THE SCENE
San Pedro Penitentiary is a self-governed territory, within the heart of La Paz, Bolivia. It was built in the 19th century for 300 male prisoners. Now, there are 1,400 inmates and it is them who control the place. Inside the jail, they run barber shops, restaurants, food stores, print services, human taxi services – prisoners who summon the inmates you want to visit – small cafés, rudimentary saunas, cocaine labs, and even some kind of real estate agencies, as all the inmates rent and sell cells.
More than 200 minors and 40 families live in the prison. It is normal to find whole families packed into one room, including pregnant women. Children leave the prison gates everyday to attend school. If an inmate wants to live with his children, wife or girlfriend in his cell, he has to pay a monthly fee to one of the inmate unions.
As a self-organized parallel society, the criminals have also developed their own political system: they hold their own elections to vote in leaders, and have created dozens of unions.
The prisoners have their own security corps, made up of thieves. They know how to make things run smoothly. Very few police officers enter San Pedro. They do it twice a day, just to call the roll, and then leave the inmates on their own again.
MY GOAL
I am currently working on a multimedia project about the prison, focusing on the daily lives of various inmates, and women who live there by choice. My objective is to reflect on the attitude of human beings when facing difficult situations, especially within this walled microcosm of our society.
Who triumphs and who fails in San Pedro? Why? What determines the weakness, or the strength of these people?
In San Pedro, you can choose one of two paths: resign yourself to a life on the minute daily allowance granted by the State – a cup of tea and just one plate of food – or enter into the organised inmate system, and try to prosper inside the prison