Go to Jail, Go Directly to Jail, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

Today, continuing my death-tourism stint, I tried to visit the infamous San Pedro prison. San Pedro used to have a brusque tourism business, but visits were called off after few too many tourists were caught buying cocaine. In order to visit, I had to have an inmate to visit and official permission.

Sebastian, a Dutch tourist awaiting trial on cocaine charges, and a friend of a friend, invited me to visit him. Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain official permission to visit him. Apparently, Sebastian was on some sort of probation, I was suspicious because I was white, and the person I needed to bribe was away on other business.

Instead, the guards let me stand at the gate and talk to Sebastian. Being a white woman and bearing a carton of cigarettes, a bag of chocolates and bars of soap, the inmates clamoured at the iron gate to talk to and touch me. The majority of the men I met were awaiting trial, almost all of them on drug charges. Some of them have been stuck in the stalled judicial system for years.

Inside the prison there are no guards, no uniforms and no real rules. The 1,500 or so prisoners must resolve disputes among themselves. They organize into unions and elect leaders. The prisoners are also quite political. Posters of Evo adorn all of the walls, and candidates campaign inside the prison. Problems that can’t be resolved peaceably are usually settled with knife fights. Prisoners accused of commiting particularly heinous crimes are often killed in vigilante violence. There are an average of four deaths, from 'accidents' and natural causes, each month.

San Pedro is divided into eight separate barrios, each centered its own patio. Some areas are better than others, and each has a hotel-style star rating. While wealthy inmates can buy or rent cells, poorer inmates sleep on crowded corridor floors. Towards the top of the prison, the cells are quite swank, complete with kitchens and bathrooms. One drug-baron, caught with $420 million worth of cocaine, had a second story built onto his cell. On the first floor, the cells are unsafe, with violence, vermin and diseases running rampant.

To supplement their meager rations, improve their cells and survive the prisoners must earn money. The prison is like a little city, with food stalls, repair shops, shoeshine boys, barbers, billiard halls and everything else you could want. However, the two biggest businesses in San Pedro are distractions from the difficult life: drink and drugs and soccer. Contraband substances seem to flow freely through the prison, the officials easily paid-off. There are cocaine laboratories in some of the cells. Apparently, it is so lucrative that many of the San Pedro guards pay for their postings. Soccer is almost equally important. Coca-cola sponsors the teams, in exchange for exclusive sales in the prison. On big games single bets can reach $1000. Sometimes, players are even scouted out by the wealthier sections.

Family members can come and go freely and some children live in the prison. There are so many of them, San Pedro has its own school. Without other relatives, the children don’t have any options. They offer suffer abuse, and are always stigmatized. However, as one father explained to me, they do their best to shield their kids from the violence and shame, and they are able to provide some stability and normality because they stay together as a family.

The San Pedro prison was an incredibly interesting and ironic place, a microcosm of Bolivian society. The majority of inmates are indigenous, there’s an astonishing divide between rich and poor, and almost everyone is there as a result the War on Drugs. Although I'm glad I visited, I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard as I did on the cab ride home.

For more information and some excellent photos of the inside check out this BBC article and the Marching Powder website.