The prisons of the “New Argentina”: Penitentiary system and Catholicism during the peronist period

Abstract

This study analyzes the relevance of the catholic religion in the penitenciary reform during the so-called “classic” peronist period, that is to say the first two peronist presidencies between 1946 and 1955. By exploring the rhetoric and rationalization articulated by Roberto Pettinato, the main responsible for the penitentiary system during the peronist administration, we seek to illuminate to what extent Catholicism provided the views to legitimize government policies and influenced the state institutions. To do so, in addition to examining the undertakings of the state bureaucracy, we reconstruct the daily life of the penitentiary institutions to shed light on how the public symbolism and official celebrations from the Dirección General de Institutos Penales were penetrated by catholic rites, therefore demonstrating how Catholicism became influential in the prisons of the “New Argentina”