The Criminals of Lima and their Worlds: The Prison Experience, 1850–1935 by Carlos Aguirre (review)

Book Reviews 163 BOOK REVIEWS The Criminals of Lima and their Worlds: The Prison Experience , 1850-1935. By CarlosAguirre. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005, p. 310, $22.95. CarlosAguirre,anAssociateProfessorof Historyat the University of Oregon,has written an impressivestudyof the Peruvian prison experience. Drawing on a series of previously untapped archival records of the Direction General de Prisiones (DGP) in the Ministry of Justice, Aguirre crafts a complete look at both the prisons and inmatesof Lima’s institutionsof confinement for male prisoners, most notably the Lima penitentiary, the Chrcel de Guadalupe,and the penal colony of El Fronton. Like so many recent works on EuropeanandAmericanprison systems,he offers a sad tale of incomplete,halting prison reform marred by the multifaceted political, social, and economic realities of Peru in the late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies. Aguirre organizes his work into three separate but interrelated parts. Part I, “Apprehending the Criminal,” examines the new scientific theories of crime that developed in the late nineteenth century. He shows that the ideas of the Italian criminal anthropologistCesare Lombroso and his followersinitiallyinfluenced Peruvian criminologists. The Peruvians quickly became disenchanted,however,with Lombroso’snarrow biologicaltheories and turned instead to the more comprehensive social interpretation of criminal behavior that became commonplaceamong positivistcriminologistsin the early twentiethcentury. Indeed,the Boletinde Criminologia,the voice of the DGP, reflected the profound influence of positivistcriminology. Aguirre also offers a fascinatingchapter in this first section on the encountersbetween the police and the criminal classes. He is especially interested in the “policing, monitoring, and arresting ” (p. 65) in Lima, a subject he considers important because it showshow the interaction between the state and the lowerclasses helped define the criminal classes. As he demonstrates, police brutality and arrest of the lower classes were both commonplace. Far more men were arrestedthan sent to prison. Indeed,he notes that only 4-8% of detaineeswere ever sent to prison. Part 2, “Prisonsand Prison Communities,”detailsthe development -and failure-uf the penal institutions in Lima. Chief 164 The Latin Americanist Spring 2006 among these was the Lima penitentiary, also referred to as “El Panoptico.”The brainchild of prison reformer Marino Felipe Paz Soldan, it was designed to accommodate the Auburn system of prison discipline. Opened in 1862, the 40,000 square yard stone complexwasan imposingstructureonthe outskirtsofthe city.The 315 prisoners housed there were subjected to a strict “modern” prison discipline outlined in a formal rule, the Regolumento-at leaston paper. Lackofmoneyand administrativeturnover,among other things, severely undermined the successfulimplementation oftheRegolumento,even after its revision in 1901.Laterreforms, such as the introduction of the DGP and a new penal code, were importantbut did little to improvethe successof the penitentiary. Other key penal institutions were the Chrcel of Guadalupe and the penal colony on the island of El Fronton. Guadalupe housed many more inmates than the penitentiary (over 700) and was notorious for its poor sanitary and disciplinary regime. Indeed, government officials repeatedly called for the reform of Guadalupebut, asAguirre notes, “not a single meaningful action was ever taken” (p. 103). Even though it was closed in 1928, its replacement,the Chrcel Centralde Varones,was characterizedby similar hygienic and disciplinary problems. Not surprisingly, El Frontonwas likewise infamous for its brutal disciplinaryregime. Aguirre clearly paints a pessimistic picture of these penal institutions.He notes, for example,that “almosteighty years after Paz Soldin launched his program for prison reform, penal institutions continued to be places where inmates suffered the combined effects of despotism,neglect, corruption,and indifference” (p. 107-108).His ensuing broad discussion of the communities in these prisons helps underline this assessmentas he shows that thesecommunitieswereshapedmoreby the inmates’backgrounds and other external factorsthan by the formal prison rules. In Part 3, “The World They Made Together,”Aguirre offers a fascinating and view of Lima’s prison subcultures. Drawing largely on archivalmaterial, he examineswhat he terms the “customary order,” or the order founded not in a set of written rules but in the interactions among the prison inmates, officials, and guards. He shows that this customary order worked in varying ways in the prison of Lima.The penitentiaryof Lima had the most regimented disciplinary regime while Guadalupe had the least oppressive disciplinary regime. Buying and selling alcohol as well as borrowing...