Pagando penas y ganando el cielo.
Vida cotidiana de las reclusas de la
cárcel El Buen Pastor
1890-1929*
July
Andrea García Amézquita[1]
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Reception: 01/07/2014
Evaluation: 09/07/2014
Approval: 02/10/2014
Research and innovation article.
Resumen
La cárcel del
Buen Pastor de Bogotá durante el periodo de hegemonía conservadora ilustra la
política penitenciaria y los dispositivos formales e informales del control
social de la época reunidos en una misma institución. En un intento de
reconstruir la historia institucional, en el presente artículo se muestran las
prácticas cotidianas del encierro penitenciario femenino a partir de un diálogo
entre el institucionalismo y la criminología crítica en donde la normatividad
penal, la religión y el control social convergen en un mismo escenario y con el
mismo objetivo, frenar la criminalidad.
Palabras clave: cárcel,
mujeres delincuentes, comunidad religiosa, hegemonía conservadora, reeducación,
control social
Paying for
Crimes and Attaining Heaven.
The Daily Life
of Imprisoned Women at “El Buen Pastor” Penitentiary
1890-1929.
Abstract
During the
period of Colombian conservative hegemony, “El Buen
Pastor” prison, in Bogotá, provides an illustration of penitentiary policy, as
well as the formal and informal mechanisms of social control at the time,
gathered in a single institution. In an attempt to reconstruct the history of
the institution, the following article presents the daily practices of female
penitentiary confinement through a dialogue between
institutionalism and critical criminology, in which criminal law, religion, and
social control converge in the same scenario and with the same objective:
stopping criminality.
Keywords: Prison, female
delinquency, religious community, conservative hegemony, re-education, social
control.
Purger des peines
et gagner le ciel. Vie quotidienne des femmes incarcérées au Buen Pastor, 1890-1929
Résumé
Pendant la période connue en Colombie sous le nom
d’hégémonie conservatrice, la prison bogotaine du Buen Pastor illustre la politique
pénitentiaire et les dispositifs formels et informels du contrôle social de
l’époque, réunis dans une même institution. Cet article tente de reconstruire
l’histoire institutionnelle, en montrant les pratiques quotidiennes de
l’incarcération féminine à partir d’un dialogue entre l’institutionnalisme et
la criminologie critique. On y montre comment les règles pénales, la religion
et le contrôle social convergent dans un même endroit et avec un seul objectif
: arrêter la criminalité.
Mots-clés: prison, femmes
délinquantes, communauté religieuse, hégémonie conservatrice, rééducation,
contrôle social.
1. Introduction
The Congregación de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Buen
Pastor (Congregation of Our Lady of the Charity of the Good Shepherd)
arrived in Colombia in March 1890[2], by request of the government of Carlos Holguín Mallarino and with the help of a
group of Bogota “ladies”, who made contact with the nuns in their house in New
York, with the purpose of “(…) making up for the evil that the corruption of
women causes to the society (…)[3].” This congregation had a long tradition in the custody and treatment
of girls and women in conflict with justice or society[4]. For that reason, they were in charge of administering, monitoring and
controlling the new women’s prison that the well-off class of Bogota was
constantly asking for. The experience of other foundations in South America,
starting with Chile (1855), Ecuador, (1871), Perú (1871) and Argentina (1885), positioned this
congregation as the best option to take care of the re-education of women in
Bogota, and later all around the country[5].
At the end of the 19th century, in an old candle and soap factory,
transformed into a convent, President Miguel Antonio Caro charged them with the
task of managing the San José asylum, located in the south of Bogota. In a farm
called Tresesquinas, which they occupied as from the 19th March 1892, they opened
their doors to girls and adult women so they were secluded due to legal and
social contraventions, but with the sole objective of re-educating them. After Tresequinas, they administered the Central Penitentiary and the Panopticon of
Bogota, on 1st April, 1899[6].
Their participation as
heads of the Panopticon only lasted seven months, partly due to the Thousand
Days war which elevated the occupation of the prison to levels of overcrowding,
which did not allow for the female and male wings to be separated nor for the
control of the inmates themselves, or their activities, which were fundamental
pillars of the rules of the Good Shepherd for the re-education of women and
girls. On top of the above, the complaints of the men, mainly political
prisoners, related mostly to foo, relegated the nuns and the women deprived of
their freedom (for breaking the laws in the police code[7]) to the house that the government had donated to them and that only
worked as a monastery, in Las Aguas neighbourhood[8].
This monastery
was transformed into the location of female penitentiary seclusion and the women’s
asylum, best known as the Prison of the Good Shepherd of Bogota, from December
1899 until the first year of the Frente Nacional
(National Front), when the transfer of the inmates to the new premises built in
the Entre Ríos neighborhood was determined –where it currently functions-. The
congregation of the nuns of the Good Shepherd was in charge of the direction of
the prison until May 1975.
The development of the present article gives an account of the
characteristics of the population of the center for female seclusion and the penitentiary
model used at the time, with the objective of correcting, reeducating, stopping
crime and reaffirming the power of social control over the female population.
The argumentative development shows three key moments in penitentiary
seclusion: admission, turning life into a routine and acceptance.
During the period
studied –the conservative hegemony- the prison of the Good Shepherd was more
than a mere center of seclusion for “criminals.”
Following the idea of correcting those women who had “deviated from the good
path”, it became an asylum for prostitutes, homeless girls, for rebellious
girls whose parents punished them by sending them there for short periods of time,
for disobedient wives whose husbands tried to make them “come to their senses”;
and as was expected, for criminal women and girls, which the state had to
punish and re-educate.
Transgressors and those called criminals who
entered the Good Shepherd shared the same space with the penitent[9] and the confined[10], from the foundation of the prison until 1911 when the National
Government decided that the institution should only dedicate itself to
re-educating correctional women (sentenced due to the violation of the police
code) and part of those who were awaiting their sentence, who were in the
Panopticon. Despite the fact that the sources are
scarce and there are impediments to making a full series, the records of
admission and release in the Panopticon, for the years 1903-1904 and 1911-1912-1913, give an account of
the high level of female occupation in this penitentiary. The records show an
average monthly inhabitancy of twenty (20) sentenced women and seventy (70)
being tried. At the same time, the average monthly admission of new inmates was
2 (two) and of release was 1 (one)[11].
After this disposition, the Good Shepherd would monthly house, for the
first decade of the 20th century, between 30 and 35 inmates and 3 to
5 children under two, who inhabited the prison with their mothers[12]. Later on, Law 98 of 1920 (the first law for minors in Colombia)
normalized the courts and the reform and correction houses of minors in Bogotá and Medellín, which made it that the
prison housed all the delinquent girls over 7 and under 18[13]. Thus, for the end of the period of study, the Good Shepherd only had
minors, with an average of 90 inmates[14].
The characterization of the prison population, statistically speaking,
presents methodological inconveniences as it was a changeable population, due
to the origin of their confinement as well as the sentences imposed. However,
it is possible to establish some tendencies with regard to the criminals and
the crimes punished or pending judgement with penitentiary confinement in the Good
Shepherd, during the period 1923-1925. Most of them (79%) are crimes and/or
contraventions for attempting against people (fights, insults, wounds); second,
(20%) are crimes against property (theft or fraud); and finally (1%) are crimes
against public faith (money forgery). With regard to the prisoners that entered
due to legal procedures[15], 80% were under 30 and more than half of them were single. They were
young women who, in some way, were out of male control in their households and
who rebelled against the control of society in general, through violence
characterized by aggression, disrespect and scandal.
The moment they
entered the prison constituted the first and strongest change that the inmate
faced. From the very first moment, the life of the individual was torn in two;
there was a before and an after, a radical change, not because of seeing
themselves as “jailed” but due to the idea they had of being free.
Before entering the prison, these women had a routine of activities and
a role in society –daughter, mother, wife- that, even
though it was imposed by the social order, it was possible that it was
understood by them as part of their choice. Nevertheless, when they entered the
correctional center, routines such as work and family
life were to be decided by the punitive system, removing from these women the
short range of possibilities to decide about their own selves. The change of
habits and the new group of people with whom they had to share each day of
confinement constituted the first step of the institution in its race to
demoralize the inmates[16].
In the case of work, The Good Shepherd established as part of its
therapeutic mechanisms the obligation to work and, on some occasions, the
inmates received an economic remuneration, but it is clear that neither the
amount nor the type of work and even less the economic remuneration were
comparable with life on the other side of those walls. Outside they could have
remunerated work or not, like domestic work, but once the task was fulfilled,
they could do things with a certain degree of freedom.
With regard to family life, it is worth mentioning that being in the
Good Shepherd did not mean being isolated or outcast, but it did mean being
away from the family and being forced to share the intimacy of seclusion with
new people. The everyday life normalized by the
institution implied having a new social circle which replaced the family,
highlighting the difference with respect to being free and that, in addition,
in the terms of Goffman, favored resistance against the institution. The women
who entered the Good Shepherd arrived with the stereotype of delinquent women
recreated by the nuns as follows:
When they arrived, the
prisoners were drunk, had guns and a good dose of bottles of spirits. It is
supposed that none of them came on their own, they
were brought by the police or even their parents, and many times, their
husbands. They had abundant hair, in a ponytail, they were barefoot, their
robes were big; frequently, one can see them smoking long and thick cigars […] witty, with a marked accent when they
speak, generous, cheerful and pious, of a strong temperament and aggressive
with their fellow inmates […] they used to
be reckless, dirty, untidy, without discipline, they were often involved in
fights and they lacked a job or occupation to rehabilitate them[17].
This particular style, as well as their everyday habits, was exactly
what was sought to be modified immediately after they entered the institution;
it was a race to deculturize[18] the delinquent, which would be impossible to fulfil completely, given
that, following the words of Goffman, the cultural changes seen in the inmates
were only explained by the elimination of certain opportunities of behaviour
and by the imposition of certain rules that, when following them, would make
the seclusion somewhat less tortuous.
The culture of those secluded cannot be changed only by the prison. Even
when it is true that there is a modification of the habits and the longer the
time of seclusion, the lesser the resistance is to fulfil them, it is clear
that once they are free, facing the same material and cultural conditions, the
inmate goes back to their old patterns of behaviour, which explains recidivism
and the inoperativeness of the prison, as a solution to the problem of
delinquency.
For Goffman, the institutions do not pursue cultural aims, but in the
case of the Good Shepherd, they did, under the idea of faith, love and the
pedagogy of optimism, it is established as the objective of the institution to
transform behaviors and lives in order to save souls,
reaffirming the deculturization process in which the inmate is stripped of the
identity acquired while free.
Another important
aspect at the moment of entering the prison is the actions that tend to achieve
the submission and the obedience of the inmates: “(…) When they enter, the
process of adaptation was carried out in the least time possible. From a
freedom without control they immediately went to strict disciplinary patterns
(…)[19].” The first
step, although it may seem obvious, was confinement, the bars on the windows
and locks on the doors are a symbol of how their freedom was taken away from
them and they lost their autonomy, things that would not be recovered until the
end of their sentence.
After the
impact of entering the prison, its bureaucracy was established. As the first
procedure, their inscription in the entry
book, a book where a record was kept of all the inmates that went into
prison yearly. Table 1 shows the format used.
Table
N° 1. Admission form
|
PRISON OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD |
|||||
|
ENTRY
BOOK YEAR |
|||||
|
Year |
Month |
Day |
Height |
Name: |
|
|
Features |
Nature: |
|
|||
|
Religion: |
Neighbor
of: |
|
|||
|
Trade: |
Crime: |
|
|||
|
Face: |
Age: |
|
|||
|
Color: |
Status: |
|
|||
|
Eyes: |
Daughter
of: |
|
|||
|
Eyebrows: |
Reads: |
||||
|
Nose: |
Writes: |
||||
|
Ears: |
Particular features: |
||||
|
Mouth: |
|
||||
|
Hair: |
|||||
|
Forehead: |
|||||
Source: Correspondencia
Cárcel El Buen Pastor, National General Archive.
Bogotá-Colombia. Section
2, Prisons. Fondo República, Ministerio de Gobierno.
The record,
apart from being bureaucratic paperwork, was a possibility to examine the life
story of the inmates when they filled in each of the items of the form. It
explicitly tried to make a classification of the delinquent, from their
physiognomic, ideological and cultural aspects. It tacitly sought to learn why
the woman had deviated from the social order and as a consequence of her faults
had to be punished. These responses were looked for in biological and
hereditary aspects, geographical influence, their religious doctrine and their
level of instruction, economic factors, knowledge of the law, will and their
perception of justice were not taken into consideration.
After registering,
they were showered, disinfected, they had their hair cut, they were assigned a
uniform and a place within the house, according to their legal situation, that
is, if they were correctional, indicted or sentenced. It is important to point
out that the uniforms did not belong to the inmate, but to the institution;
therefore, they were not allowed to modify them or mark them, like all the
things they were assigned to use in the prison. Actually, total dispossession
of their identity was magnified, materialized in the items the inmates
identified as their own, objects she cared about and over which they had
control.
These first approaches between the wardens and the
inmates allowed the former to perceive the rebelliousness and hostility of the
latter or, on the contrary, the docility and obedience of each inmate. At the
same time, it was their first opportunity to impose their authority and the
differences between the two groups, therefore, the procedures of admission were
a preamble of the therapeutic process. From the moment they entered the prison,
the inmate was obliged to physical and cultural overexposure. From that moment,
the inmate was shaped, classified and uniformed to turn her into something
different from the person who entered. This was the first procedure of the modification
of the behavior carried out by the prison as an institution.
4. Turning
life into a routine
Once the hierarchies in the prison were imposed, the therapeutic
mechanisms of the modification of the behavior to achieve the personal
reorganization or reeducation of the woman were introduced through the planning
of daily life and the socialization of the system of privileges that allowed
for the internalization of new habits and new ways of interpreting what was
right and wrong, that is, introducing criminal women to the established social
order. The routine consisted of:
Discipline framed in strict schedules, with varied
activities during the day. It started at 5.30 am, personal hygiene, order and
cleaning were required in the different areas; attendance to religious acts,
breakfast at 7, chores and activities from 8 onwards; lunch was served at midday
and a well-deserved recreation afterwards; work started again at 2 until 5,
then dinner, another break and the final prayer that indicated that it was time
to go to sleep[20].
Work. The varied activities that are referred
to in the previous quotation are related to the instruction to work, one of the
pillars of re-education. According to the nuns, the inmates had to acquire
skills, so when they were free they could “(…) earn a living decently and, one
day, take their place as heads of the family[21] (…).”
Therefore, they had to get used to long domestic activities and to “love
tidiness and cleanliness[22].” They were
also taught to mend and sew in the sewing classes, and the little girls were
giving reading, writing, arithmetic, and history lessons (mainly religious),
with the aim that they could “support themselves and help their parents. They
were inspired to have great respect for their parents and a lot of love for
their families[23]..”
Daily work as
a therapeutic activity was based on the idea that by earning an earthly living,
the souls could be saved through performing a decent job and, so, the daily
planning of activities in the prison had to inspire in them a love for their
work and make them skillful at it.
Love for their work implied:
-
An excellent
performance;
-
Not complaining about
being tired or fatigued, nor how disgusted they felt when doing it;
-
Being willing to
perform any task;
-
Working as much as
possible to avoid laziness;
-
Doing things
thoroughly;
-
Not pretending to be
ill so as not to work;
-
Maintaining a body
posture that reflected their attitude towards work: “they should not sit and
support their backs on the back of the chair and even less extend their legs so
as to rest after being fatigued, nor put their elbows on the tables or desks[24]”
Work, according to the set of rules of the institution and the ideals of
the penitentiary policy, was compulsory and the economic result of manual work,
such as the fabrication of uniforms and clothing in general, that of baskets to
transport beer bottles, laundry and the mending of clothes, was collected and
managed by the nuns of the Good Shepherd. These earnings “financed their stay
in seclusion,” as a kind of payment to the congregation for their upkeep in the
prison.
Every fortnight, the state paid the food rations and the public services
of the prison as well as those of the convent, and the Ministry of Government
had to provide the uniforms and the equipment in the houses, also the payment
of the external wardens and health services. However, the truth was that the
resources destined to maintain the prison were not sufficient, neither were the
wardens. This is one of the reasons why the inmates had to work long hours, as
it was necessary for the maintenance of “soul saving” company. If it is taken
into consideration that the charitable nature of the institution did not change
during the period studied, it can be understood that the situation could have
been even more serious, given that simultaneously with the delinquents, the
nuns carried out a re-educational process with orphan girls and women who were
prostitutes, and for this process the state did not offer any kind of
financing.
With the aim of increasing the production of any material good or
service, the inmates had to do exercise and stretching half way through the
day, which reduced fatigue. Work was performed either in absolute silence or
praying directed by the nuns who worked as teachers. There was no work on
Sundays, and on Saturdays, in addition to their daily work, there was general
sweeping. As stimuli to work with love, there was a possibility to save some
money that was given to the inmates when they left the institution. Thus, those
who performed their tasks with quality and in the amount demanded could save
one fourth of the general profit from their work.
An aspect that stands out from all these practices
related to work is that, although the ideal was to re-educate the delinquent to
be a mother-wife, the methodology used inserted the woman in urban remunerated
work, a sphere that had been reserved for men, but with the arrival of
industrialization processes, the country would generate an ambiguity for women
and an overload of their tasks, as apart from doing the house chores and their
social responsibilities, now they would assume work roles, which rather than
giving them economic equality, would imply a new circle of submission,
exploitation and differentiation.
Recreation. This was
another important activity during the day of the Good Shepherd. It took place
twice a day, in blocks of half an hour each, and they
doubled on Sundays. At this time, the inmates were put together in the same
place to do physical exercise, like running and jumping. They could also play
dominos, make raffles for positive points, do theatrical representations of
biblical pieces and rondas (circles), those were the most common
activities. The rondas were the only non-religious songs that the
inmates could interpret, aside from them, any other song was forbidden.
The breaks
were the activities that required the closest attention from the wardens, as
they considered them to be “(…) the most dangerous moment for their souls (…)[25].” It was believed
that it was a moment for them to plan “evil projects” and dangerous
acquaintances or bad friendships could emerge from those moments. It was also
foreseen that rude words could be said during breaks. For this reason, time was
limited and very much supervised. The idea was that the inmates not only were
monitored, but also that they felt they were. They could not be in groups, they
could not speak in a low voice, talk through their teeth, laugh or look at
others in a particular way, they could not isolate
themselves in pairs, as they were considered “ordinary signs of evil.”
Apart from the total control of their leisure activities and the
definition of correct and incorrect free time, the break had other functions,
such as that of identifying possible “sinners” to give them special treatment,
tell them off, punish them, cheer them up or make them feel better. It was also
used to reaffirm to the inmates that they were not the owners of their time, that they had no control over the activities they did
in their daily lives and, therefore, those routines were alien to them, they
were deprived of the things they liked and the nun’s preferences were imposed
on them.
Religiuos instruction. The aim of confinement
as a modality of bodily punishment after committing a crime or a contravention
has been common in criminology throughout history. It has similar effects to
bodily punishment as a way of penitence for the delinquent; as a security
measure to protect society from dangerous individuals; as a mechanism to
rehabilitate or re-socialize the individual that could never adapt to the norms
of society; or so the disobedient learnt a trade (instruction) and a way of
accepting social control (education). The latter was the aim of female
penitentiary confinement in the Prison of the Good Shepherd during the period
of conservative hegemony. Education and instruction were considered to be the
means par excellence to “(…) work on
the salvation of the souls, in the conversion of the sinners and social
transformation of the delinquents (…)[26].” The teaching program for the re-education of the inmates was an
acculturation program designed only in religious terms, orienting them to
internalize the maxims of Christian morality, the
horror of sin and the need to understand life as a constant sacrifice (see
Table 2). At the same time, it sought that thanks to the opportunity of having
a trade they would avoid relapsing into crime and, therefore, they would save
their souls.
Table N° 2. Learning
and re-education program of the Good Shepherd
|
WHAT
TO TEACH THEM |
HOW
TO TEACH THEM |
|
The truths of faith, engraving them in their hearts. |
With exercises to memorize the teachings (mnemonics) |
|
Catechism |
Avoiding scientific expressions, because
intelligible words are useless and disagreeable. |
|
The maxims of the Gospel. |
Illustrating each word with everyday examples for
the inmates. |
|
The Sacred history and the history of the Church
with expositive readings. |
Avoiding disturbing their sensitivity and only
resorting to prudent teachings and discrete discourses. |
|
No legends or pious beliefs, no material
unauthorized by the Church. |
Avoiding the objection of the impious. |
|
The horror of sins in general, showing that the
infidelity of a soul causes God’s rage. |
Avoiding presenting all sins as mortal, if they are
banal; doing it disturbs the conscience and incites sin. |
|
Examples and admirable facts from the Old and New
Testament. |
Randomly interrogating the learning of the catechism
in the intelligent ones and those who pay attention as well as in the case of
those who have difficulties in understanding or paying attention. |
|
The lives of the most popular national saints, more
accessible to their condition. |
Avoiding interrogating the girls who are less
intelligent and “less capable” of giving good answers (girls who are poor of
spirit), as “we would waste time in a painful and humiliating way for them,
and for the rest.” |
|
Avoid curious events of the press (even religious),
whose divine or diabolic nature have not been proved. |
Procure the quietness of the girls, with the
perception that every class is a teaching, not an order. |
|
Prayers
and extraordinary exercises. |
Through thoroughly selected images. |
|
Our Father, Hail Mary, the Apostle’s Creed, I
confess to You, the 10 Commandments; the acts of faith, hope, and charity;
adoration and contrition. |
With rigorous and pious prayer. It is not important
to know many prayers, but to pray regularly some of them. |
|
Methods to be concentrated during prayers,
especially during the Rosary (i.e. the petition of grace). |
Always procuring an answer out loud, even during
daily chores. |
|
The invocation and honoring
of their patrons and saints. |
Demanding vigorous singing during church chores. |
|
The practice of a monthly retreat, agreed upon
beforehand, so nobody misses it. |
Stimulating pious or mortification work (prayer of
the body) by their own will. |
|
The motivations of all actions: the salvation of the
soul, the merit of heaven, the expiation of sins, the prayers to God, Mary
and all the saints. |
Watch that they, hopefully, receive all the
sacraments and that they are conscious of them, especially those of penitence
and eucharist. |
Source: Madre María de Santa Marina (Comp.), Reglas Prácticas para el uso
…Chapter 4.
Institutional ceremonies. They are presented as the events where those who inhabit the prison,
nuns and inmates, regardless of their rank and disposition, converged in one space
and ritual. Behind these ceremonies, two contradictory aims are found: first,
that of keeping together a community that due to its very same structure is
divided into antagonistic groups[27]; second, that of exhibiting the differences among the two groups[28], thus, while they shared different activities it was sought that the
inmates felt admiration for that lifestyle that was “less impure.”
In the Good Shepherd, the following
institutional ceremonies were celebrated:
-
New Year’s Eve, Christmas or holy days, when
special food was provided. On these days, the differences and rigors of
discipline were less, but not the control.
-
Teacher’s day and the day of Saint Euphrasia (24th April). To celebrate these two dates, a
fair was organized where the items made by the inmates were sold,
some were assigned the role of sellers and others of cashiers, who kept a
record of what had been sold and of the buyers. All the money collected was
given to the head teacher who, according to the sales, promised a percentage
for the sellers and the cashiers. This percentage would be given to them by
means of savings when their period of reclusion was finished.
-
Day for illustrious visits: For these
events, the life conditions in the prison were masqueraded. The prison was cleaner
than ever, the treatment was less severe, the inmates looked more submissive,
and an image of having a better security system was given. The reaction to the
visit of illustrious characters was to kneel in front of them.
Punishments and rewards. They were
defined with the intention of achieving the obedience and submission of the
inmates; some of the stimuli were related to having certain rights when they
were free.
It is
important to highlight that behaviors were susceptible to being criminalized,
depending on the moment and specific place where they happened. Therefore, the
rules were there to make it clear when they could be punished. For example,
laughing could represent different connotations, in the patio or in the middle
of prayers. The same happened with silence, depending on it happening during
work or confession. For each of the cases in which the activity was understood
as negative, the fear of being punished prevented any type of action in those
spaces. This is the way in which children and animals are taught how to behave,
according to the place and the specific moment they are in. So, the system of
punishments and rewards was designed for the individuals that were outside of the
civil order, that is, women, children, animals and delinquents.
For the nuns of the
Good Shepherd, punishments were considered to be “a healing medicine, but useless
if used too frequently[29].” Therefore,
punishments as well as rewards should have a certain prestige, so threatening
or using them indiscriminately was not allowed. The punishment did not
necessarily have to be proportional to the fault, the
ones that deserved severe repression were established, independently of the
eyes which judged them. These severe faults were:
-
Faults against
authority (serious criticism or offences to teachers, public resistance);
-
Faults against charity
(violent disputes, humiliating disrespect, false information);
-
Inciting revolts or
serious faults;
-
Faults that show lack
of mercy (profanities, verbal blasphemy)
These faults received more severe and productive punishments with
respect to the modification of the behavior, but they were not those which
deprived them of their pleasures, but rather those that caused extreme
humiliation, as long as they were not beaten up, nor were they were imposed
with “(…) shameful punishments, such as keeping the arms in the shape of a
cross or depriving them of food[30] (…).” They could not be locked up alone, if
they were isolated they needed the supervision of a nun or a trustworthy
novice. Punishments were not prolonged or habitual “(…) to avoid that they got
used to they and were no longer effective[31](…)”.
Rewards were the assignment of good points, the possibility of making
money for the work performed, good grades, some advantages as regards
treatment, vows of trust like walking the ill inmates to the health service or
receiving ribbons from the congregation. The assignment of rewards varied
according to the circumstances of the place and the time, according to the
inmate, her nature, education, memories of childhood, their degree of
religiousness, etc.
5. Adaptation
Not only discipline and routines were part of the
re-educational process in the Good Shepherd, the subjection to certain life conditions
and the positive or negative response to them and the process in general, were
also involved.
Food was
managed according to the terms of the contract that the Ministry of Government
celebrated with the nuns, according to these terms.
1.
Breakfast: a cup of hot water with sugar
cane and half a bun of bread.
2.
Lunch: a large bowl of soup (rice, maize or
wheat), four ounces of meat without bone, and three medium-sized potatoes; a
glass of chicha.
3.
Dinner: a large bowl of soup (rice, maize
or wheat, or mute with tallos, cabbage,
broad beans, peas or beans), a plate of cooked food with four ounces of meat
without bone, calculated when raw. Three medium-sized potatoes, half a bun and
a glass of chicha[32].
In the year 1918, the state paid $0.25 (COP) for each
one of the three rations of the inmates and $0.08 (COP) for those of their
children. From the food accounts and the correspondence sent by the nuns to the
General Directorate of Prisons, it is understood that: the financing of the
state was insufficient, the building of the prison was not finished, chunks of
walls and ceiling fell constantly and there was no furniture until 1920, when
it became a correctional center for minors.
There are no reports on the perception that the
inmates had about the food, partly because all the correspondence that left the
prison had to be checked by the nuns, and also because most of the letters were
written by the nuns, as most of the inmates were illiterate. However, those
detained in the Panopticon, during the period in which the community
administered that prison, reported the “insufficient and disgusting food that
consisted of a cup of water with sugar cane, or a glass of chicha (corn-based beverage), two potatoes, a small piece of bad quality
meat, the cheapest one, and a piece of bread[33].”
Nutritional conditions were undesirable, and the
sanitary conditions contributed to making daily life even harder. On the one
hand, the prison did not have a constant water supply nor
one of its own. Water was supplied by the Campito de
San José, founded by the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the
Presentation of the Holy Trinity in 1883 and they regularly restricted the
service to their neighbors. In addition, in the years between 1883 and 1904 and
in 1919, the institution faced periods of typhoid fever, which ended the lives
of several nuns, penitents and inmates. There were two evacuations of the nuns
to a house that the congregation owned in Chapinero
and tens of inmates had to be taken to the San Juan de Dios hospital. The propagation
of infectious diseases was a consequence of poor hygienic conditions and
overcrowding, a situation that was narrated by the nuns as follows:
The premises the prisoners inhabited was so narrow that these creatures
had to eat and sleep in the same room, and without another bed than the hard
floor […] many times, our Sisters were present when these poor women fought
over a brick that served them as a pillow, feeling really lucky she who finally
kept it for herself[34].
What on the
one hand was a problem for handling illnesses and the control of the contagion
of “bad behavior,” on the other hand made surveillance and total control
easier. Overexposure implied sharing the spaces of intimacy such as showering
time, the use of the toilets or simply changing their clothes.
Overexposure
is presented as a common strategy of degradation in the penitentiary system
even today. For this reason, decent conditions of inhabitability in prison are
seen as utopic, in terms of economic resources but, above all, of political
will. The complete violation of intimacy is a characteristic of the prison, as
it demands an overexposure of the inmate in daily activities and of their own
life story.
Despite the
fact that the nuns prohibited them to expose their life stories and their criminal
and sinful record, fearing an immoral contagion, the inmates had to tell the
nuns all about it when they entered the institution and throughout their stay
they had to talk to them about their feelings about themselves.
As well as overexposure, control was complete and constant, during
prayers, working hours, the break and in the bedrooms. Visits, which very
rarely took place, were restricted by a schedule at the gate of the institution
and the nuns had to be present at all times and pay attention to all conversations.
Correspondence was reviewed thoroughly and, at times, confiscated. They could
not have access to newspapers or any kind of printed material.
What was read to them
was carefully reviewed, there were mostly readings related to events, celebrations,
different times of the ecclesiastical year and others “accommodated to the
needs of the souls (…)[35]”, that is, the lives of the saints or some “recreational topic, but it
had to be looked over so that there was nothing that could affect the good
customs, such as fights, suicides or affections, love stories were not allowed
either (…)[36].”
6. Conclusions
The prison is
presented as a rational organization, designed in all its aspects to be
effective in the fulfilment of the objectives of the religious community and as
a confinement institution for the correction of delinquents.
These pedagogical guidelines give an account of a previous
interpretation of the behaviour of the inmates in moralistic terms, as well as
a pre-conception of their personality and character. This moral interpretation
would be a type of interpretation theory of female delinquency, which
determined the activities in the prison; it supplied the arguments to reaffirm
the inferiority of the inmates and, therefore, the social distance between the
inmates and the nuns, as well as the justification of the discipline,
monitoring and treatment given to the inmates.
The theory about delinquency in Colombian women built by the religious
imaginary of the nuns has its political bases in the government of Tomas Cipriano de
Mosquera. The nuns affirmed that with the confiscation of goods and the consequent handing over of goods by the church to
landowners began a process of property concentration IN the country and this
brought about social inequality. This, added to the continuous wars that
displaced farmers and women who worked in the processing of tobacco leaves to
the cities and the neglecting of public education, led to a process of the
decomposition family and, as a consequence, the proliferation of delinquency in
general. Likewise, the problem of delinquent women, for the nuns, was closely
related to radical liberalism, as they considered it to be a period of disorder
where the greatest evils of the country, between the end of the 19th
century and the first decades of the 20th century, were conceived. Phenomena such as the migration from the countryside to the city,
unemployment, family disintegration, the emergence of single mothers and
prostitution, were the breeding ground of transgressor women[37].
The explanation about the origin of delinquency also covers the possible
positive and negative behaviors of the inmates. There
is a preconception about the ways in which indiscipline is presented, how to
face it and the way of applying rewards and punishments, as an explanatory
strategy of the value of doing things right, aspects that will be dealt with in
the second phase of the work, the sphere of the inmates.
Documental
sources
Archivo General de la Nación (AGN). Bogotá-Colombia. Sección 4ª Justicia, Ministerio de Gobierno.
Asuntos judiciales y procesos.
Archivo General de la Nación (AGN). Bogotá-Colombia. Sección
2ª Prisiones. Fondo República, Ministerio de Gobierno.
Congregación religiosa Buen Pastor. Anales
de la congregación de Nuestra señora de Caridad del Buen Pastor de Angers de
Bogotá 1890 a 1817. Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional Bogotá, 1918.
Bibliography
Bernardini,
Amalia y Soto, José Alberto. La educación
actual en sus fuentes filosóficas. San José de Costa Rica: EUNED, 1984.
Goffman, Irving. Internados ensayos sobre la situación social
de los enfermos mentales. María Antonia Oyuela de Grant (Trad.). Buenos Aires: Amorrortu, 1970.
Ladino, María de
Jesús.1890 -1990 Cien años historia de
las hermanas del Buen Pastor en Colombia. Bogotá: 1990.
Reglas Prácticas para el uso de las
Religiosas del Buen Pastor en la Dirección de las Clases. Madre María de Santa Marina (Comp.) Bogotá: Editorial San Juan Eudes, 1960.
Ortiz Carvajal,
Andrés. El panóptico de Bogotá
durante el período de la guerra de los mil días (1899-1903). Universidad
Nacional de Colombia. Facultad de Ciencias Humanas. Departamento de Historia,
2001.
To cite this
article:
July Andrea
García Amézquita, “Paying for Crimes and Attaining Heaven.
The Daily Life
of Imprisoned Women at “El Buen Pastor” Penitentiary
1890-1929.”, Historia y Memoria N°10
(January-June, 2015): 19-42.
* This article is the
product of the research project titled: Monjas, Presas y Sirvientas. La cárcel del buen Pastor, una aproximación a
la historia de la política criminal y del encierro penitenciario femenino en
Colombia. 1890-1929. (Nuns, convicts and
servants. The prison of the Good Shephard,
an approach to the history of criminal policy and confinement in the female
prison in Colombia. 1890-1929).
[1] Historian. Candidate for
a Master’s degree in Political Studies, Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Research group: Actores armados, conflicto y derecho
internacional humanitario-IEPRI. (Armed agents, conflict and humanitarian international law-IEPRI, by its
acronym in Spanish). Lines of research:
political culture, internal conflict, social agents, criminality, humanitarian
international law, urban violence. Email address: jagarciaam@unal.edu.co
[2] Law 138 of 1888 authorized the nuns of the Good Shepherd’s Congregation
of Angers to found “institutions of correction, moralization of prisons and
others.” It also authorized the National Government to order that in the
institutions of punishment and correction, moral teachings were imparted. Diario oficial, N° 7612). Two years later, the “Institute of the Sisters
of the Good Shepherd” was given legal status. Diario
Oficial N° 8014. (In the Official bulletin).
[3] Religious congregation
of the Good Shepherd, Anales de la congregación de Nuestra señora de Caridad del Buen Pastor de
Angers de Bogotá 1890 a 1817 (Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional Bogotá, 1918), 10.
[4] The congregation was founded in Angers-France by Saint Mary Euphrasia Pelletier (Rosa
Virginia, 1796-1868) and approved with the blessing of Pope Gregory XVI, on 16 January, 1835. This approval implied the conformation of a Generalato, with which the
congregation expanded, having by the year 1868, 110 houses around the world.
[5] After the female prison of the Good Shepherd of Bogota, came the one in Medellín
(1889), Barranquilla (1928), Cali (1933), Popayán (1942), Pereira (1958),
Cúcuta (1962), Manizales (1979) and Bucaramanga
(1987). It is important to note that out of the 13 centers of female reclusion that exist in the country,
eight were founded under the administration of the congregation.
[6] During that same year, the first nunnery was created and a new
penitentiary center opened in Medellìn.
[7] Unlike a crime, a transgression or a contravention does not attempt
against natural law or ethics, but trespasses “only the laws that demand or
forbid, attending to the prosperity and wellbeing of society.” At the same
time, they have material and chargeable consequences which are different from a
criminal imputation. The sentences for common contraventions are: arrest, a
fine, confiscation, confinement and other minor sanctions. Ricardo Núñez,
Manual de Derecho Penal (Córdoba:
Marcos Lerner Editora Córdoba, 1999), 38. The Police Code of 1926 contemplated arrests for no longer
than 18 months (minor theft and fraud) and fines not superior to $200 (Administrators of gambling or prostitution houses with the presence of
under-aged women).
[8] A century after the foundation of the Asylum, these premises passed on
to the hands of the Universidad de los Andes, where nowadays the
Faculty of Architecture is, between Cr 15 and calle
15.
[9] Young women who worked as prostitutes, considered to be sinners or
“lost sheep,” who needed spiritual guidance to be able
to understand their mistake and go back to the good path. The Sisters had
preference for these women, as they had the chance to shape them as they spent
a lot of time in confinement and because the nuns saw in them a potential to
expand their congregation and their work. The congregation was in charge of
their support and, in many cases, of their families. In theory, the convent
offered them a way of life and of work, different from prostitution.
[10] Also known as Magdalenes, they were penitents
and convicts who, after spending a long period of time in confinement and
having learned the dogmas of religion, decided to take vows to become nuns of a
lesser category than those religious women from the congregation, which implied
doing less decent chores, dressing in different robes and being at the service
of the Sisters. The Magdalenes were the
materialization of the work of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd because they
were proof of the conversion and salvation of the souls on Earth.
[11] “Registro de
Altas y Bajas de la penitenciaría Central”, Archivo General de la Nación (AGN, by its acronym in Spanish), Bogotá, F.
República, Ministerio de Gobierno, Section 2 Prisons.
[Record]
[12] “Registro de
Raciones diarias Cárcel del Buen Pastor 1918-1919”. AGN, F. República, Ministerio de Gobierno, Section 2
Prisons.[Record]
[13] Law 98 of 1920 considered
minor offenders those under 17 years of age. Law
15 of 1923 reforms the above mentioned law, adjusting the age to be considered
under-aged to 18 years.
[14] “Registro de
Raciones diarias Presas Menores Cárcel del Buen Pastor 1932-1933”, AGN, F. República Ministerio de Gobierno, Section 2
Prisons. [Record]
[15] “Base de datos personal” (Database), AGN,
Sección 4ª Justicia, Ministerio de Gobierno, asuntos
judiciales y procesos.
[16] Irving Goffman, Internados
ensayos sobre la situación social de los enfermos mentales, María Antonia Oyuela de Grant (Translator.)
(Buenos Aires: Amorrortu, 1970), 26-27.
[17] María de
Jesús Ladino, 1890-1990 Cien años
historia de las hermanas del Buen Pastor en Colombia. (Bogotá: 1990), 72.
[18] Loss or inability to acquire the habits that are
generally required to be part of society.
[19] Irving Goffman, Internados…,81.
[20] María de
Jesús Ladino, 1890 -1990 Cien años de historia…,61-62.
[21] Madre María
de Santa Marina, Reglas
Prácticas para el uso de las Religiosas del Buen Pastor en la Dirección de las
Clases (Bogotá: Editorial San Juan Eudes, 1960), 19.
[22] Madre María
de Santa Marina, Reglas Prácticas…
[23] Madre María
de Santa Marina, Reglas
Prácticas…
[24] Madre María
de Santa Marina, Reglas
Prácticas…
[25] Madre María
de Santa Marina. Reglas
Prácticas… 36.
[26] Madre María
de Santa Marina, Reglas
Prácticas para el uso de las
Religiosas del Buen Pastor en la Dirección de las Clases (Bogotá:
Editorial San Juan Eudes, 1960), 29-31.
[27] Irving Goffman, Internados…,100.
[28] Goffman affirms that one of the main accomplishments of total
institutions was showing a difference between two categories formed of people, a
difference in social quality and moral character in the perceptions of the “I”
and the other. Irving Goffman, Internados…,117.
[29] Madre María
de Santa Marina. Reglas
Prácticas…
70-76.
[30] Madre María
de Santa Marina. Reglas
Prácticas…
[31] Madre María
de Santa Marina (Comp.), Reglas
Prácticas para el uso…,70-76.
[32] “Prisiones suministros. 1900-1935. Octubre 19 de 1900”, AGN, Sección 2ª, In:
Andrés
Ortiz Carvajal, El panóptico de
Bogotá durante el período de la guerra de los mil días (1899-1903) (Universidad
Nacional de Colombia: Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Historia,
2001).
[33] Adolfo León Gómez, “Secretos del Panóptico”. (Imprenta de Medardo Rivas Bogotá:
1905). 179-180. In: Andrés Ortiz
Carvajal, El panóptico de Bogotá
durante el período…
[34] Religious congregation of the Good
Shepherd, Anales…,42.
[35] Madre María
de Santa Marina. Reglas
Prácticas…
[36] Madre María
de Santa Marina. Reglas
Prácticas…
[37] María
de Jesús Ladino, 1890 -1990 Cien años…,34.