See this BBC “Photo Journal” on the San Pedro Prison in La Paz, where there are no guards or metal bars on cell windows. Inmates, who can live wih their children, have to pay for their cells with money earned from jobs in the prison economy. Some sell groceries, work in food stalls, hotels, or restaurants, while others work as hairdressers, laundry staff, carpenters, shoe-shine boys, or TV and radio repairmen.
“If you have money you can live like a king,” an inmate told me. Money can buy you accommodation in the “posh” sections of the prison – one of the best is Los Pinos. Here, cells are spacious and have private bathrooms, kitchen and cable TV. Outside, they have billiard tables, kiosks selling fresh juice, and food stalls. Cells cost between $1,000 and $1,500 and are bought for the duration of an inmate’s sentence.In the poor areas of the prison, inmates have to share small cells.
Thanks to Bolivia Web Blog.
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On page 10 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/americas_inside_a_bolivian_jail/html/10.stm) it looks like the phrase “Libertad y Justicia Para Todos” is partially cut off at the “tad” in “Libertad.”
“Liberty and Justice For All,” now that sounds strangely familiar, doesn’t it? Funny to see it in a Bolivian prison.
Ah, now I read the caption next to the photo and that is indeed what it said.
Still kind of surreal.
I never thought Bolovia would be a good example of the free market at work! I wonder if the left wing government is seeking prison reform? There was something like this going on in a Colombia prison and they got rid of all of it.
I do know that the new left-wing government there is going to decriminalize coca production.
The best thing Columbia could do for its country, which is plagued by endless violence stemming from the cocaine trade, would be to legalize it, 100%. The loss of US aid (which is quite hefty; I think it’s a couple billion dollars a year) would be more than offset with getting rid of all the violence in Columbia. What’s more, legitimizing coca farming and cocaine production would bring the sector out of the black market and into the regular market, thereby stimulating other sectors of the economy.
It would be nice if someone did a report on how well the “elected representatives” do controlling violence and resolving conflicts. Whenever humans get together, some form of organization has to come about. As the majority of prisoners are in for drugs, and therefore presumably don’t have the sky-high time preference of real criminals, a decent social order should be possible. In theory.
Although legalization would certainly be a great thing, I think cutting off most foreign aid would be a good thing regardless. It is just governments giving other governments money.
Perhaps drug offenders aren’t “real criminals” (I hate that term, but I’m a legal positivist), but the criminal status in their trade results in the worst rising to the top. The organized violence and gangs arise and sustain themselves out of profitable activities like the drug trade that are kept out of the overground economy. When brought back out we get Budweiser and Miller, who make commercials instead of killing each other. Before then you have Al Capone and Dutch Schultz. The prisons only exacerbate their worst tendencies, although fortunately they seperate the rest of society from them.
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