Prisiones e Internados: Una Comparación de los Establecimientos Penales en América del Norte y América Latina (Prisons and Internment: A Comparison ofPenal Facilities in North America and LatinAmerica)

The recent use of expressions such as“warehouse prison” in the U.S. and “concentrationcamp” in Latin America would seem to indicatethat conditions of deprivation of freedom in bothregions look more and more alike. The analysispresented here suggests that it is not so. Penalinstitutions in North and South Americathroughout six interrelated dimensions arecompared: internal organization of the places,surveillance, isolation, supervision, administrativecontrol and formalization of procedures. In NorthAmerica, control is deep (persistent, intrusive andalmost permanent); in Latin America, control isshallow (sporadic, indifferent and superficial). Ifin North America one speaks of prisons andincarceration, in Latin America it seems better tospeak of judicial inmates and internment