Significantly different from most correctional facilities, inmates at San Pedro have jobs inside the community, pay or rent their accommodation, and often live with their families. The sale of cocaine base to visiting tourists gives those inside a significant income and an unusual amount of freedom within the prison walls. Elected leaders enforce the laws of the community, with stabbings being commonplace. The prison is home to approximately 1,500 inmates, with additional guests staying in the prison hotel
So coming south we had a heard a lot about this prison. And also from other people on facebook who have travelled south America before. You go to the prison, wait around outside and somebody will offer you a tour. We also heard of a few people getting ripped off. Some of our friends went one day. They met a guy offering a tour. Paid him 50 Bolivianos each as a deposit and the guy asked for the biggest one of them to come to the police station with him to sign the papers to enter. Well when they got to the police station the guy walked through the back door obviously giving the police a cut and running off with the rest of the money. So we made sure this didn't happen us.
Unlike most prisons this prison is right in the city centre. Right beside a nice park and restaurants. We turned up outside not sure would we get a tour or not because of all the different rumors we'd heard. This ranged from the days of the week it was open, the hours you could go in and even that Brad Pitt was making a movie inside so we couldn't go in. Well there was no problem. Within Min's we had a group of 10 and a really friendly lady brought us up to the prison. Here we were ushered inside, through a metal detector that didn't work and into the police room to pay our 400 Bolivianos to the cops which was the standard rate. All the girls in our group staying huddled next to the guys cause they were a bit nervous and also most of them wrapped up in warm alpaca hoodys keeping as much skin covered as they could. We then went upstairs to wait a few minutes, the cops really friendly thanking us for coming and we were split into two groups of 5 for the tour. The cops are on the outside of this place. Not the inside. Unless there is a murder or a very drunken brawl inside they rarely go in. Within a few minutes our guide came, a prisoner, baseball hat on, hoody and some stubble. He also had a guy with us for security and told us to keep very close together. He was at the front and the security guy was at the back.
The prison is divided into different sections of what you could nearly call neighbourhoods. Roughly 2000 prisoners living in there not including their kids and families. Each section has a crest and different types of things in it. From what we've heard in the day time its very safe, especially for tourists and kids but once night falls its a different place altogether. It gets dark at 6 or 7 but they don't shut the gates between the sections until 10. It is also a class system. The prisoners buy their cells or apartments in there so there are rich areas and poor areas. There is also a boss for each section. We walked into the first section and we just see a sea of faces. Everyone going about their daily routine. Shops open, restaurants cooking like street food, women and kids around. People were chatting, playing chess, eating random food etc. Kids were running around and playing. The prisoners are allowed to have their kids in with them for free but the wives have to pay an extra 5 Bolivianos per day. All the kids seemed so happy running around not knowing any different. It was just like been out on the street to be honest. A lot of the kids actually grow up in here. One story we heard is no matter what goes on in the prison, fights, or murders or drugs or whatever that if a kid is around they stop it immediately. Even if its two gangs fighting each other they all have respect for the kids. There is even a school for the kids here for those who can't afford a school outside. The wives and kids are allowed to come and go as they please. So this is what we took in, within the first few Min's walking through the first section. The food looked good and so did the street stalls.
We then moved onto the rich section. People were in courtyards watching flat screen TVs with surround sound. Cable TV and water comes free for all prisoners and in the poorer sections they didn't have flat screens but still had TVs and even little street stalls selling copyright DVDs. In the rich section you can buy or rent cells or apartments. I've heard the most expensive is $10,000 USD. Most of the others could have been roughly $400 - $800 to buy. I'm not sure of the exact figures though. The people living in this section would not walk around other poorer sections cause they would be robbed and killed for their money. In this area our prisoner was meant to be but he couldn't afford it so had to live in a poorer section. In this area it was roughly 105 Bolivians to rent per month or 800 to buy I think. In the poorer sections they talk in Bolivianos rather than dollars. There are also hostel like areas or dorms which are 2.50 per night. For the record 1 Dollar is 7 Bolivians or 9 Euros. Within the rich and medium class sections there was a sauna, gym in which they paid 20 Bolivians per month to use and there was a number of basketball courts throughout. Each section was part of a soccer tournament also. These were played on the basketball courts. As I said already in each section they had crests painted up just like soccer crests and teams. Regularly these matches would develop into flights which depending how violent it got the police might come in the stop it.
At one point our guide stopped to show us another section we couldn't go to. He said that's where all the murders and rapists went. Because everyone around us was so friendly and with their families we then figured we were in an area of people who had done less crimes than that. We asked him what most people were here for and he said trafficking. Again because of the friendliness of the people one of the girls actually asked the Q: "road trafficking?"!!!! Was so funny. Of course he meant drug trafficking. But we found out a few minutes later that we'd misunderstood him. When he'd pointed out the off limits section for murderers and stuff he meant people who had murdered within the prison. Not people who were in for murder. So everyone in the public areas was there for all sorts of crimes. Any westerners were all there for drugs. We weren't sure whether to ask him what he was in for or not but then one of the guys decided to. He said are you sure you want to know?? Cause its pretty bad. We said ya. Apparently he'd gotten in a bar fight, drunken, the other guy was trying to stab him and it was either him or the other guy. So he ended up murdering the other guy. He was only 25. A really really nice guy. I know it sounds stupid but you could see how sorry he was for what he'd done. I actually felt sorry for him. He was living in there with his wife, a beautiful girl who was pregnant in one of the poorer sections. A tiny cramped little room that sometimes has three or four people living inside. Down this dark narrow corridor where in the hallways nearby were just smelling of piss. You'd think we should have been the ones nervous doing the tour but a lot lot of tourists come in and out of here everyday. There has never been an incident we heard of, of anything happening to any tourist cause the prisoners and the cops get a lot of money out of this. So it was funny that our guide was more nervous than us. He kept saying how nervous he was cause it was his first time doing the tour and he wanted to do it right!
After seeing his section we moved throughout a few others. He showed us a place where two or three guys had had a cell and dug a tunnel under the prison to escape never to be seen again. He showed us dark corridors where bodies used to be left when they were murdered. We saw punishment pools, pools of freezing cold water where people would be put for half an hour for doing bad things and having to thread water. The isolation section where people could be left for 40 days. Then the games room, gyms, saunas etc. Even PlayStation for the kids. We obviously saw the nice calm side of it. But as the book says its not a place you want to be at night. Life looks simple here during the day, a lot nicer than any other prison you can imagine cause they have the freedom but this is just an illusion I guess. In the past it was apparently very different as well. The book March Powder is about an English guy who was locked up in there. I've only just started it, but its famous around here and well worth it. The author of it was a backpacker like us who'd heard about the place, met this English prisoner doing a tour and then decided to move in there for three months to write a book about him. He paid the cops to move into the prison. So a lot of the prisoners have read the book and they might not have as much freedom as they used to before. We've heard that they used to be able to pay the cops to let themselves outside for the day! On the other hand things aren't as dangerous as they used to be either I think. Apparently they are now making a movie about it so watch out for that.
Inside the prison they also have beers and bars. At the end of our tour we were taken to a room where we were offered whatever we want. There is drug factories inside the prison. Apparently some of the best Cocaine in Bolivia is manufactured inside here. All the tourists are offered it on their trip, a lot of them buy it and leave the prison with it the cops saying nothing. A lot of them try it in there. Its known as part of the tour. None of our group wanted to do it but while we were in there there was a lot of other groups we passed by where a few of them tried it. A lot of the prisoners as well are addicted but this is just another business inside. The prisoners need to work to make money to survive and they all have different jobs. As I said some of them work in restaurants, our guide make little bracelets and jewellery. Other people make coke. Some of the richer prisoners will buy two or three cells and rent them out therefore making them more money. Those who refused to work were sent to the kitchen where they had the biggest cooking pots I've ever seen and were made sleep on the floor and got beaten for not working. I also heard the any rapists or murderers that arrive in get beaten non stop for months by the inmates. These are seen as the worst guys. Walking around we saw a lot of scars and prisoners faces as well that are obviously knife wounds.
Don't read some of these stories if you don't want to hear some sick stuff:
Everyone that went there had a different experience cause of the different guides they had. I would love to try it again to hear some of the stories. One of my friends had some pretty awful. His neighbour was in there for murder. He had taken his wife or girlfriend and slit her from her head to her vagina. Then cut off her head and opened her body up. In court he claimed he was crazy and got out within 24 months. Another story was someone was killed in the prison and chopped into pieces and put into a garbage can. Wasn't found for three days. One of the guides was in there twice for armed robbery. He told their group that he had one or two weeks left. One if he could afford to pay the cops off. He also mentioned as soon as he got out he was going to rob again and would probably be back in there again. Some of the people get so accustomed to life in here they just want to get back in. That what they said about some of the kids growing up in there. They'll leave and commit a crime just to get back in.
All in all it was a very interesting place. By the way I wrote this it might have sounded like we were at risk or danger but there was absolutely no danger bout it. We had a bodyguard and a guide. Apart from when the place is shut due to the governors regulations there are shit loads of tourists coming in there everyday and the inmates have no reason to harm something that is binging them lots and lots of money. I could probably have written a totally different experience if I had read the book first but for anyone who's interested in reading it, its called Marching Powder by Rusty Young and Thomas Mcfadden. Someone asked me is the book true, and yes everything in it is or was true but they might now have as many privileges anymore since the book came out.
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