Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón
- Atenea
- Dec 16, 2021
- 3 min read
Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón was born on February 9, 1910, in Jiménez, Chihuahua. He was the second child of the marriage and the first son; born during the Mexican Revolution, so seeing corpses hanging from trees was something common for him, and at night, gunshots and combat screams were usual. His father was the chief of the railway station in Chihuahua, and his mother was a housewife, as was customary at the time, having married very young.
During those times, visits from officers of both armies were frequent, aiming to take women from their homes. Later, his father was reassigned to the state capital: Ciudad Juárez, and shortly after, promoted to the city of Tampico, where at age 14, he lost his mother to cancer. On November 3, 1925, when Cuarón was 15 years old, his father, who worked in the administrative offices of the Tampico railway, was murdered—a fact he himself described as cowardly, since his father's killer attacked him from behind with a series of shots that killed him instantly while he was in his office. This event undoubtedly marked Alfonso's life and profession because at age 15, he had lost both parents, one a year after the other.
According to Freud, the most sensitive stages in a child are between 3 and 5 years old, early stages in human life. He also mentions that the death of a father is a very sensitive event in a child's life, so losing both parents in a very short period is not only a sensitive matter but also events that leave a mark on the being. Attending a funeral procession and seeing his mother's still fresh grave to bury his father must have left marks and traces on Alfonso's personality and character, as well as causing emotional imbalances. During the trial of his father's murderer, he discovered that an autopsy had to be performed on his father, and personality studies were conducted on the murderer. This event sparked in Cuarón the need and curiosity to understand autopsies and personality studies of criminals (Garmabella, 1985). That is why, over time, he joined the forensic medical service as an assistant in what was then the Federal District in 1929, where he also learned about forensic psychiatry. By 1930, already as an intern, he was truly interested in legal medicine, gradually increasing his level, category, experience, and knowledge.
In 1932 and 1933, criminology was born in Mexico, or as it was then called, the criminological clinic, due to the insistence of many doctors working with inmates in Lecumberri, such as Gómez Robleda, González Enríquez, Matilde Rodríguez Cabo, among others.
In 1934, Alfonso faced the dilemma of graduating professionally in two careers: as a doctor or as a criminologist. His subconscious, as he very accurately describes, led him “down the path of criminology,” which he also argued: “in the first (medicine), I would be one of many, but in the second (criminology), there was the opportunity that, over time, I could be the first.” Quiroz Cuarón worked on many famous cases of the time, such as the case of León Trotsky's assassin: Ramón Mercader, as well as with Goyo Cárdenas, the women’s murderer, Enrico Sampietro, among many other cases, and also some lesser-known ones.
In the world of criminology, Quiroz Cuarón is called: the first criminologist in Mexico, that is, the first to legally hold the title of criminologist issued by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). His life was not easy and for most of us almost impossible to imagine; however, it is the same life that has inspired others to make a difference and a social change.
Bibliography
García, D. F. (n.d.). Juridicas. Retrieved September 11, 2021, from https://revistas-colaboracion.juridicas.unam.mx/index.php/rev-facultad-derecho-mx/article/viewFile/27201/24548Garmabella, J. R. (1985). Dr. Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón. Sus mejores casos de criminología. CDMX: Diana.
