“The submission to ‘observation’ is a natural extension of a justice imbued with disciplinary methods and examination procedures. Is it surprising that cellular imprisonment—with its regular chronologies, its compulsory work, its authorities of surveillance and registration, its experts in normality who continue and multiply the functions of the judge—should have become the modern instrument of penalty? Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?”
—Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish
University into prisons
Pablo Morillo and the Reconquest (1816-1817)
In 1816, during the Spanish Reconquest, General Pablo Morillo confiscated the Colegio del Rosario and turned it into a prison. In 1817, the building was returned to its educational function.
Mosquera’s Civil War (1860-1861)
Later, it was also used as a military college before resuming its role as a civilian university. In 1860, under Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, the Colombian government again expropriated the Colegio and adapted it as a prison. The cloister was remodeled to hold up to around 260 prisoners.
Prisons into universities
The Universidad de los Andes campus in Bogotá includes parts of the land that formerly belonged to the Comunidad del Buen Pastor and the women’s prison “El Buen Pastor.” Wikipedia+2campusinfo.uniandes.edu.co+2
According to its Wikipedia entry, the land that used to be the main pavilion of the old women’s prison (Buen Pastor) was acquired by the University. Wikipedia
In 1976, that pavilion was refurbished; walls/muurs were reinforced. Wikipedia
About 20 years later (so mid-1990s), the building was evacuated due to deterioration of its roof/overhead structure.
Universities inside prisons
Prisons inside universities
“The system manufactures students who are smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of privilege, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what they’re doing but with no idea why they’re doing it.”
5. Art and freedom
I want to get to the point when I shall be able to say quite simply, and without affectation, that the two great turning-points in my life were when my father sent me to Oxford, and when society sent me to prison. I will not say that prison is the best thing that could have happened to me: for that phrase would savour of too great bitterness towards myself. I would sooner say, or hear it said of me, that I was so typical a child of my age, that in my perversity, and for that perversity’s sake, I turned the good things of my life to evil, and the evil things of my life to good.”
—Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
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