of women
working
at home did
not need to concern themselves with issues of labor
discipline.
The
piecework system,
under conditions of
ample
reserves of
family
labor,
worked well
enough
to
expand
or contract
produc-
tion
according
to market demand.
Except
for
large workshops using
semiskilled
labor,
entre-
preneurs expressed
little concern for the
question
of work habits
and work
discipline. Leaving
aside
periods
of
exceptional
harvests
or of financial
crises,
the
functioning
of an international market
for labor
provided
a sufficient
supply
of labor
power.
Mobiliza-
tion of the labor
force, however,
was not a
guarantee
of
produc-
tivity
and much less of the
industriousness,
punctuality, respon-
sibility,
and
loyalty ideally
attributed to
European
workers.
Unstable labor markets and the
work-gang
could not
provide
for
the
adequate
socialization of casual laborers.
Instilling
the work
ethic into the mass of often
unemployed,
itinerant,
and unskilled
laborers
required
either the mediation of
disciplinary
institutions
or a new model of economic
development
based on the
factory
system.
Unlike
private employers, criminologists put
the
question
of labor
discipline
at the center of their
conceptions
of crime and
reformation.
PERCEPTIONS OF CRIME AND CLASS At
first,
Argentine positivist
criminology
embraced
uncritically
the theories and
methodologies
developed by
the Italian Scuola Positiva. The founders of the As-
sociation for
Juridical
Anthropology
who introduced the new
discipline
in the i88os
replicated
the
principles
sustained
by
the
Italian school: the
experimental
method
applied
to the
study
of
crime and
punishment;
crime as both a natural and a social
phe-
nomenon;
social defense as the criterion for
imposing penalties;
and the
penalty
as a means of
rehabilitation,
not of
punishment.
| 287
Considering
the
existing
Criminal Code-enacted in
I887-as
the
embodiment of these outmoded
principles
of classical
penology,
these
early positivists fought
for the enactment of new
legislation
that would extend the use of
therapeutical
labor within
prisons,
abolish brutal
punishment,
and
implement
new methods for the
identification of
delinquents.9
Under the influence of
Jose Ingenieros, criminological posi-
tivism
grew
in
popularity
and
complexity during
the first decade
of the
century. Ingenieros'
research at the Instituto de
Criminologia
into the new model
penitentiary,
his editorial work at the
journal
Archivos de
Psiquiatrfa
y Criminologia,
and his
teaching
at the Uni-
versidad de Buenos Aires
gave
a definite
impulse
to a doctrine
that,
while
upholding positivist
notions,
abandoned earlier no-
tions of atavism and
socially-determined
criminals. A
psycholog-
ical dimension was added to
existing interpretations
of crime.
Each
delinquent presented
a combination of
"moral,"
"intellec-
tual,"
and "volitive" anomalies
reflecting
the influence of envi-
ronment, inheritance,
and
personal psychological development.10
Social
"problems"
like
unemployment, drinking, gambling,
homosexuality,
and mental illness turned into individual
pathol-
ogies subject
to medical
scrutiny
and treatment.
9
The Scuola
Positiva,
built around the
pioneer
work of Cesare
Lombrosso,
Rafael
Garofalo,
and Enrico
Ferri,
had the
greatest impact
on
Italy
and France and had little
influence in
England
and the United States. For a
summary
of the schools'
achievements,
see Edwin
Seligman (ed.), Encyclopedia of
the Social Sciences
(New York, 1930), III, 584-
587;
Christopher
Hibbert,
The Roots
of
Evil
(Boston, 1963), 185-197;
David A.
Jones,
History of Criminology (Westport, 1986), 81-125.
Some of the works of these
early posi-
tivists are: Norberto
Piiieiro,
Problemas de criminalidad
(Buenos Aires, 1888);
Luis M.
Drago,
Los hombres de
presa (Buenos Aires, I888);
Antonio
Dellepiane,
El idioma del delito
y
diccionario
lunfardo (Buenos Aires, 1894).
For their collective
contribution,
see Abelardo
Levaggi,
Historia del Derecho Penal
Argentino (Buenos
Aires, 1978), I51-I55.
I0
Enrique
Hernandez,
"Positivismo
y
cientificismo en la
Argentina,"
Cuadernos Uni-
versitarios
(Bariloche),
V
(I975); M.J.
Bustamante,
"La Escuela Positiva
y
sus
aplicaciones,"
Archivos de
Psiquiatria y Criminologia,
X
(1911), 288-418;
Anibal
Ponce,
"Para una historia
de
Ingenieros," inJose Ingenieros,
Obras
Completas (Buenos Aires, 1939), I;Jose
L.
Damis,
"Jose Ingenieros (I877-1925),"
in El movimiento
positivista argentino (Buenos Aires,
I985),
527-538;
Oscar
Teran,
Positivismo
y
nacion en la
Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1987), 45-53.
In
general,
habitual
delinquents
suffered from "moral
anomalies,"
the
inability
to internalize
social norms and
perform accordingly.
Permanent or constitutional "madness" tended to
impair
individuals' resistance to
crime,
a condition
Ingenieros
called "intellectual
anomaly."
Epileptics,
chronic
alcoholics,
and
passionate
criminals-those unable to control their
wills-were included
among
those
suffering
from "volitive anomalies."
Ingenieros,
"Nueva clasificaci6n de los delincuentes fundada en la
psicopatologia,"
Revista de
Derecho,
Historia
y Letras,
XXIV
(1906), 18-27.
288
|
The new
psychological approach expanded
the role of med-
ical science in the treatment of
delinquents
and
changed
the nature
of
penitentiary discipline.
Penitentiaries and reformatories could
help delinquents
to internalize norms of
discipline only
if admin-
istrators relied on the
principles
of indeterminate sentence and
individualized treatment.1 Prisoners' clinical and criminal records
at
any given
moment were the best indicators to determine the
duration of sentences and the modalities of treatment.
Work,
religious
instruction, and education were the
preferred
means for
enacting
the transformation of criminals.
Confinement,
no
longer
the center of
prison discipline,
was now
part
of a
system
of
incentives and
penalties designed
to cause inmates to internalize
the social norms that
they
lacked.
The
impact
of
positivist criminology
reached
beyond
the
walls of the
penitentiary, affecting ruling-class perceptions
of
crime,
immigrant
labor,
and work
discipline.
With its
emphasis
on observation and
experimentation,
the new
discipline gave
im-
petus
to the collection of data about crime and criminals-statis-
tics,
clinical
records,
and
anthropometric studies-opening
novel
avenues for
detecting
and
analyzing problems
of social and labor
control. Police
stations,
prisons,
reformatories,
and courtrooms
became sites for
observing
crime and
reflecting
about its social/
psychological
context. Prisons,
in
particular,
turned into clinics
where
specialists, through
the observation of individual
cases,
were able to
perceive
current social
problems (immigration,
de-
viance, alcoholism,
unemployment,
child
labor), diagnose
the
causes of
society's
illnesses,
and recommend remedies.
Discipli-
nary
institutions
generated
useful class
perceptions:
constructs
about the tensions between ideal and actual
society
that abstracted
from class confrontations. These constructs
privileged
the
oppo-
sition between work and crime over other
systems
of reference.
Indeed,
work became central to
positivists' representations
of
crime and criminals and informed most of their discussions about
other social
problems.
The
writings
of
Veyga
illustrate the
centrality
of work in
positivist
discussions about crime. In his
study
about
professional
II The duration of the sentence had to
depend upon
an inmate's
progress
toward
rehabilitation,
not
upon
fixed
statutory
limits.
Similarly, disciplinary practices
within the
prison
had to
vary
in
proportion
to an inmate's
"dangerousness"
and
potential
for reform.
Idem, Criminologia (Buenos Aires, 1919), 258.
| 289
delinquents, Veyga
made
ample
use of the
metaphor
of work. At
the root of the
problem
of
professional delinquency
was the "ab-
solute lack of work
discipline"
of
many
criminals. Theft
appeared
as an
"elementary activity," requiring
little
physical
or intellectual
effort;
like unskilled and
repetitive
work,
it could be
easily
learned
by
individuals
lacking
moral resources in the
struggle
for subsis-
tence. The constitutional weakness of occasional offenders related
to their
preindustrial
habits;
nomads of the
city, lunfardos (thieves)
showed no sense of thrift or concern for the future. The
passage
from occasional to
professional
theft entailed a
process
of
"ap-
prenticeship";
the street and the
prison
served as "schools"
pro-
viding delinquents
with the "skills" of their trade. Due to their
"absolute
incapacity
for reflexive
labor,"
professional
thieves
rarely changed specialization
or branch of work
during
their life-
time.12
In a second book devoted to the "auxiliaries" of crime
(for
example, liquor
salesmen,
prostitutes
and their
bosses,
gambling
impresarios,
loan
sharks,
and
pawners
of stolen
goods), Veyga
explored
the connections between
delinquents
and the
working
class. The auxiliaries of crime constituted an
incipient,
amoral
entrepreneurial
class
("industrialists
of defective
morality")
the
activities of which
represented
"an aberrant form of
work,
like
that of the
beggar
or of the
prostitute, though
not a
delinquent
form like that of the thief." The auxiliaries
possessed good apti-
tudes for the
struggle
for
subsistence-audacity, tenacity,
and
profit
motivation-but were
engaged
in a
socially dangerous
busi-
ness,
one that contributed to the
reproduction
of the "criminal
class." In their
bordellos, bars, cafes, hostels,
and
race-tracks,
professional delinquents
came into contact with honest
workers,
pulling
them into a career of crime.13
Positivist
interpretations
of crime reflected a concern for the
erosion of the
boundary separating
the world of crime from the
world of work.
Veyga's
auxiliaries stood in a nebulous area be-
tween the honest
working
class and the criminal
class,
pulling
the
two closer
together.
Different manifestations of crime indicated
the existence of
problems
in the formation of work habits
among
12 Francisco de
Veyga,
Los
Lunfardos. Psicologia
de los delincuentes
profesionales (Buenos
Aires, I9IO), Io-II, I6-2I, 24.
I3 Idem,
Los auxiliares de la delincuencia
(Buenos
Aires,
I9IO), I4-I9, 26-29, 49-50.
290
vast sectors of the urban
working
class. Statistics
showing rising
crime
rates,
the visible
presence
of abandoned children in the
streets,
and the existence of
marginal neighborhoods
where
thieves,
vagrants,
and casual laborers lived
together preoccupied
reformers. With insistent
frequency, positivists expressed
concern
about the existence of two
pernicious
circuits in the
reproduction
of the Buenos Aires
working
class: one
turning
abandoned chil-
dren into
juvenile delinquents;
the other
turning unemployed
or
casual laborers into
occasional,
and
later,
professional
criminals.
Criminologists'
concentration on the
study ofjuvenile
delin-
quents, vagrants,
and recidivists underscores this
preoccupation.
Under the clinical
eye
of the new
criminology,
the
maladaptation
to the
discipline
of
wage
labor became a
predisposition
to delin-
quent
behavior.
Discouraged job
seekers,
the
unemployed,
and
those who disliked
wage
labor were considered
socially
malad-
justed
and, hence,
potential
criminals. Abandoned
children,
in
daily
contact with the world of
crime,
also
presented
a latent
danger
to
society.
Recidivist
delinquents,
as a class of workers
who had learned to live without
working,
were
particularly
threatening.
Positivists
presented vagrancy
as a mental illness of
persons
who,
due to their relative weakness in the
struggle
for
subsistence,
were unable to habituate themselves to the
rhythm
and conditions
of
wage
labor.
Consiglio,
for
example,
defined
vagabonds
as "a
multitude of abnormals" characterized
by
"the
incomplete
state
or the actual lack of nervous
energy
and of
psychic potential."
They
were individuals "less
active,
less
complete,
less
disciplined"
than the rest.
Vagrancy
led almost
inevitably
to crime. "Profes-
sional
criminality,"
wrote
Moreno,
"generally
enlists
proselytes
from
vagrants,
the
unemployed,
and
beggars,
inconvenient and
antisocial elements
always ready
to transform themselves into
subjects threatening society's stability."14
The abandoned children
working
on the streets of Buenos
Aires were also in
peril
of
falling
into the
trap
of crime. Crimi-
nologists
saw the streets as schools where the criminal class re-
14
Pedro
Consiglio,
"Los
vagabundos,"
Archivos de
Psiquiatria
y Criminologia,
X
(I9II),
436-437, 444-447;
Rodolfo
Moreno, Legislaci6n
Penal
y
Carcelaria
(Buenos Aires, I912),
202. On the role of
vagrancy
in
police
discourse,
see Beatriz C.
Ruibal,
"El control social
y
la
policia
de Buenos
Aires,"
Boletin del Instituto de Historia
Argentina y Americana,
II
(I990), 79-80.
PRISON REFORM IN BUENOS AIRES 291
cruited its
young
elements. "The
professional
criminal,"
wrote
Veyga, "inept
for social life since childhood and
protected against
all culture and all
discipline, begins
his criminal career as a
vag-
abond minor and then
graduates
as a
professional
within the
prison, living
afterwards from street to
prison
for the rest of his
life." Concerned about abandoned
minors,
Ingenieros
conducted
a
survey
on children
distributing
the
city's newspapers. Expect-
edly, paperboys' predisposition
for crime was
inversely
correlated
with their
acceptance
of the work ethic. This street
occupation
predisposed
children to the habits of leisure and
vagrancy: "They
learn
necessarily
to detest work in
workshops."
As a
result, go
percent
of those children took the road of
vagrancy
and delin-
quency
after
entering
adolescence.15
Besides
vagrants,
abandoned
children,
and recidivist delin-
quents,
reformers also were concerned with the
growing
numbers
of adult casual workers in the
city. Ingenieros
examined the cases
of two
immigrant
workers
who,
having
circulated
through many
unstable
employments,
fell into the world of crime. The first was
an Italian
immigrant
who had served several terms in
prison,
the
last time on
charges
of fraud. At
age
15
he
dropped
out of school
and abandoned his home in order to follow a
prostitute.
Circum-
stances led him to
robbery
and
swindling
and
later,
already
related
to malvivientes
(criminal elements),
he became a habitual delin-
quent.
Then
Ingenieros
added to the file:
"Strong
inclinations
towards
vagrancy
and lack of love for work.
Neuropathic
tem-
perament,
unstable
behavior,
personality maladjusted
to his social
environment. "16
The second case was a
Spanish immigrant
accused of
killing
a ranch owner in southern Buenos Aires. At the
age
of
sixteen,
he arrived in the
country
at the invitation of his brother
Jose,
who
found him
employment
as
peon
of an estancia in General Lama-
drid. After the
agricultural
season was
over,
he took another
job
at a brick kiln in
Azul,
then moved to another town
doing
the
same work. Six months
later,
he returned to the ranch to
dig
ditches
by
the
day;
when this work was
done,
he moved to
IS
Veyga,
"Los
lunfardos,"
Archives de
Psiquiatrfa y Criminologfa,
IX
(I9IO), 522.
See
also
Ruibal,
"El control
social," 84-90; Ingenieros,
"Los nifios vendedores de diarios
y
la
delincuencia
precoz,"
Archives de
Psiquiatrfa, Criminologfa y
Mecicina
Legal,
VII
(I908), 329-
346.
I6
Ingenieros, Criminologia, I34.
292 |
another ranch to work as
sheepshearer.
He returned to his broth-
er's
farm,
worked there for a
year,
then moved back to the ranch
and tended a herd of horses. After so
many occupations, Ingeni-
eros tells
us,
this man lost his incentive to work
and,
with
it,
his
sanity:
"He becomes kind of
lazy,
. . . little
by
little he loses his
love of
work,
. . . he
begins
to talk
foolishness,
he subordinates
his conduct to incorrect
facts,"
and "his mind does not work
well. "17
In contrast to the
growing
concern about the socialization of
male
workers,
the
rising proportion
of women in the
city's
labor
force had little
impact
on
positivist writings
about crime. Adult
women, viewed as
daughters,
wives, and mothers rather than as
workers,
presented
no
specific
threat to the social order. In
fact,
when reformers
spoke
of
thieves,
vagrants,
and
juvenile
delin-
quents,
it was understood that
they
referred to male offenders.
The
only exclusively
female
"problem"
was
prostitution,
one
important
channel
through
which
working-class
women aban-
doned the
sphere
of
family
and of
socially accepted
labor. Since
prostitution
remained
legal
between
1875
and
I934-hence,
prac-
titioners were not
subject
to
incarceration-prostitutes
were not
considered
delinquents, only auxiliary agents
of crime. Their
"weakness" derived both from their "innate
incapacity"
for hold-
ing
stable
jobs
and from the
"inability"
of
working-class
families
to "control the
sexuality"
of
young
women. Whereas in
theory
positivists
favored the confinement of immoral and
lazy
women,
in practice the reformation of "fallen women" was taken over
by
private, semireligious
benevolent
associations,
most of them run
by
middle-class women.18
In the
perception
of
positivist criminologists,
the criminal
class was
composed
of those workers
who,
because of their
psychic makeup
or of the influences of the
environment,
were
unable to
adapt
to the
discipline
of work. The transition from
normal to
pathological
behavior resulted, in most
cases,
from the
loss of work motivation.
Discouraged job
seekers,
the unem-
17 Ibid., I6.
i8 Donna
J.
Guy,
"Prostitution and Female
Criminality
in Buenos
Aires, I875-I937,"
in
Lyman
L.
Johnson (ed.),
The Problem
of
Order in
Changing
Societies
(Albuquerque, I990),
89-113; Veyga,
Los
auxiliares, 33;
Ricardo
Gonzalez,
"Caridad
y filantropia
en la ciudad
de Buenos Aires durante la
segunda
mitad del
siglo
XIX,"
in
Diego
Armus
(ed.),
Sectores
populares y
vida urbana
(Buenos
Aires, I984), 252-257; Alsina,
El
obrero, 92, I31.
| 293
ployed,
and those unskilled workers who
constantly changed
occupations
were considered a
population
at risk of
joining
the
ranks of the criminal class. A second
group, subject
to the same
risk,
was the abandoned children and adolescents who
frequented
certain social environments where the contact with
adult,
profes-
sional
delinquents
was almost certain.
Work,
not
gender
or national
origin,
informed most discus-
sions
by positivists
about crime and social
problems.
Work
helped
to
organize
workers'
experiences
into two
mutually
exclusive and
attracting
worlds: work and crime.
Images
of work
provided
powerful metaphors
to understand the criminal
class,
and the
latter,
by opposition,
defined the
working
class. Within the
pen-
itentiary,
work
represented
the means of rehabilitation and the
measure of reform. In
society
at
large,
the lack of a work ethic
gave meaning
to a
multiplicity
of social
problems
associated with
the
recomposition
of the work force. A
growing
criminal class
promised
the likelihood of
alarming
social
upheaval.
As a sub-
culture within the
city,
the mala vida
(bad life)
exhibited its own
sociability
codes,
its own dialect
(lunfardo),
and a remarkable
degree
of
specialization.
More
importantly,
it
pointed
to an alter-
native method of subsistence.
Having replaced
theft for work in
everyday
life-a fact reflected in their
professional jargon
in which
trabajo (work)
meant
theft-professional delinquents presented
negative examples
for the diffusion of favorable attitudes toward
work to be successful.19
Although
a
literary
construction within
positivist
discourse,
the term "criminal class" also
emerged
in reference to a
particular
type
based on the collection and
analysis
of statistical data
gathered
at
police
stations. Data on
police
arrests tended to confirm the
fears and alarmist
opinions
of
positivist
reformers. Between
9I
I
and
1915,
the
city's police
rounded
up nearly
1,500
minors for
vagrancy,
just
a
sample
of the estimated
10,000
who wandered
through
the streets of Buenos Aires. The number of offenders
less than sixteen
years
old increased fivefold between
1887
and
1912.
By
I915,
one-fourth of all
police
arrests were of minors.
The number of recidivists was also
staggering by contemporary
standards:
they
constituted
4,768
of the
8,233
arrested between
I9
Veyga,
Los
lunfardos;
Antonio
Dellepiane,
El idioma del delito
y
diccionario
lunfardo
(Buenos Aires, I894).
294 |
1892
and
1899.
By
1912,
a "true
colony" numbering
20,000
people
regularly
involved in theft was said to reside in Buenos Aires.
Most
police
arrests
during
the
period
1902-1913
were of
day
laborers.
They comprised
89
to
98
percent
of those arrested for
drunkenness, 85
to
96
percent
of those
apprehended
for
disturbing
the
peace,
and between
67
and
83
percent
of those indicted for
criminal behavior. As to the
types
of crime and the
nationality
of
offenders, Blackwelder is conclusive: "Most arrests were for
pub-
lic drunkenness or
disturbing
the
peace
and most were of
persons
judged by
the
police
not to be of
Argentine origin." Apparently,
the
police targeted immigrants
as the source of
public
disorder.20
The
prison population,
however,
differed
significantly
from
the one
subject
to
police
arrests.
Day
laborers
comprised
only 38
percent
of the
penitentiary's
inmates; 40
percent
were
craftsmen;
15
percent
commercial and clerical
policemen,
waiters,
and ser-
vants;
the rest were industrialists and merchants. Whereas an
overwhelming proportion
of
police
arrests were due to minor
violations of the
public
order
(drunkenness
and disturbances ac-
counted for 80
percent
of the arrests
during I900-I909), pentiten-
tiary
inmates accused of crimes
against morality
and
public
order
constituted a
minority (4 percent during
the same
period).
Most
were
prosecuted
for more serious crimes:
36
percent
for crimes
against persons,
31
percent
for crimes
against property,
and the
remaining
29
percent
were detained without causes. This
group
consisted almost
entirely
of
political prisoners,
most of them
having
entered the
penitentiary during
the tumultuous
years
of
1900-1903,
when waves of labor
protest disrupted
the calm of
the
city.21
The idea of a criminal class found little confirmation within
the walls of the
pentitentiary.
True,
recidivists were numerous
20 As
Veyga acknowledged,
the evidence came from the files of the
police's
Dep6sito
de
Contraventores,
Veyga,
Los
lunfardos, 9; Republica Argentina,
Ministerio de
Justicia,
Me-
moria
1916 (Buenos Aires, 1917), 580, 248; Miguel
A.
Lancelotti,
La criminalidad en Buenos
Aires al
margen
de la
estadistica, 1887-1912 (Buenos Aires, 1914), 16-17, 25-29, 55-56; Julia
K. Blackwelder and
LymanJohnson, "Changing
Criminal Patterns in Buenos
Aires,
1890-
1914," Journal
of
Latin American
Studies,
XIV
(1984), 369; Blackwelder, "Urbanization,
Crime,
and
Policing:
Buenos
Aires, I880-1914,"
in
Johnson,
The Problem
of Order, 73.
2I
Foreigners
constituted the
majority
of inmates at the
penitentiary.
Of those entered
in
I9go,
62% were
foreigners,
in
I909, 65%. (Among police
arrests the
proportion
was
65%
for the
period I882-I901.)
Anuario Estadistico de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires
(Buenos
Aires, I90I);
Censo de la Ciudad de Buenos
Aires, 1909, II, 302; Alsina,
El
obrero, 265.
| 295
Table 1 Prisoners Admitted to Men's and Women's Prisons
by
Type
of
Crime, I900-I909
NATIONAL WOMEN'S
CRIMES PENITENTIARY CORRECTIONALa
Against
Persons
5,380 (3 59) 904 (35.7)
Against Property 4,620 (30.8) 1,293 (51.I)
Against Morality 114 (0.8) I87 (7.4)
Against
Public Order 480
(3.2) 148 (5.8)
Unknown Cause
4,401 (29.3)
Total
14,995 (IOO.O) 2,532 (IOO.O)
a
Only
adult women considered.
SOURCE Censo de Poblaci6n de la Ciudad de Buenos
Aires, 1909.
but the
majority
of the urban
"dangerous
class"-thieves,
pick-
pockets, vagrants,
racketeers,
and
pimps-stayed
out of the
pen-
itentiary.
Instead,
the
penitentiary
held authors of violent
crimes,
most of them
workers,
over half of them
immigrants.
A
signifi-
cantly larger proportion
of craftsmen and
factory operatives
in
the
penitentiary, compared
with
police
arrests,
reflected the social
tensions of an
epoch
marked
by general
strikes and an anarchist-
dominated labor movement. These inmates were
already special-
ized in a trade and
politically
active.
Women constituted a small
minority
of
prison
inmates
throughout
the
period.
At the time of the first national census of
prisons (1906),
only 4
percent
of the inmates of the
city's prisons
were
women,
most of them confined to the Asilo Correccional
de
Mujeres.22
As most offenses committed
by
women were clas-
sified as misdemeanors and handled
by
the
police,
few went to
prison.
Poor women under
age
20
frequently
entered houses of
correction,
asylums,
and
workshops
administered
by
charitable
and
religious
institutions. In
fact,
the Asilo Correccional itself had
three to four times more menores
depositadas
(minors
in
custody)
than detenidas
(adult offenders).
Of the
latter,
few were
factory
operatives,
most held traditional roles for
poor
women at the
time-maid, cook, washerwoman, seamstress, ironer, midwife,
or nurse-or had no
occupations. Injury,
homicide, infanticide,
22
Republica Argentina,
Minesterio de
Justicia,
Primer censo carcelario de la
Republica, 1906
(Buenos Aires,
I909), 55-56.
296
j RICARDO D. SALVATORE
and theft
represented
the most common causes for
imprisoning
women.
The
prison
reform and
positivist
discussions on crime were an
interpretive
moment about the encounter between the
Argentine
ruling
class and the
new,
immigrant working
class. Positivist
criminology
contributed in different
ways
to the redefinition of
class relations in
early twentieth-century
Buenos Aires.
Respond-
ing
to the
changing composition
of the
city's
work
force,
crimi-
nologists
furnished
categories, relationships,
and
metaphors
that
helped
to
interpret
the
problems posed by immigrant
workers.
From their
privileged positions,
the
police
and the
prison
reform-
ers were able to
observe,
statistically
and
clinically,
some
preoc-
cupying
features of the new
working
class. If
police
statistics
provided
a vision of the
city's dangerous
class,
then the
peniten-
tiary
served as a clinic for the
observation,
experimentation,
and
treatment of the
dropouts
of a
highly
mobile and unstable labor
market.
By connecting
the definition of crime to the work
ethic,
criminologists
were able to articulate
ruling-class
fears of the
blurring
of boundaries between crime and work in the new me-
tropolis.
The fact that
immigrants
tended to
change
jobs
all too
often or to remain
unemployed
for
long periods
of time-a sit-
uation that reflected the condition of labor markets for unskilled
labor-presented
a
problem. Discouraged job
seekers and the
unemployed
tended to lose the "love of work" and this facilitated
their
entry
into the "world of crime."
The
importance
that
positivists
attributed to work as both a
reform
therapy
and as an
ordering principle
for the definition of
criminal
behavior,
underscored the
problem
of
instilling
work
habits on the new
proletariat.
Just
at a time when the
regime
began
to confront the radical manifestations of the
immigrant
working
class
(under
the form of
general
strikes,
street
violence,
and anarchist and socialist labor
organizations), positivists pre-
sented
immigrants
as individuals
lacking
the work ethic or the
morality
that the
ruling
class had
imagined.
This revelation was
particularly disquieting
since
private capitalists
seemed unable or
unwilling
to take the
responsibility
for
teaching
the love of work
to their workers.
297
Concerning
labor
discipline, positivist
constructs revealed
greater insight
and less
pragmatism
than the
programs
of
private
capitalists.
Their insistence on the connection between casual la-
bor,
unemployment,
and crime showed a
greater
awareness of
the
problems posed by
the
export economy
for the
project
of
modernization and nation
building.
At the same
time,
the
peni-
tentiary/factory
stood as an
ideal,
distant model in contradiction
with the actual
employment
structure of the
country (dominated
by
semiartisan
workshops,
domestic
work,
temporary
and un-
skilled
laborers,
and an
overgrown
commercial and service sec-
tor).
The
question
of female industrial labor-raised
by many
la-
bor
organizers
and socialist
leaders-preoccupied positivist
re-
formers less than
prostitution.
As
long
as male-dominated families
could
keep guard
of
young
women's
morality,
their
incorporation
into
paid
labor
through
the
putting-out system
was not
problem-
atic. Women
entering
factories and
large workshops
were ne-
glected by criminologists.
The solution to women's "moral
anomalies,"
on the other
hand,
could not be achieved in the
penitentiary.
The rehabilitation of fallen women and the seclusion
of those at risk was the task of
semireligious
benevolent associa-
tions not under the control of
positivist
reformers.23
Positivists' studies and
essays
on the world of crime
presented
the
ruling
class with a fuller and more exact
image
of
working-
class life. The interest of reformers in abandoned
children,
drink-
ing, prostitution,
theft,
and
vagrancy provided
new information
about how difficult it was for
immigrants
to be assimilated into
the elite's
project
of
export-led development. Depictions by
the
positivists
of the criminal
class,
a social
territory
of
fuzzy
and
shifting
boundaries,
reinforced
existing
beliefs that unchecked
immigration
threatened the
peace
and
stability
of the nation. The
explanation
of social
problems
as the result of individual anom-
alies
strengthened
the view that
"progress"
would be
possible
without class
struggle.
The search for clear frontiers within the
city-honest
worker/
delinquent,
criminal
class/working
class-was an
expression
of
the elite's need for new
organizing
dualities that would
replace
23
Donna
J. Guy, University
of Arizona,
suggested
this
explanation
in a
personal
communication.
298 I
those eliminated
along
with the Indian frontier-civilization/bar-
barism, urban/rural,
and
immigrant/creole
worker. The
general
formula,
hacer la America
(the myth
of
immigrants' rapid upward
social
mobility),
could not
explain
the social
problems-crime
and
protest-created by immigrant
labor;
a new social
imagery
was needed to redefine and to
reinterpret
class relations. Positivists
contributed this
imagery:
a
pernicious
social milieu within the
city (the
mala
vida),
a
swelling
number of abandoned children in
danger
of
contamination,
an unskilled and mobile
proletariat
lack-
ing
industrial work
habits,
and an
army
of intermediaries
pulling
the two worlds into contact.
The
penitentiary
affirmed the
necessity
of a
nonrepressive,
humanistic solution to the
problem
of
immigrants' maladjustment
in terms of work habits and social behavior. But it did not con-
stitute a
general
solution.
Obviously, positivists
did not intend to
reshape
the work attitudes of the whole casual
proletariat, only
those who fell into the
prison system.
Other functions of the new
disciplinary
institution were more salient. The
penitentiary
served
as a means of
controlling ideological representations
of
poverty,
unemployment,
and
crime;
that
is,
it
provided
a means of
pre-
senting
the
working poor
with different
explanations
of their fate
than those
provided by
anarchists and socialists. As an instrument
of social
control,
the
penitentiary competed
with other methods:
the infamous "law of
residence,"
police harassment of labor lead-
ers,
elementary public
education,
obligatory military conscrip-
tion,
protective
labor
legislation,
and the
promotion
of benevolent
societies. The
penitentiary played,
however,
an
important
role in
this
complex disciplinary grid
because it
attempted
to illuminate
a
problem
left unsolved
by
the
private
sector: how to
adapt
immigrant
workers to the new conditions of work
required by
the
urban,
export economy. By focusing
the elite's attention on
the
relationship
between work and
crime,
criminologists brought
into
public
debate the issue of labor
discipline.
Positivist reformers were more concerned about the refor-
mation of
male,
rather than
female,
offenders.
Despite
a
growing
presence
in the worlds of labor and
politics,
women did not draw
much attention
among prison
reformers. The small incidence of
women in criminal statistics
together
with the belief that other
institutions
(family,
charitable
societies,
and
public
health author-
ities)
could better
discipline poor
women,
led
positivists
to see
299
female offenders as less
threatening
to the
reproduction
of the
city's
work force. To this
extent,
the
penitentiary
reflected the
gender-biased perspective
of the reformers.
Bound
by
a
theory
that
de-emphasized
the
political aspects
of workers'
struggles, criminologists
also failed to address the
question
of social
protest.
When casual laborers
joined
factory
workers in a collective refusal to work in demand for
social,
political,
and economic
reforms,
they
confronted not the human-
ism of the new
criminologists
but
police brutality, ideological
persecution,
and the extradition or
impressment
of their leaders.
As the male
participants
of these strikes and demonstrations filled
the cells of the National
Penitentiary
of Buenos
Aires,
they
found
a new mode of
discipline
in
operation,
one that relied
upon
the
redemptive power
of
work,
moral
suasion,
and education to
pre-
pare
convicts for their reinsertion into the world of
capitalist
work.

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