The article discusses the introduction of the penitentiary model in the city of Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, in the 1930s, from the perspective of hygienism and its interfaces with legal thought. It also analyzes the discourses that were accepted or deemed of scientific value at that time. Edelvito Campelo D'Araújo, director of the Pedra Grande Penitentiary from 1935 to 1945, enacted an administrative and physical reform that boosted staff numbers and increased their specialization while also adding new sections to the building structure. The reform had a twofold goal: it was meant to introduce a more rational, modern administration, in tune with the positivist thinking of the New Republic, and to conduct an in-depth scientific study, designed by the director himself, of the 'crime phenomenon' and of perpetrators' motives.
penitentiary; crime; syphilis; race; hygienism; Santa Catarina (Brazil)
