Children need to escape jail lifestyle

Children need to escape jail lifestyle

by Daniel Johns

The Laurier Heights team visited the San Sebastion prison for women last Friday. We were not allowed to take any photos. It is important to know what the living conditions are in this prison because the children that the Casa de La Amistad serves come from San Sebastion, and from two nearby prisons for men. I will describe what San Sebastion was like physically, but I can only leave it to the reader´s imagination to consider how it would feel to actually live there. I can tell you that living there will be worse than my description of the physical surroundings. I know this because as part of my job I have visited every prison in Alberta, but one. I read inmate files. There are under ground power struggles and overt violence in all jails, no matter how civilized some of them appear on the surface. This is true no matter whether the jails house men or women, but men´s jails may be more dangerous.

One hundred and thirty eight women and their children currently live in a space that occupies a piece of ground roughly 35 meters by 35 meters, just a little bigger than the piece of land an average Canadian home occupies. The building sits on a street corner, is square and has a courtyard in the middle. From the outside the building is not remarkable and unlike San Sebastion prison for men, which lies kitty corner to the prison for women, there are no guard towers or barb wire.

Again there is little remarkable about the entrance, which is staffed by both men and women in uniform. The jail starts for the visitor, when you step through door leading into the courtyard. It was not as traumatic an entrance as many of us feared, but probably more dramatic than expected. The immediate impression is colour, movement and faces. A lot of people exist in a small space and life centres on the courtyard. It is almost impossible to see the sky, first all because the residents sit under awnings and secondly because the space between the buildings is criss-crossed with clotheslines, so thick it would be hard to string many more. The clothes belong not just to inmates, but to people outside the prison who pay inmates to wash their clothes. Inmates need to earn cash. The government gives them a daily amount to buy all their supplies. It is equivalent to about what it would cost to buy a two litre bottle of coke. This means many live in extreme poverty.

Other businesses in the jail include restaurants, stores and a sewing room where Pastor Steve Simala Grant purchased a table cloth. The sewing room is approximately the size of the average Edmonton living room and had 10 to 15 sewing machines. The restaurant and stores were in the courtyard, as were cooking and washing facilities for inmates to look after their own needs. Cooking is done on a series of hot plates with bare wires strung down the walls leading to precarious looking breaker switches. The inmates were adequately dressed. Unlike the nearby men´s prison, which emits a strong unpleasant ordour, there was no stink and conditions were reasonably clean, considering the population of the facility.

On one floor we found women dancing to taped music. The mattresses on which they sleep were lined up against the wall and some children were sleeping along the walls. Another wing had the commercial laundry facilities and we were told a day care, although we had trouble identifying the day care. Our guide, one of the inmates, told us it was not in operation because visitors like to see it, but don´t help. We were asked to pay for fixing the dryer because in the rainy season it is difficult to dry the customers’ clothes quick enough.

We were also asked to pay for five small electrical heaters used to warm water for the showers. Ivan Gutierrez, who accompanied us, said we could agree to this because the children the Casa serves need the showers. Inmates are allowed one shower a day, but the cost varies depending on when the shower is taken. It is free in the middle of the night and children may shower free, but only at certain times of day. The toilet and shower facility is cramped and dungeon like.

We didn´t see many of the sleeping rooms, but we did pass by one. It was about three meters square with bunk beds on three sides. I understand that in some cases a woman may live in a cell one meter wide with children.

Moving up and down the outside staircases surrounding the courtyard means brushing against people, some sitting breast feeding their babies, some calling across the courtyard and other visiting with each other. Several were obviously pregnant. Children of all ages, including teenaged boys were mixed throughout. A loudspeaker made periodic announcements and at one point I noticed a female guard interacting with an inmate in a friendly manner, giving her a hug. There were window boxes hanging from some railings, many containing house plants that would be familiar to Canadians.

The children are not inmates. They run and out the front door and across a fairly busy street to a square with trees and benches. Casa De la Amistad is on the opposite side of the square. Older children perform errands. I saw one girl, approximately 13, return with two bags of potatoes.

The children also live in the men´s jails. Conditions for the children may vary, depending on the wealth of the inmate who may be able to afford a private room and bring his wife and family into jail with him.

I have heard suggestions, even before I went to visit the jail, that perhaps the Bolivian system is better than the Canadian system because at least the children stay with the parents and are not put in foster homes. Canadian foster homes, as we all know, can fail (although they often perform very well). Casa de La Amistad program does not agree children should be jail. They say the children are exposed to a culture that does not give them examples of how to escape from a criminal environment. They are exposed to violence, ways of speaking and acting that are not appropriate, and can not study for school nor do homework. School may be their only chance to get ahead.

The tour was arranged by the acting director of the Casa de La Amistad, Carla Botani, who accompanied us. It was gratifying to see the affection with which she was received by the children and their mothers. When we left, two young girls hung on to Carla´s hand and walked across the square back to the Casa for the party. Carla´s dream is that one day there will a residence where the children can live outside the jail and its influences, but still be able to pay regular visits to their nearby families.