Poverty and criminalization of children in Cuba (1857-1936): reformatories for juvenile offenders and biopolitical strategies

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, Cuba became an important economic power, although it continued to depend on Spain. At the same time as a series of social transformations were taking place, crime was increasing. Thus, as part of a biopolitical strategy, intervention mechanisms were introduced for this population of indigent, homeless, poor orphans and mentally ill, placed in the social imagination and political and intellectual discourse as responsible for a situation unhealthy and dangerous. A target sector of this strategy was poor children, for whom, through a charitable discourse, a number of reformatory institutions were created. In this article we analyze, from a foucaultian perspective, the functioning of two of these spaces: The San Jose Asylum, which had functioned until the end of the colonial period and the Correctional School for Boys, created to replace the previous one, but with a similar performance.