San Pedro Prison - A Reality Show

I was once with a group of people from work when the conversation turned to the show Prison Break. I very seriously asked, ¨Is it a reality show?¨ and everyone laughed at me...and continued to do so for about 2 years! :) Come on! People marry strangers and eat bull balls for money on TV. Why is the nation watching people try to escape from jail so inconceivable?!

What`s more unbelievable is the reality of San Pedro Prison, located in the center of La Paz, Bolivia (note: The link above will take you to some photos and excerpts from a BBC story, but everyone`s got a different story...it`s prison!).

First off, the tour we took was arranged and guided by inmates. There are no police officers or guards inside the walls of the prison - the prisoners regulate themselves. Our tour was guided by an ¨english speaking¨ man from Argentina, who was in for several months for buying cocaine from a cop in the streets (most of the people in the prison are there for more serious drug trafficing offences). In addition, we were accompanied by ¨The Chief¨, the head of prison security, and four trusted inmates that acted as bodyguards.

The title Head of Prison Security might sound reassuring, but what that translates to in jail lingo is ¨the murderer that`s been in for 15 years, has another 15 to serve, and is so quick with a knife that the other prisoners do what he says¨. That might sound a bit dramatic, but that`s the truth of it. I asked during the tour why the prisoners don´t attack the tourists and the answer was something like, ¨Cheif, can you show them your knife?¨...basically, if they touched us, he would most defintiely stab them. We all paid 250 bolivianos to enter (not including tips), so he is definitely interested in keeping up the tourism business.

¨OMG!¨ you might be saying. ¨That sounds so dangerous!¨ You would think that until you see the hundreds of wives and children that live there too! Yes, there are children running around the prison laughing and playing...There are people playing volleyball and soccer (all for bets - never just for fun), washing clothes, selling food, and doing drugs. We didn´t see a lot of drugs because our guide told the tour leader to skip that part, but doing a couple lines of Bolivia`s finest cocaine is apparently very doable in San Pedro. In fact, the inmate-guided tours have just started up again after several years of being shut down because foreigners were ordering cocaine carry-out and even spending the night (uh, no thanks).

¨How do they get the drugs in?¨ might be your next question. The answer is - they don´t. They produce it within the jail. So lots of people are on drugs and can go a little crazy. And when they act up, they get thrown in a small corridor by their peers for anywhere from 1 day to 1 year. And if you do something really offensive...you will be ¨taken care of¨. It´s an eye for an eye kind of system.

I thought the tour was interesting. It was a little weird knowing that you were walking through a prison and that anything could happen. A couple times we got into cramped spaces with lots of inmates around (they were all lining up to collect their one provided meal for the day - noodles with sauce). And it was a little creepy at the end when the guide told us that the men in the kitchen are usually there as punishment for crimes like rape and child abuse. Of course they are the only ones that were encouraging pictures and being really nice.

I think I liked the tour because it`s such an intriguing study of sociology. Society determines that people are liabilities and lock them up...and then all the criminals, crazies, and ¨entrepreneurs¨create their own little society with rules as to what is right and wrong. All and all, I have to say that from what I saw, and from talking to one of the bodyguards, San Pedro seems like a fairly ¨good¨ prison to be in, but people still die every month and I would never want to be there and have to prove myself everyday. For more information about what life might be like there, check out the book Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail, by Rusty Young. The book is the story of Thomas McFadden, a young British man, who was caught smuggling cocaine out of Bolivia and spent time in San Pedro. I`m going to read it when I get back. Book club anyone? :)