Carabanchel Prison () was a

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where Prisoner, people are Imprisonment, imprisoned under the authority of the State (polity), state ...

located in the

Carabanchel Carabanchel is a district of Madrid, Spain. It lies on the southern (right) bank of the Manzanares, spanning southward down to the M-40 ring road. The district is made up of the neighbourhoods of Abrantes, Comillas, Opañel, Puerta Bonita, S ...

neighbourhood of

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. It was opened in

Francoist Spain Francoist Spain (), also known as the Francoist dictatorship (), or Nationalist Spain () was the period of Spanish history between 1936 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death i ...

in 1944 to house

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...

s after the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

. Carabanchel Prison was one of the biggest prisons in Europe until its closure in 1998 and its

demolition Demolition (also known as razing and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction (building), deconstruction, which inv ...

in 2008.

History

Carabanchel Prison was constructed between 1940 and 1944 by the

Spanish State Francoist Spain (), also known as the Francoist dictatorship (), or Nationalist Spain () was the period of Spanish history between 1936 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death i ...

government of ''

caudillo A ''caudillo'' ( , ; , from Latin language, Latin , diminutive of ''caput'' "head") is a type of Personalist dictatorship, personalist leader wielding military and political power. There is no precise English translation for the term, though it ...

Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (born Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general and dictator who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces i ...

using the

panopticon The panopticon is a design of institutional building with an inbuilt system of control, originated by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. The concept is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be ...

model. Many of its inmates were

political prisoners A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...

arrested after the

, including members of

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

and

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

political parties and

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

leaders. Notable inmates included Marcelino Camacho (leader of the Comisiones Obreras) and the rest of its top-ranking members as a result of the Process 1001, Julián Ariza (member of the same union), Nicolás Redondo (leader of the Workers' General Union), Eduardo Saborido, Simón Sánchez Montero ( Communist Party leader who served 25 years in prison), José María Ruiz Gallardón (

monarchist Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. C ...

opponent of Franco and father of the former

Minister of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

Alberto Ruiz Gallardón), Nicolás Sartorius,

Ramón Tamames Ramón Tamames Gómez (born 1 November 1933) is a Spanish economist and former politician. He was a member of the Congress of Deputies and the City Council of Madrid in the early years after the Spanish transition to democracy. A long-term membe ...

, Enrique Múgica and Enrique Curiel (communist activists),

Miguel Boyer Miguel Boyer (5 February 1939 – 29 September 2014) was a Spanish economist and politician, who served as minister of economy, treasury and commerce from 1982 to 1985. Early life and education Boyer was born in St. Jean de Luz, France, on 5 F ...

(

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party ( , PSOE ) is a Social democracy, social democratic Updated as required.The PSOE is described as a social-democratic party by numerous sources: * * * * List of political parties in Spain, political party ...

activist and later minister), Fernando Sánchez-Dragó, Miguel Gila,

Fernando Savater Fernando Fernández-Savater Martín (born 21 June 1947 at Basque city of San Sebastián) is a Spanish philosopher, essayist and author. Early years and career Born in San Sebastián, he was an Ethics professor at the University of the Basqu ...

, Fernando Arrabal, Agustín Rueda, CNT member Luís Andrés Edo and would-be Franco assassins Stuart Christie and Fernando Carballo Blanco. In the mid-1970s, Carabanchel briefly housed transgender activist Silvia Reyes for being a "transvestite" (the then-current term for a

trans woman A trans woman or transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity and may experience gender dysphoria (distress brought upon by the discrepancy between a person's gender identity and their ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

n cocaine kingpins Jorge Luis Ochoa Vásquez and Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela were also imprisoned in Carabanchel in the mid-1980s. After Franco's death in 1975, only common criminals and members of the Basque separatist group

ETA Eta ( ; uppercase , lowercase ; ''ē̂ta'' or ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel, . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative, , in most dialects of Ancient Greek, it ...

and other

paramilitary A paramilitary is a military that is not a part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the term "paramilitary" as far back as 1934. Overview Though a paramilitary is, by definiti ...

groups remained. The Coordinadora de Presos en Lucha, that struggled for prisoners rights and amnesty during the first years of the

Spanish transition to democracy The Spanish transition to democracy, known in Spain as (; ) or (), is a period of History of Spain, modern Spanish history encompassing the regime change that moved from the Francoist dictatorship to the consolidation of a parliamentary system ...

, was founded in the Carabanchel prison. Several prisoners revolts occurred during that time period. After its abandonment, the building was heavily looted and inhabited by non-Spaniards. Most of the prison walls were covered with graffiti, some of them very elaborate. A lengthy debate took place between the neighbours of Carabanchel and Aluche, who wanted a hospital and other public facilities to be built in the area, and the local authorities, who wanted to privatize the land for housing development. The neighbours also wanted part of the prison to be preserved. Finally in July 2008, local and national government reached an agreement on the future of the prison lot, projecting to build 650 apartments, a hospital, green zones and government buildings on the former prison grounds. Despite protests, the entire Carabanchel complex was demolished in late 2008.

Notes

Urban-travel.org @ The Carabanchel Prison, inside shots.

References

*Chance, C. (2005) ''Carabanchel: The Last Brit in Europe's Hellhole Prison''. Mainstream. *Díaz Cardiel, V. (2007) "Algunos recuerdos de mis cuatro estancias en la cárcel de Carabanchel" ''El Rapto de Europa'' 11: 13–19. *Photos from the priso

*Photos from Carabanchel at flickr.co

*Urban-travel.org @ The Carabanchel Prison, photos from insid

External links

{{Authority control Defunct prisons in Spain Buildings and structures in Carabanchel District, Madrid History of Madrid Demolished buildings and structures in Madrid Buildings and structures demolished in 2008 Political repression in Francoist Spain