En conjunto, una inspección cuidadosa de las “ceremo- nias” de menosprecio (Garfinkel, 1968) establecidas por las autoridades en la zona liminar del Tubo y entorno a ella revela al aparato de la cárcel como una maqui- naria para la reducción de la individualidad con la in- tención de defender supuestamente la seguridad insti- tucional. La aplicación del concepto de Sykes (1958:63- 83) de “los dolores de la reclusión”, específicamente la “pérdida de la autonomía” y la “pérdida de los bienes y servicios” para analizar minuciosamente los procedi- mientos de visita a la cárcel sugiere que los parientes y amigos de los reclusos son sometidos a una prisioniza- ción secundaria, una versión debilitada pero aún forzo- sa de las regulaciones elaboradas, la vigilancia concen- trada y el confinamiento corporal que gobierna las vi- das de los criminales atrapados. Tal como se describió arriba, innumerables aspectos del procesamiento a las visitantes –desde la exhibición de la información per- tinente hasta el inicio de las horas de visita, incluyen- do la implementación del código de vestimenta– son eternamente irregulares y están sujetos a cambios sin previo aviso. Si bien una falla o retardo leve en la lí- nea de comunicación desde las autoridades institucio-
Unos minutos después volvió a aparecer con un billete de diez dólares; esta vez había dejado a sus niños, no deseaba volver a abrir el armario para lo que requería otros cincuenta centavos, por lo que cuidadosamente deslizó el billete por la hendija de la puerta del armario y regresó, meneando la cabeza en forma meditativa y esquivando un charco de Coca Cola.
26Después de una espera de más de una hora, la pareja finalmente ingresó a la prisión y salió abruptamente unos momentos después. El señor estaba evidentemente agitado y no me sentí cómoda interrumpiendo para preguntarles qué había sucedido. Los vi salir del estacionamiento varios minutos después.
nales hacia las visitantes sería una característica natu- ral de una gran burocracia (Lipsky, 1980), en el caso en cuestión uno sospecha que la desorientación “es impul- sada en forma deliberada por los oficiales de la cárcel por cuanto con frecuencia no se brindan explicaciones como parte de una política calculada. El brindar expli- caciones implica que aquellos que están siendo regidos tienen derecho a saber, y esto, a su vez, sugiere que si las explicaciones no son satisfactorias, la regla u orden será modificada” (Sykes, 1958:74-5). Este bloqueo de la capa- cidad de las visitas para comprender y así responder a las condiciones que las afectan o bien solucionarlas, jun- to con la interrupción del control de las personas sobre cómo éstas utilizan su tiempo y organizan su aparien- cia, son características de la “privación de autonomía” (Sykes, 1958:73-76), que genera sentimientos de impo- tencia y temor entre las mujeres a la vez que las ubica en una relación suplicante con la institución. Tal como Sa- rah –quien ha estado visitando a su esposo durante dos años– señala: “Tal vez ese sea el mayor desafío para mí, el hecho de que nada sigue igual allí [en San Quintín]. Siempre están cambiando las reglas (. . .) no hay cohe- rencia, no hay estabilidad, nada permanece igual y eso de vivir en lo desconocido es realmente difícil.”
La negligencia e indignidad que deben sufrir la per- sonas en el Tubo se conecta directamente con otro “do- lor”, la “pérdida de los bienes y servicios” (Sykes, 1958:67-70). Al no proporcionar suficientes comodida- des para cubrir las necesidades físicas y de higiene de las visitas y al no brindar orientación básica y valerse de “secretos” para generar sentimientos de aprensión e im- potencia (véase Spain, 1992:18-21), los oficiales marcan a quienes se ven forzados a esperar en el corredor co- mo seres desgraciados. Además, el negar a los mujeres el control sobre su propia presentación física refuerza esos sentimientos de impotencia y subordinación en sus interacciones con las instalaciones correccionales, inde- pendientemente de su capital económico o cultural en el “mundo exterior”. Sophia, una egresada universita-
ria blanca, de 37 años, observa:
. . .Soy capaz de hablar y tengo educación; me manejo con clase y todo eso. Sin embargo . . . comprendo que estoy en una penitenciaría es- tatal y entiendo que por ley es un privilegio, y no un derecho, el que visite a mi marido.27Y te- niendo eso en mente existen ciertas pautas que debo seguir. Tengo que vestirme de cierta mane- ra, tengo que comportarme de una determinada forma. Y estoy dispuesta a hacerlo.
Las mujeres que visitan presos perciben rápidamen- te su tratamiento en la prisión como un colapso de la diferenciación institucional entre los visitantes y los re- clusos. La queja expresada por Stephanie, alumna uni- versitaria y guardia de seguridad afroamericana, de 25 años, con respecto a que los oficiales correccionales “tra- tan de hacérsela (a las visitantes) lo más difícil posible. . . sabe, eso implica tratar a los miembros de la familia co- mo si ellos también estuvieran encarcelados” se escucha con frecuencia entre las mujeres en San Quintín, quie- nes se sienten estigmatizadas y humilladas por sus en- cuentros con el brazo penal del sistema de justicia cri- minal.28Mediante las experiencias de los “dolores de la reclusión” que ellas deben padecer en el entorno correc- cional, las mujeres alcanzan la peculiar condición de cuasi-reclusas, gente legalmente libre y al mismo tiempo evidentemente limitada. En tanto que la función mani- fiesta de la cárcel al manejar a las visitas es la de una “or- ganización que procesa personas” (Hasenfeld, 1972), las afrentas acumuladas que impone –el acostumbra- miento a largas e impredecibles esperas, la contención en un ambiente inhóspito e insondable, la interferen- cia con la propia presentación, la negación de pertenen- cias privadas– hacen que funcione más como una “orga- nización para cambiar personas” (Hasenfeld, 1972:257- 258, el énfasis es mío) que define y transforma profun- damente la identidad personal y pública de las mujeres.
Referencias
Abraham, L. K. (1993). Mama Might Be Better Off Dead: the Failure of Health Care in Urban America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bauman, Z. (1995). Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality. Cambridge, ma: Blackwell Publishers. Beck, A. (2000). Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear in 1999. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Beck, A J. y Karberg, J. C. (2001). Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2000. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics. Blake, J. (1990). Sentenced by Association: the Needs of Prisoners’ Families. London: Save the Children.
Bordo, S. (1993). Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press.
27Bajo la ley del estado de California “es un privilegio para los reclusos el tener visitas personales mientras estén confinados en instalaciones e instituciones del cdc” [California Department of Corrections (Departamento Correccional de California), 1999 #245:1].
28Este sentimiento se parece a lo expresado por mujeres que visitan presos en otras cárceles de los Estados Unidos (Fishman, 1988) así como en instituciones en Inglaterra (Blake 1990) y Francia (Maksymowicz , 2000).
Bourgois, P. (1995). In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brubaker, R. y Cooper, F. (2000). “Beyond Identity.” Theory and Society 29:1-47.
Caddle, D. y Crisp, D. (1996). “Imprisoned Women and Mothers.” Home Office Research Study 162. Conover, T. (2000). Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing. Nueva York: Random House.
Douglas, M. (1970). Body Symbols. Oxford: Blackstone.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (1995). Gender, Race, and Nation: The Comparative Anatomy of ’Hottentot’ Women in Europe, 1815-1817. En J. Terry y J. Urla (Eds.),Deviant Bodies (pp. 19-48). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Fishman, L. T. (1988). Stigmatization and Prisoners’ Wives’ Feelings of Shame. Deviant Behavior 9:169-192. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Nueva York: Vintage Books.
Garfinkel, H. (1968). Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies. En L. Hazelrigg (Ed.),Prison Within Society: A Reader in Penology (pp. 68-77). Garden City, Nueva York: Doubleday & Company.
Garland, D. (Ed.) (2001). Mass Imprisonment in the United States: Social Causes and Consequences. Londres: Sage. Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Nueva York: Anchor.
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Jacobs, P. (1966). Prelude to Riot. Nueva York: Random House.
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Maksymowicz, D. (2000). Femme de parloir. Paris: L’Esprit frappeur.
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Apéndice
A fin de brindar al lector la posibilidad de leer en su len- gua original las citas más ilustrativas de las formas de hablar de las personas entrevistadas en este trabajo se transcriben a continuación las más extensas del inglés original, por orden de aparición y aclarando quién(es) participan.
1. Nine times out of ten it’s the woman [maintaining contact with prisoners]. Why? Because your home- boys, or your friends, if you’re in that lifestyle, most the time they’re gonna be sittin’ right next to your ass in prison. . . .The males, they don’t really partici- pate like a lot of females in the lives of the incarce- rated. . . .They don’t deal with it, like first of all they don’t like to bring to reality that you’re in prison, they don’t wanna think about that. . . .Or some of ’em just don’t care. So the male’s kinda like wiped out of there, so that puts all the burden on the woman. When people get packages, I never heard nobody say ‘My father sent me a package.’ It’s always ‘My mother sent me a package.’ My wife. My girlfriend. My homegirl (Youngen).
2. (Y)ou’re stuck in the Tube with a million people and everybody’s upset cuz there’s only one slob in the processing, children are crying, and you know, you just want to get in there, you got to go back to work tomorrow –I mean, there’s so much pressure, and it’s easy to get frustrated and upset with other peo- ple [that you get to the point where] it’s like, “Why can’t that bitch control her child?” (Sarah).
3. (T)here’re three window seats in the whole visiting room. And both of us [she and her husband] are slightly claustrophobic. So, if I get up there – it’s worth it to me to get up there at nine o’clock, eight- thirty, just to know that, I’m first on-line and I will get the window seat. . . I’ve always felt like, if you’re gonna do something, do it. I don’t wanna stand on-line, be twenty-fifth on-line, fifteenth on-line, standing there waiting for everybody to get – you know? I’m gon- na wait [at] one end or I’m gonna wait [at] this end! (Miki).
4. (Author). By 4:15 there were six women in the Tu- be, and as always at that hour, the entire focus was on when Count would clear. People were starting to mill around the entrance and line up, and Lupé, the leader of the queue, placed her hand vigilantly on the processing-area doorknob, keeping it there even while she spoke with us. As with contact vi- siting in the morning, they don’t make an announ- cement when post-Count processing begins, so the first woman in line always hovers anxiously around the door, eager to push her way inside as soon as she hears the shriek of the buzzer.
“What’s the longest it’s taken for Count to clear?” one new visitor asked. The regulars all groaned.
“You don’t wanna know,” Grace replied heavily, “You really don’t wanna know.”
There’s no reliable way to discern how far along Count is, although sometimes it’s possible to dimly hear the clanging bell that’s rung when all is clear. Around 4:55 today, our collective audio hallucina- tions began. “I think that’s the bell!” Linda pro- nounced, unzipping her heavy coat in anticipation of going through the metal detector.
“Yeah, I hear it too!” Lupé cried excitedly. Silence fell in the Tube as we all listened attentively, nod- ding our heads. Our premature optimism disinte- grated when, ten minutes later, nothing had happe- ned. Darkness descended outside, and I noticed that I could see my breath under the harsh fluorescent lights. A few people began muttering insults about the guards. “How hard is it to count?” one remarked sourly.
“Some people cain’t count!” cackled Dee, “That’s why we ain’t got no president!” Everyone burst into laughter, and Dee –sensing she was on a roll– conti- nued: “These people got Masters, all the degrees you can get, an’ they cain’t figure this out!” She shook her head, bemused. “We should just have four more years of Clinton. I like Clinton! You don’t want your president to be all uptight! You want your president to be relaxed.” She cocked her head at us, mischie- vously, “So what if he ‘got some’ on the side? He’s relaxed.” The other women chuckled appreciatively. “Ooh look!” Lupé called out, “The mens is back!” We craned our necks to look through the entry-door window and saw the handful of prisoners who work in the processing area troop back to their posts. It was commonly agreed that this was a good sign: su- rely Count must have cleared if there were inmate movement. Still, no officers were visible in the vici- nity. At 5:15 we heard a near-by phone start ringing, probably the Watch Commander giving the guards the ok to start letting in visitors. The phone rang and rang and rang, its forlorn trill the only sound as the women –their patience now exhausted, their spirits now deflated– glared at the wall and fidgeted an- grily. Ten rings, fifteen, twenty. “Answer the phone,” commanded Grace, her voice steely and low. “Just pick it up and answer it.”
5. or instance, visiting hours are 7:30 to 2:30. But they don’t start processing you until 7:30. And that’s a frustration to me in that, “No, I would like to be face-to-face by 7:30, why can’t you start processing at 7:15? What is the problem with the mentality behind starting processing fifteen minutes prior to visiting time?” . . .[Once processing begins] then they take their time, and they have to know that every minute –or maybe they don’t. Maybe it’s just a matter of not really comprehending, every minute is so valuable, you know? (Lynn).
6. (Author).There were two visitors in line. The first was an older woman, probably in her late sixties, with a cloud of white hair hovering around her crin-
kled face. She was wearing an over-sized purple shirt unbuttoned over a thick, white t-shirt and loose black pants. When the buzzer sounded the woman faltered with the heavy door and the second visitor, a middle-age woman dressed in a librarian’s prim garb with her hair pinned in a high chignon, assis- ted her with a strong shove. A minute later we heard raised voices, and the librarian cocked her head to see through the processing window, staring intently at the commotion: “Oh, they’re so terrible! That poor woman in there is saying that she can’t wear a bra to- day because of a medical condition, and they’re te- lling her she can’t come in without a bra. As if she’s going to try to be sexy! What a dishonorable thing to do to someone!” The woman watched a few minutes more, spitting with anger: “I wish we didn’t feel we were so over a barrel with these people! We have to do everything they say!”
A moment later, the elderly woman came out of processing. It was a bit strange: she was carrying the wooden tray in which belongings are sent th- rough the X-ray machine. A bra, some jewelry, and
her shoes were scattered in the tray, and the wo- man was in her stocking-feet. She wandered to the end of the Tube, looking a bit dazed, so I went af- ter her. “Can I help you, ma’am?” She quietly asked me where the bathroom was, and I took her around the corner, warning her to watch out for glass shards as we crossed over the asphalt and sidewalk. “This is the worst place I’ve ever been to,” she remarked, with a touch of venom, “thank you, Dear.” She went into the dilapidated bathroom, returning to the Tu- be a few minutes later and then disappearing into the processing area once more.
7. . . .I’m articulate and educated and I carry myself with class and all that. However. . . I understand that I’m in a state penitentiary, and I understand that by the law it is a privilege, not a right, that I visit my husband. And with that in mind there are certain guidelines that I have to follow. I have to dress a cer- tain way, I have to conduct myself in a certain man- ner. And I’m willing to do that (Sophia).
CESPyDH - Año 0 NoIX - Agosto de 2010