SAN PEDRO PRISON
Once again, all I knew, all I thought I knew, my perceptions of what should be, and the reality of what is have been shattered...San Pedro prison...has left me utterly shell shocked, numbed and stunned.
Having read 'Marching Powder' 11 years ago, I was intrigued to see the life and institution that is San Pedro prison, curious from a sociological perspective, my internal lay psychologist itchy to get a grasp on what defies all that I know about the judicial and penal systems. Nothing could have prepared me for it...
A mini city, 7 separate communities overseen by a community president (elected by the inmates once a year), complete with 500 children, families and businesses (to use the term loosely) all operating inside the prison walls, no government assistance, insulated from the outside world, yet curiously operating as a world in itself...murderers living next door to petty criminals, the only segragation being who has money.
A thriving real estate industry reliant on prisoners moving up and into newer nicer cells, restaurants and shops...defying what I thought a prison 'should' be...yet the dark, sinister danger lurks in the corridors, the reason for gates being locked at 10 pm, prisoner justice the only operation to continue weeding out the 'dangerous' from the non.
Children amidst it all, playing, innocent...unaware, and protected, yet heart breakingly influencable, potentially the next generation of inmates. Sitting in the prison plaza watching them play, drinking a coke and enjoying the sun whilst chatting to our guide, I forgot where I was...was this really a prison? Were these people truly capable of murder, abuse, armed robbery?
Our guide and bodyguards are three hardened criminals yet all that I had anticipated, all I had thought I would feel in the presence of these people was missing...I am still struggling to reconcile it all. It was like visiting a favela, yet safer given our companions...however, the demonic, evil element was palbable and the terror set in when we were shown into the kitchen. The kitchen, a dark room locked and padlocked behind a huge wrought iron gate, is the residence of the rapists. Men too dangerous to have in the rest of the prison, who literally sleep next to the ovens on the concrete floor, never allowed out...yet we were allowed in. Despite our protection and the company of my male friends, I have never felt so vulnerable, so utterly aware of the evil intentions inhabiting these ghost like empty men.
My heart is full of sadness for the children, yet the experience left me initially feeling pity toward those inside...compassion...because unlike visiting men locked in cells, obvious signs of a life misspent, this felt like visiting a slum, families trapped with nothing, the raw fight for survival...
Yet compassion and pity is wasted is it not? These are people who chose their paths, who are incarcerated (despite the community like setting) to protect the community from them...people, who through making their own rules are now in a 'society' whereby they are in charge of all the rules.
Initially I thought that this type of prison establishment was a positive, rehabilitative way of treating criminals, yet today, seeing their freedom, the way in which they are literally outside of 'societal laws' and free to ajudicate as they see fit...
