POPE-LATAM/BOLIVIA-PRISON Pope visits one of Latin America's most notorious jails

Record ID: 147696

  • Title: POPE-LATAM/BOLIVIA-PRISON Pope visits one of Latin America's most notorious jails
  • Date: 10th July 2015
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF INMATES CHEERING POPE LEAVING ON GOLF CART VARIOUS OF INMATE HOLDING UP BABY BEHIND FENCE
  • Embargoed: 25th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAE4KMOBUIE3EDX9V7NFVZYXIFU
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Saying he too had made mistakes and sinned, Pope Francis on Friday (July 10) urged inmates at one of Latin America's most violent prisons to shun gang violence and exhorted guards to treat them with dignity.
    Guards secure only the perimeter of the sprawling, maximum-security Palmasola prison in Bolivia, while murderers and drug traffickers run its units, more shantytowns than prison wings, charging inmates for all aspects of their existence.
    At an emotional gathering on a scruffy sports field, head prisoner Leonidas Martin Rodriguez Delgado told the pope that when he arrived in 1997 it felt like the sinful biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah "because there was no rule of law".
    Pope Francis urged prisoners to shun rivalry and seek "genuine fraternity".
    The pope said that while guards and staff played an important role in reintegration they must respect the prisoners.
    Since being elected the first Latin American pope in 2013, Pope Francis has continued a tradition he started when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, visiting jails several times a year.
    Palmasola is infamous for violence between factions. In one of the worst incidents, in 2013, at least 30 inmates were killed in section PC3, which houses the most dangerous.
    Most of Palmasola's inmates have not been convicted of any crime. Nearly 90 percent of Bolivia's around 12,000 prisoners are awaiting trial, trapped by the Andean country's creaking justice system.
    For the right price, inmates in Palmasola can buy anything: a cell, food, drugs, protection, prostitutes and prime 'real estate' from which to run a business. Without money, though, life is tough, and many prisoners sleep on the floor.
    The pope visited the relatively tranquil PC4 section, where laundry hangs from lines slung between ramshackle buildings, kiosks sell juice, and tables from a cafeteria spill out into a square containing a statue of Jesus Christ.
    Pope Francis was due to meet the country's bishops before flying to Paraguay for the last stop of his Latin American tour.
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