Despite the prison is self-managed, security and administrative management of the prison entrusted to the police. In the pyramid of the prison system, at the back of the interior minister and the director of the penitentiary department there is the colonel-in-chief, the only one who actually lives in the building and, in fact, represents the Bolivian government within the walls of San Pedro. Often they are interviewed by journalist and videomaker and, with same frequency, they are replaced by their superiors.
Section Pinos, which owes its name to a large tree in the middle of his small yard, holds two restaurants, two bars, a soccer field, a billiard room and a study room, now it used as a copy shop. The lack of accommodation available in the prison, because of overcrowding, led prisoners to set up makeshift shelters practically anywhere: attics, stairs and gaps have thus become housing for one or more people, sometimes entire families.
In each section are placed some pay phones equipped with metered and managed by one or more inmates, required to pay the good section of the revenues. The phone, controlled by the police prison, should be the only system of communication with the outside. In truth, most of the prisoners own a mobile phone with which it can continue to manage relationships with the outside and, if they did, their illicit activities, unaware of the police.
Visits inside the prison are allowed for most days of the week and like everything inside the prison are by payment.Visitors are allowed to spend the entire day inside and through an additional payment, even to stay overnight.Who does not receive visits can always reach his loved ones through the inevitable phone, only prohibited on paper and for which refills are sold in many commercial activities managed by the prisoners.
The monoblock of Palmar, although it is a collective dormitory, it is equipped with a TV and three electric hot-plates. Television, inside the prison, is a faithful mate of life for the majority of the prisoners and it continues to remain on even when no one looks.
The roofs of the prison, which are accessed by some cells of the last floor moving a sheet resting on the beams, are used for a variety of activities:drying foods,sunbathing,smoking outdoors and drying clothes . Of this late activity are occupied the mostly of poorest prisoners who, after washing clothes, bedding and mattresses for other companions; they venture on to the rickety sheet metal roofing at about 10 meters above the ground, seriously endangering their lives, to earn only a few pesos.
Within a niche carved into the wall and protected by a wooden structure, a television with a powerful sound system it offers a little âentertainment to the prisoners, in the yard of Palmar section. Often some viewers are not part of the section but, despite being prohibited, there is a tacit tolerance and shared.
Marco, a young twenty year old with a long interval between the recovery community and juvenile prison dreams, as a free man, a future in hip hop music. habitual consumer of alcohol and drugs of all kinds, he wrote his lyrics mostly in prison, where he finds every day a lot of ideas, including the conditions of the detainees and their adventures before his arrest. It is more inspired by Latin American artists and Cypress Hill.
Among the many commercial and craft activities there is a dressmakerâs workroom manage by 3 three prisoners, which shall make garments both for the prisoners themselves than for external institutions and associations. Genaro, the head of the workshop, he learned to be a tailor in prison and dreams, as a free man, to open his own workshop. In his past, for years, he had always dealt with the cocaine refining process in the Bolivian jungle and he had never done work legally paid.
In addition to the shelters and individual cells, there are also common dormitories, arranged to accommodate a larger number of prisoners, because the rent of a single cell is quite expensive and many can not afford it.To convict it is given a bed, a personal locker and the possibility to use the common warming. So, without any rehabilitative logic, prisoners in preventive detention, young thieves and small-time dealers must live side by side with murderers, rapists and drug traffickers.
Several times a week entering hundreds of liters of smuggled alcohol in San Pedro. Corruption, which is overflowing among the police, it allows the input and feeds a commercial chain, as well, is created. Mostly it is pure alcohol at 96 °, manufactured by the bolivian company names Caiman and packaged in aluminum cans of 1 liter with a characteristic purple color. After the resale and consumption of their content, the latter are recycled within the prison and thus become pretty toys sold outside.
Penitenziary organization gives the breakfast and the lunch to the prisoners, in the plazas of the sections. Out of this, everything is by payment. Every is coocked by prisoners in the kitchen of Palmar section.
Few weeks later, I find back Philippe in a laundromat.
Philippe smoking cocaïne at a laundromat.
Philippe showing a few crack pipes and a small strip used for preparing the cocaïne.
Philippe is happy to show his new teeth which was paid for by his social insurance.
Even if he feels tired, Philippe wants a last shoot and goes out to try and find some. Outside it’s snowing.
Philippe showing his last tooth. Smoking crack and cocaïne destroys the teeth. Most drug addicts suffer from damaged teeth and some have none.
At the end of the day, Philippe doesn’t have any more money to pay for his room in a hotel. An association for helping drug addicts helps him by paying for a room. It is freezing outside and he doesn't want to sleep in the streets.
At the end of the day Philippe is tired. He didn’t eat anything in the day and he is far-fetched.
At the end of the day, Philippe is tired. He didn’t eat anything in the day and he is exhausted.
Philippe tidies up the few things he brought to the room.
Philippe smoking cocaïne below a highway. This area is full of drug addicts. Dealers are not far from the area, but they stay hidden.
Philippe smoking cocaïne on the bottom of a highway. He is always aware of his surroundings and watching around to see if any cops are nearby.
Philippe is quickly high after his shoot.
Few minutes after his shoot, Philippe wants one more. But he doesn’t feel secure in this place and decides to move to another one.
On the bottom of another highway, Philippe is smoking cocaïne in a makeshift shelter built with waste materials found in the area.
On the bottom of another highway, Philippe is smoking cocaïne in a makeshift shelter built with waste materials found in the area.
Philippe smoking cocaïne. He used to smoke it around ten times per day.
Philippe smoking cocaïne on the bottom of a highway.
Philippe is preparing a shoot below a highway.
Philippe is preparing a shoot with a crack pipe and a piece of cocaïne
Smoking cocaïne acts like an appetite suppressant. Drug addicts' nutrition is completly disorganised because of a bad diet.
Philippe is preparing a shoot with a crack pipe and a piece of coke.
Philippe smoking cocaïne.
UPP soldiers Juliana Gomes, De Luca and Maia watch the surroundings and the beaches of Leblon and Ipanema from the top of the shantytown of Vidigal, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 13, 2012.
An inhabitant of the shantytown of Vidigal smokes a cannabis cigarette, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, March 14, 2012.
A horse runs away from a Riot Police officer, while he patrols during the Occupation of one shantytown who belongs to the group of slums called Complexo de Alemao, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 26, 2012.
UPP Soldiers Queiroz, Neris, Ferreira and L.Guedes from the 2nd UPP of the 4th Military Police Battalion inspect the overview of the favela of Sao Carlos from a waste ground know as Larguinho, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 28, 2012.
UPP soldiers Ricardo Da Silva and Octavio Sardiña take out their guns before searching a group of people suspected of possesing drugs, in the shatytown of Vidigal, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 13, 2012