The prison crisis in Córdoba (Argentina): between state management and family demands

Abstract

This article analyzes the prison crisis that occurred in Córdoba, Argentina, in 2019, triggered by deaths attributed to alleged suicides and a lack of medical assistance at Women’s Penitentiary No. 3. The research is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted since 2017 with families of individuals detained and deceased in contexts of incarceration, as well as an analysis of secondary sources (press materials, judicial documents, institutional records, etc.). The goal is to understand how the state configured its prison management in the face of a crisis and the demands of family members and social organizations. Within this framework, I focus on analyzing a specific ethnographic scene: a meeting between officials, activists, academic actors, and family members of women deprived of their liberty. This situation allows for the unraveling of the system of relationships that unfolds in prison management and in the disputes surrounding lives and deaths in Córdoba’s prisons. This scenario demonstrates the fragmented and bureaucratic responses aimed at legitimizing government action through measures such as the intervention in the women’s prison, inter-institutional roundtables, and dialogue forums with limited scope. This allows me to argue that the prison does not operate as a monolithic institution but as a network of state agencies that, at the same time, reinforces the image of an isolated institution. Furthermore, the analysis highlights the centrality of gender in the production of state discourses and practices that reproduce inequality and suffering in the carceral experience.