The Prison Angel by Mary Jordan

Author:Mary Jordan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

After she attended the Grito every morning for more than a decade, a high-ranking soldier in the Mexican army, Major Miguel Angel Pérez, took over as warden. As she had with a long line of new directors, Mother Antonia introduced herself and told him that the first thing he should do was cancel the Grito. He had never heard of it, and when she explained it to him, he said it sounded ridiculous and unprofessional. He immediately ordered changes. No more forcing prisoners to yell out their crimes. No more walking the gauntlet between the rows of guards. From now on, they would simply stand in front of the guards and call out their name and aliases. He reasoned that the guards needed to know the prisoners’ names, but they didn’t need to humiliate them, and the guards, after years of Mother Antonia’s presence at the Grito, took it in stride. They even joked with her in the Grito: “We can’t hear you! Shout it louder!” To their delight, she repeated “Alias: La Sister!” over and over.

At last, one morning she saw her years of quiet work pay off. A new prisoner at the Grito was too weak or too scared to shout out his name in front of everyone. Rather than abusing him, a guard spoke up for the inmate and shouted his name for him.

“After so many years, her work is bearing fruit,” says La Mesa prison guard Pablo Lamegos Méndez. He says for years and years she has been telling guards that the prisoners “are here for making a mistake, that we shouldn’t hit them,” and her work has paid off. “The guards don’t touch the prisoners anymore. Nowadays I don’t see guards hitting prisoners, even when she is not there.”

In August 2003, the Grito was eliminated entirely.

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