Victoria Kent is the name of a Spanish prison in Madrid where the inmates can serve their sentences with the best possible standard of penitentiary confidence. It was named after a woman with a relevant public career during the past century. I have recently read some books about her that I would like to review for you briefly below. “Victoria Kent, 1892-1987” is a book by Mª Dolores Ramos that gives a short biography of Victoria Kent (front now on V. K.) in relation with several historical events that happened at the same time. It seems a useful way to gain a more complete knowledge about someone.V.K was born in 1892 in Málaga. She was nineteen years old when she finished her studies as a schoolteacher. She continued studying law at the Complutense University of Madrid and earned a doctorate degree in 1924. She worked as a lawyer and was especially interested in the penitentiary system. She was a politician too and tried to change the Spanish prison system because she believed that prisons were factories for producing delinquents. She tried to change this and defended the idea of social rehabilitation, considering that time in prison must be useful to the inmates for their re-entry into the society as honest people. She had many professional experiencies; especially remarkable was her work as a Prison System Head. About this Zenaida Gutiérrez Vega wrote the book “Victoria Kent, una vida al servicio del humanitarismo liberal” (“ Victoria Kent, a Life Serving Liberal Humanitarianism” ). It is said that she was a very committed Prison System Head who tried to humanize Spanish prisons and improve their condition. New establishments were built , education and labor training of inmates were promoted and, of course, the training of prison system workers was encouraged. A special school was also founded with that objective so that these employees had the highest level of education possible.
V.K. was in charge of the Spanish Prison System for one year. Her way of thinking was not accepted by her political peers, irrespective of their ideology. Nowadays, however, her ideas are a reality in our prisons. Our legal system follows them more than she could have imagined. It could be said that she was ahead of her time so that the present we know needed her to believe in it a long time ago. V.K went to work for/at the Spanish Embassy in Paris in 1937. When the Spanish Civil War ended, she remained there as an exile.
She tells her own experience in her book “Cuatro años de mi vida 1940-1944” (“Four years of my life 1940-1944”). Secretly, somebody in the Spanish Embassy warned her that the Nazis wanted her and she managed to escape to Mexico at the last moment. “Progresistas” (“Progresists”) written by Javier Moreno Luzón defined V.K.´s thinking as humanist and liberal. It is very interesting what the author tells us about her opinions and sayings, such as the following ones, could be said by V.K. : “the horrors of the mass and their infinite capacity for cruelty”, “man is able to repair his mistakes against the irresponsible mass”, “an unlabeled individual, out of the mass, is suspected by power”, “law must fight against injustice and human pain”, “only a proportioned and balanced use of strength is justified” “violence and intransigence, typical of totalitarianism, must be repudiated”. All of theses so true in light of events in the thirties and forties of the 20th century. Nowadays, everybody would agree with them.
“Victoria Kent. Una pasión republicana” (“V.K. a republican passion”) written by Miguel Ángel Villena explains the vital development of this tireless woman from her life in Spain to her new life in New York, passing through France and Mexico. In relation to the decisive stage of her life as Prision System Head, the author describes an exciting event that happened in “El Dueso” prison when she faced armed inmates whit only her words. Hygiene, instruction, education, labor training, treatment were words often used by V.K. when she tried to change prisons in 1931. Joseba Martínez´s book “Las Santas Rojas” (“The Red Saints”) compares V.K with Santa Teresa de Jesús although he introduces a difference between as he thinks that V.K. was a free woman and her thinking was independent of any masculine authority. This book was written from the intersex and transgender movement´s perspective and the Queer theory, which might provide a complementary point of view of V.K.. The book “Mujeres para la Historia. La España silenciada del siglo XX” (“Women in History. The Silenced Spain of 20th century”, by Antonio Rodrigo, shows a very popular V. K in her time. A popular song about her was then being sung in the streets: “Anda que te ondulen con la permanent, Y si te sofocas, que te den “cold-cream”. Se lo puedes decir a Victoria Kent, Que lo que es a mí, No ha nacido quién…”
V.K. was in contact with Spain all her life and in 1978 she came back and published an article in “History 16 Magazine” where she again explained her penitentiary beliefs that rang true as they do even now. She died in 1982 in New York, where she had lived and worked (at the United Nations) since 1950. V.K certainly did not vote in favour of women´s universal suffrage during the Second Spanish Republic. She thought women could be easily manipulated, especially by the Church, due to their lack of education. She reached that opinion because she knew the real situation of the society in which she lived. She was not simply a theoretical thinker; she was a woman of action and was in touch with the people.
Finally, it can be said that the Spanish penitentiary system would not be the same we know today if V.K. would had not existed!
Further information at Intranet/SGRICT/”BIblio”/Monografías. Anyone can borrow the books from the library (basement floor).
Acknowledgements: grateful thanks to Lourdes Toscano, Documentation Head, for her help.
Peña
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