Imagine you found yourself on a 23-hour lockdown, isolated for most of the day, with four walls,
a frosted glass window, and a steel toilet bowl as your scenery day-in, day-out.
Sounds rough eh, it would drive you close to madness.
But then imagine if you were arrested in a developing nation where the cells aren’t
made for one, or even two people.
These cells are packed to the brim with sweaty bodies, and that means feet in your face while
you sleep.
It means crossing over numerous dangerous men when you need to relieve yourself in the
middle of the night because the rank food you ate is quickly trying to find its way
back out of you.
Disease-carrying mosquitoes buzz in your ear, a dim light stays on all night and you lie
there like a canned sardine reminiscing about the time you had space and felt cool.
You are condemned, and worse, no legal authority is in charge.
This is the reality for many criminals in various parts of the developing world.
Take for instance the notorious prison in Thailand nicknamed, “The Bangkok Hilton.”
Scores of westerners made the bad decision to traffic illegal substances and ended up
with a prolonged stay in this dirty hotel.
They write about being packed in a cell with up to 50 other men.
You can’t even turn over when you sleep, and worse for the newcomers, they are shackled.
One man interviewed said he was repatriated to an English prison after serving many years
in the Bangkok Hilton, and he said that despite the overcrowding he at least could move around
the yard all day.
He hated being locked up in the UK’s Wandsworth prison for sometimes over 23 hours a day.
And in Wandsworth, the guards are in charge.
In Thailand that’s also a fact for the most part, but inmates called trustees also rule
the roost.
Get on the wrong side of them and you could be beaten to death.
The guards will turn a blind eye.
It happens, and it’s well documented.
But what if the guards weren’t in charge at all, if the prison was a kind of criminal
hierarchy, anarchy behind bars?
Well, let’s now introduce you to such a place.
It’s called the Manila City Jail in the Philippines.
Like most other places of confinement it’s walls contain cutthroats, scammers, bullies,
murderers and thieves.
But unlike most other places it’s overcrowding has gotten so bad the photographs of the dorms
look like something from a horror movie.
Men literally sleep not just packed in side by side, but with no choice than to lie partly
on the man next to them.
Well, if you’re the big man in the cell you might get a better space, but most men
sleep on a mat on the floor, and the temperatures are hot as hell.
And this can be their life for many, many years.
We should say that in most jails such as this one, and ones all over this part of the world,
a bit of money will get you out of the most cramped cell and into a better one.
Some cash in hand will get you clean water and better food, but you’ll be paying a
marked up price.
As many people have pointed out, many jails in South East Asia are a business for the
guards and administrators.
The most vulnerable are exploited to the max and it would be a tough to argue that anything
even remotely resembling rehabilitation goes on.
But for the poor guys there is no alternative than to sweat it out on the floor and drink
only contaminated tap water.
The New York Times went to Manila jail and wrote that one particular dorm design to house
170 contained 518 men.
Yep, you heard that right.
Six men slept around the toilet bowl in the space designated for a bathroom.
Can you imagine being the unlucky soul that has to sleep where men all through the night
empty their bladders and bowels?
This is how the Times described the sleeping quarters of the main cell.
“The inmates were cupped into each other, limbs draped over a neighbor’s waist or
knee, feet tucked against someone else’s head, too tightly packed to toss and turn
in the sweltering heat.”
You probably have a good idea why prisons in the Philippines are overflowing.
President Rodrigo Duterte has instituted an anti-drug campaign like no other in the world
with zero-tolerance for practically every possible drug offense.
Drug dealers and users are often shot in the streets, and the rest end up behind bars.
According to statistics produced by “The World Prison Brief” the Philippines has
the most overcrowded prisons in the world, followed by Haiti, Bolivia, Guatemala and
Uganda.
The occupancy level is 463.6 percent.
Haiti isn’t far behind, but after that other countries aren’t anywhere near as bad.
The USA is said to be only 103.9 percent of total capacity, but then building prisons
in the U.S. is a thriving industry.
With this in mind, imagine how you’d control a prison which is literally sandwiching men
in its walls.
Imagine being a guard among all those dangerous men.
How on Earth would you control such a place?
The answer is of course, you don’t, not really.
The prison has its own rules many of which are set by the prisoners.
One such rule is you can pay for space.
That space is called a “kubol”, which basically means a cubicle that is partitioned
off from the rest of the cell.
You don’t get that for yourself, though, you’ll have a couple of other sweaty bodies
in with you.
Who do you pay?
Well, the gangs run the joint.
They have an agreement with the guards that they will try and keep the peace if they are
allowed to do their business.
That might be selling floor space, or it might mean selling opium derivatives to inmates
that have long said goodbye to reality.
You want clean water?
Meat instead of fish head soup?
You have a word with one of the gangs.
Nonetheless, Human Rights advocates have called this jail anarchy a kind of torture, a living
hell.
But the Philippine judicial system is crawling with corruption.
The New York Times writes that it pays for judges and lawyers to move slowly with trials
so that they have more time to receive bribes.
There’s actually a saying all over South East Asia along the lines of “rich men don’t
go to jail,” not unless someone wants to make an example of them.
Prisoners might languish for years waiting for a court date, only to discover they have
a corrupt lawyer whose only efforts have been to take as much as he can from them.
“You stay so long inside the jail you need to develop a coping mechanism to survive,”
said one academic who has studied the Philippine prison and jail systems.
If there is a good thing about the gangs running the place he said it’s that there is a communal
spirit.
People literally go insane in isolation in U.S. jails, just from having very little contact
with people or even regular doses of fresh air.
In Manila there is no shortage of people or fresh air, but if for some reason you don’t
fit into this community then your life will be utterly miserable.
Well, you might not have a life for long.
There really isn’t a choice for the prison itself but to allow the inmates to run the
place.
For every guard in Manila City Jail there are 528 inmates.
Guess what the Philippine government recommends as a suitable ratio?
Seven to one, not 528 to one.
That is quite the difference.
According to the American Jail Association the average guard-inmate ratio in the U.S.
is ten to one.
It varies and sources give different answers, and you might also see the figure nine to
one.
So, just imagine what 528 to one would be like?
Would you want to do the job of actually enforcing the rules in Manila City Jail or would you
also leave it to the prisoners?
We actually can’t find news reports of guards being killed in this jail, but it seems inmates
don’t fare so well at times.
One newspaper in the Philippines wrote in 2018 that in the space of two years 55 inmates
in Manila City Jail had died and the main reason for that was overcrowding.
The report says that being in such a packed place led to health problems.
Poor sanitation was also to blame, and in at least one case a person just died from
being too hot.
Some inmates though were beaten to death.
These were the guys that didn’t quite make it as members of the community.
Human Rights groups have called these conditions cruel, inhumane, brutal.
The disease, the heat, the fact you can’t move, means tensions rise, said one foundation.
“Having to fight for air and space 24 hours a day make prison, in the words of inmates,
a living death,” said that report.
The same report stated, “Add dirty tap water, dingy toilets, substandard meals, gang war,
poorly trained guards and prison administrators, favoritism, and you have a system built for
punishment, not for rehabilitation.”
It’s not all horror, though.
You can see pictures of inmates praying in the prison mosque.
It at least looks clean and spacious.
You can see them getting a haircut, smiling.
The guards there and administration openly admit that they have little control over the
prison population, but they say they need gang rule for any kind of equilibrium at all.
They say if the gangs didn’t run the place then all hell would break loose.
One such gang called the Sigue Sigue Sputnik gang has a big stake in how things are run,
but it’s said there are five main gangs.
A leader from that gang said they have all kinds of ways to make money behind the prison
walls.
He said the cash they earned would go into a pool and sometimes it would buy them treats.
For instance, they managed to save a ton of cash to buy pigs and chickens that they cooked
for a Christmas dinner.
They also use the money for medical emergencies, but it seems that only goes to people in the
gang.
The strange thing is, though, is that while the guards allow them the run of the jail
at times there will be raids.
The guards turn a blind eye, but then sometimes crackdown and make a bit of money for themselves.
One such raid by the guards meant the gang lost $13,700.
Quite the sum for inside jail.
The same gang member from earlier said boredom drives them mad, so they have to keep themselves
occupied by running businesses.
He said because of the cramped conditions you just can’t avoid fighting.
It happens a lot, but if you do it in a cell where his gang runs things you’ll get in
trouble.
Start a fight and you’ll get five lashes with a piece of wood.
If you beat that person badly you’ll get maybe 15 or 20 lashes.
But what is worse is trying to approach the visitor of another inmate.
That means women.
If you do try and talk to someone else’s woman you’ll get 20 lashes.
If you wink at her you’ll get 25 lashes.
Being whipped is no small deal, either.
25 lashes is extremely painful and can lead to infections in open wounds.
It’s barbaric, yes, but the men are treated like animals and so they act accordingly.
You can’t rule chaos with a pen and paper, but it’s said the gangs do try and run things
ethically.
The interviewed gang leader was about to be released and someone else would take his place.
When asked what kind of person could do that he said, “Someone godly, who cares about
people, wants to do the right thing and is judicious in his discipline.”
So, how do you think you’d deal with these conditions?
The big question is, would you prefer quiet isolation in a clean cell, with medical staff,
working laws to protect you, or would you prefer utter chaos but at least in a community?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video How To Survive Inside Prison.
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.