The Bullet in the Glass: War, Death, and the Meaning of Penitentiary Experience in Colombia

• Author: Libardo José Ariza,Manuel Iturralde
• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Date: 01 March 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1057567719836475
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

The Bullet in the Glass: War,

Death, and the Meaning

of Penitentiary Experience

in Colombia

Libardo Jose

´Ariza

1

and Manuel Iturralde

1

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the incidence of narratives on war and death in molding penitentiary

experience in Colombia. Based upon the case of la Modelo National Prison in Bogota

´, we illustrate

the way in which penitentiary discourses are transmitted and reproduced through two rites that

initiate newcomers into the local world of confinement. The first, the tale of terror, told by veteran

guards, of the cemetery filled with the bodies left by the war between rebel fighters and paramilitary

soldiers. The other, the dense description of the bullet holes in the glass shield at the Main Guard

Post, which leads to the main cellblocks, which give proof to the guards’ endurance when faced by

the violent power struggle that rages inside the penitentiary. At the same time, we show how these

discourses on the horror of the war inside the penitentiary make their way from within the confines

of prison out into the free world through ex-convicts’ memoirs, press accounts, and judicial doc-

uments written by court officials who visit the prison. Drawing on this case study, we argue that to

achieve a contextual interpretation of carceral violence, it is indispensable to trace, reconstruct, and

comprehend the trajectory of its foundational discourses, thus allowing for the assembly of the

pieces that give meaning to penitentiary experience at the local level.

Keywords

prisons, Colombian prisons, Latin American prisons, prison violence, prison narratives

Prison, where guerrilla fighters and paramilitary soldiers, like colossal infantry battalions, are locked in

mortal combat in their war to conquer one more cell block.

Caderipo (2003, p. 15)

Until one night the bomb went off.

Molano (2004, p. 85)

1

School of Law, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota

´, Colombia

Corresponding Author:

Libardo Jose

´Ariza, School of Law, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota

´111711, Colombia.

Email: lj.ariza20@uniandes.edu.co

International CriminalJustice Review

2020, Vol. 30(1) 83-98

ª2019 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/1057567719836475

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Violence and Acceptance of Prison Life

In this article, we analyze the construction and rhetoric of violence in the penitentiary world as

well as its impact on the acceptance of the inhuman prison conditions that distinguish the Colombian

prisons system. We will make a thick description of the initiation rites, and the mea nings and

symbols they entail, that take place at la Modelo prison in Bogota´.

1

The narratives regarding its

past, which revolve around the war for the control of the prison (an extension of the armed conflict

between right-wing paramilitaries and leftist guerrillas

2

), and the fear of being forcibly disappeared

or dismembered are reproduced in prison initiation rites. Such narratives convey to newcomers the

idea that, despite its cruelty, the massive and systematic violation of inmates’ human rights is the

normal experience of imprisonment.

The memory of past massacres and the threat of their irruption in prison daily routines mark

carceral experience in Colombia and Latin America. The extreme violence that destroys the bodies

of the condemned, dismembered, burnt by the flames of prisons’ arsons, or shot dead by the bullets

that seek to suppress a riot are common features of penitentiary punishment in the region.

3

The

normalization of violence as a result of inhuman prison conditions is linked to the narrative on the

horror of prison, which is transmitted, and learned, through initiation rites and prison symbology. As

Maruna (2011, p. 11) points out, “prison is a rite of passage”; thus, going through this experience

implies the acceptance of extreme violence—past and present—as a normal, defining feature of

imprisonment.

To present our argument, we will use two different perspectives. First, from a methodological

angle, we will discuss the advantages of ethnographic analysis to capture distinctive features of

prison experience in socially and c ulturally established places. The th ick description of prison

initiation rites, and the symbology that goes together with them, is of great help to make sense of

the idea of penitentiary punishment and its historical grounding. As Maruna (2001) claims, “Above

all, a ritual is a medium of communication, with its own symbolic grammar and syntax” (p. 7). In this

text, we attempt to underscore the significance of oral history, as passed on by long-serving guards

and prisoners who accompany visitors on their walks through the penitentiary’s corridors. During

these ritual walks, the prison inhabitants repeatedly recall the tales of horror that are inscribed on the

prison’s walls, in its yards, and cellblocks. On every prison wall, they point out the signs of a past

that refuses to go away.

This daily prison walks, like a museum tour, conducted by guards and yard leaders take the visitor

to zones where emotions are disrupted when it cannot be concealed that the institution is also a

graveyard full of terrifying memories (Bennett, Crewe, & Warr, 2014; Morrison, 2012). Because we

have been assiduous visitors to la Modelo during the last 8 years and, as such, are recognized as

being stable members of a group attentive to the issues that the local prison population confronts, we

write about the stories we have been told to introduce us to the world of confinement.

As Rowe (2014, p. 411) points out, prison ethnography tends to blur the line between the observer

and the participant, which leads to a process of “confrontation, disruption, and troubling of the self,”

that nevertheless, “offers a source of insight into understanding the experiences and practices of

actors in the field.” Even if we are still unable to fully grasp the “prison’s cultural web,” as a result of

our constant visits to la Modelo during the last 8 years, we are regular visitors who “speak prison

fluently” (Ugelvik, 2014, p. 477). In order to make sense of the meaning of such rites and symbols,

we write about our own sensitive experience on the Colombian penitentiary field (Drake & Harvey,

2014; Jewkes, 2012). For this reason, we are trapped in “the old theological question of how to be in

but not of the world” (Liebling, 2001, p. 475) of la Modelo prison.

Our thick description of prison rites and symbols outlines the importance of tracking the social

flow of prison discourses in order to make sense of located and contextualized forms of imprison-

ment. We consider the interpretation of the “flow of social discourse” to be fundamental in the

84 International Criminal Justice Review 30(1)