Fernando Picó is one of the leading social historians of Puerto Rico. He has long been concerned with the history of oppressed peoples, and his previous work on slaves, artisans, and workers paved the way for a fruitful renewal in the historiography of the island. A few years ago, he took a step forward in his personal commitment to marginal groups when he began working as a priest and teacher at one of Puerto Rico’s toughest prisons, the “Anexo 292” of Bayamón. This prompted his interest in the history of prisons and prisoners, which produced this short, readable, and passionately written book on the experience of Puerto Rican prisoners over the last two hundred years.
In 13 short chapters, Picó covers a variety of topics: the social profile of prisoners, their forms of resistance, prisoner subcultures, the connections between the prison and the outside world, and the shifting doctrinal justifications for the use of prisons. His main purpose is to demonstrate that prisons do not rehabilitate or deter criminals and fail to dispense humane punishment. They are therefore not a solution to a problem (namely, crime and criminal behavior) but an urgent problem in themselves. The prison, in short, must be treated seriously as a social disease: “to eliminate prisons should be a public priority” (p. 192).
Each chapter could very well form the basis for an entire volume, with topics that, to the reader’s regret, are not fully developed: the idea of the prison as a “way of life” and not a temporary condition; the amazing notion that many Puetro Ricans view the prison as a sort of inevitable fate (“cuando yo caiga preso”); or Puerto Rican society’s alleged sympathy for fugitive prisoners, a fascinating but controversial topic that is presented in just one paragraph. Generally, the author has sacrificed depth and complexity in his attempt to cover all facets of the prison experience. The book succeeds, on the other hand, in depicting the punitive (as opposed to rehabilitative) character of modern prisons. It also successfully relates the evolution of penal regimes to broader social and political struggles, and it presents the prison community as a heterogeneous, complex, and—just in case someone has forgotten—human population.
Puerto Rico has one of the world’s highest imprisonment rates, and crime there has become a serious social and political issue. Few of the country’s inhabitants are untouched by this problem, either as perpetrators, victims, or witnesses. Picó’s book, written with the explicit goal of denouncing the miseries and injustices of Puerto Rico’s criminal justice system, will undoubtedly ignite both scholarly and political debates on these issues. For this reason, it is a very welcome addition to the growing scholarship on crime and punishment in Latin America.
