Book Review: Raising the Living Dead: Rehabilitative Corrections in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean

• Published date: 01 April 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/08874034241237796
• Author: Vanessa J. Gutiérrez
• Date: 01 April 2024

Criminal Justice Policy Review

2024, Vol. 35(2-3) 159 –162

© The Author(s) 2024

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Book Review

Book Review

Alberto Ortiz Díaz. (2023). Raising the Living Dead: Rehabilitative Corrections in Puerto Rico and

the Caribbean. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 217 pp. US$ 35.00. ISBN:

9780226824512

Reviewed by: Vanessa J. Gutiérrez , Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA

DOI: 10.1177/08874034241237796

Rehabilitation remains one of the main goals of correctional institutions. In achieving

rehabilitation successfully, there should be a variety of professional and community

actors invested in treating, evaluating, and advocating for the incarcerated. Across the

Caribbean, particularly in areas with strong colonial presence, attempts at rehabili-

tation practices have been made. Alberto Ortiz Díaz’s Raising the Living Dead

demonstrates an array of individuals involved in the rehabilitation of Puerto Rico’s

incarcerated population during the mid-20th century (1917–1964). Importantly, Ortiz

Díaz (2023) examines correctional rehabilitation through the United States’ 1917

imposition of citizenship on Puerto Ricans, as well as preceding Spanish colonial

policies and practices related to criminal legal adjudication and punishment. Ortiz

Díaz expounds on how health and medical professionals, incarcerated persons, fami-

lies, friends of the incarcerated, and community members have long cared for those

in Puerto Rico’s carceral settings. With an emphasis on the history of one prison—

Oso Blanco—Ortiz Díaz depicts the chronological development of rehabilitative

efforts, its challenges and triumphs, the testing of human subjects, and a shift toward

punitive punishment in the latter part of the 20th century.

Raising the Living Dead begins by illuminating the role of biomedicine conducted

by physicians toward achieving rehabilitation. Those who entered Oso Blanco since

1933 were subject to observations, clinical assessments, and extensive documentation

of the markings and characteristics of their physical bodies. Criminologists will recall

that the early 1900s was strongly influenced by the scientific findings of Cesare

Lombroso (1876). While today, purely biological explanations of crime are recognized

as misguided, they were very influential on Puerto Rican rehabilitation. Upon entry,

incarcerated persons were subject to inspections of their physical beings to make con-

clusions about their criminality. Incarcerated persons were rehabilitated through treat-

ment of infectious diseases, while also subject to unethical and illegal experimentation.

The social and economic disparities in Puerto Rico that may have led to the physique

of the incarcerated went unacknowledged by corrections administrators and their

1237796CJPXXX10.1177/08874034241237796Criminal Justice Policy ReviewBook Review

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