Saberes, reformas y políticas penintenciarias. Argentina y chile en la primer...

Saberes, reformas y políticas penintenciarias. Argentina y chile en la primer...

Instituto de Ciencias

Saberes, reformas y políticas penintenciarias. Argentina y chile en la primera mitad del siglo XX

This dissertation examines the penitentiary reform movement in Argentina and Chile during the first half of the 20th century. Taking into account perspectives of social history and connected, the dissertation explores those who committed themselves to the transformation of the prison system and how they tried to modify it. It documents that, since the beginning of the 20th century, politicians and bureaucrats, belonging to different political and hierarchical positions, demanded the organization of a national and homogeneous prison system. This study argues that their demands created consensus in favor of the approval of legislation, in the thirties, which provided for the creation of two influential and lasting state agencies: the General Directorate of Prisons in Chile and the General Directorate of Criminal Institutes in Argentina. These institutions allowed recognized professionals in the field of medicine, law and criminology to join the state bureaucracy and undertake a profound reorganization of the administrative structure and daily practices of the penitentiary system. In turn, these agencies promoted through different media - academic journals, scientific congresses - the local development of the science of criminology in line with the trends discussed in the most prestigious international academic centers. Finally, based on the consultation of a variety of official sources, academic journals, legal reports, legislative debates and regulations, this dissertation reconstructs and compares the penitentiary reform movements in these two countries of the Southern Cone in order to understand the shared features at the regional level and the particularities due to national peculiarities

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