Inaugurated in January of 1909, the Ahú Penitentiary, in Curitiba, is celebrated among the local authorities and elites as "an alive certificate of progress." It's project foresaw an orientation based on the modern penology regulations, that understood the imprisonment less as punishment and more as a possibility of physical and mainly, moral regeneration of the criminal. The aim of this essay is to follow the course that, from the first claims and complaints about the growth in rates of crime, culminates with the inauguration of the Penitentiary. The intention is, by comparing local sources - especially reports of police and government - with other ones, whose origin and repercussion surpasses the state limits - such as texts of jurists and criminologists -, to show that to show that the penal institution celebrated by the press and authorities from Paraná can only be understood if placed in a context that is not contained in the lines and between the speeches and policies strictly regional.
Penitentiary; Discipline; Crime; Criminality