(Psichiatric care programs and government of the prision in the Argentine Federal Penitentiary Service)

Abstract

This article takes up Foucault´s concern for the link between psychiatry and the workings of the penal system. In this case, it is an imbrication within the prison space, based on the study of mental health care devices.
We present the main results of an empirical research that addressed the effects of the reorganization of the mental health care service of the Argentine Federal Penitentiary Service (SPF) since 2011. We used a qualitative methodology that involved field observation, interviews with key informers, and analyzing of laws and regulations and institutional documents. That research exposed tensions between different mental health care regimes in relation to the prison government. In Argentina, unlike another context, there are still few studies that analyze the specific intersection between mental health care and prison space. In line with local developments, we seek to contribute to understanding the articulations of mental health care and the logics of the prison order, through three problematic knots: the criteria of admission to the different programs of mental health care, the reasons of the logics of intervention of the different devices, and the ties and articulations woven (or not) in the different interventions around the notions of security, danger and order. We conclude that the reform of the psychiatric care service supposed the emergence of an “exogenous logic”, which tenses the traditional link between psychiatric practice and penitentiary order, while outlining the challenges presented in this new scenario.