“Humanizing and nuanced . . . [Ortiz’s] overarching approach, centered on human action, agency and (self-)determination, will inspire many with its obvious relevance to the present and future of mass incarceration. In this vital and public-facing conversation, Ortiz’s voice and scholarship will undoubtedly be not only welcome, but essential.”

Social History of Medicine

“Ortiz Díaz successfully emphasized the role of colonialism in correctional practices during the mid-twentieth century and how they remain today. The inclusion of the names of the people who experienced institutionalization and how they strived toward rehabilitation in Puerto Rico makes Raising the Living Dead standout. Ortiz Díaz recounts how medical, psychological, legal, and communal efforts contributed to the revival of the incarcerated in Oso Blanco, and sometimes back into Puerto Rican communities. Producing individual case studies that give context to the many rehabilitative procedures situates the reader as if they themselves are also with the living dead. . . . This book is significant in that it provides an in-depth evaluation of the incarcerated bodies through archival research—a methodological tool that consistently provides value to other ways of knowing the historical elements of crime, punishment, and those marginally affected by it.” 

Criminal Justice Policy Review

“Raising the Living Dead makes an excellent case for a new wave of scholarship on the history of crime and punishment. It builds on the existing literature then applies an innovative multiperspectival approach grounded in theory and rich primary sources.”

Julia E. Rodriguez, University of New Hampshire

“This is at once a deeply personal project for the author and a penetrating and nuanced analysis of prison reform and rehabilitation policies in a society caught in between—between imperial projects (declining Spain and rising US), between cultures (Spanish and Anglo-American), between races (‘white’ to ‘black’), and between carceral systems (dungeon to rehabilitative institution). By diving into a rich trove of individual and institutional records, Ortiz Díaz has produced a multifaceted understanding of efforts to change the way punishment worked in Puerto Rico in the second quarter of the twentieth century.”

Thomas Holloway, University of California, Davis

“Through meticulous archival research, Ortiz Díaz has rediscovered a surprising and overlooked era of prison reform in mid-twentieth-century Puerto Rico. Defying the stereotype of the exclusively passive or resistant colonial subject, inmates were active participants in the rehabilitation of their bodies, minds, and social identities. Raising the Living Dead constitutes an important and innovative contribution to the new and vibrant field of international prison history.”

Mary Gibson, John Jay College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York