Spain's Wrong Model Prison
31 minutes, 2004
Ref: 086tvc

Barcelona's "Model" prison is quietly celebrating its 100th birthday this year. To mark the occasion, "30 Minuts" was given a rare opportunity to roam through the jail and freely interview inmates and guards. The report is a damning indictment of conditions in Spain's prisons. When built, the "model" penitentiary was widely copied in Europe as a paragon of humane, scientific prison management. But now, a century later, the place typifies everything that is wrong with the Spanish penitentiary system. The cells are horribly overcrowded. A place designed with 700 one-man cells now has up to half a dozen convicts crammed together in each tiny cell. Men loll about on their bunks because there is no room to move. The shared toilet is one of the few places to sit. But if the present is bad, the jail's history is even grimmer. Over 15,000 people were detained here after the Spanish Civil War in conditions reminiscent of concentration camps. In the 1980's, the country was too busy propping up a fragile democracy to bother much about the prisons. Stabbings, suicides and riots were commonplace and warders speak on camera of the ever-present stench of fresh blood. Even though the riots of the 1980s seem a thing of the past, pressure is building once again. Spain's draconian immigration laws and tougher sentencing are putting more people behind bars than ever. As the country's prisons strain to breaking point, the Model jail could be one of the first to give. Warders and prisoners tell our reporters of the communication breakdown and tensions caused by the swelling numbers of imprisoned immigrants. Things are not made any better by the health statistics - about a third of the prisoners (many drug offenders) are HIV positive and hepatitis C is rife. Vocational training is the exception rather than the rule and the prison's rehabilitation record is miserable. Far from being a model, the seedy downtown jail is little more than a social dumping ground. Not surprisingly, many citizens are demanding the place be closed. The chances of that are slim - Spain's soaring prison population makes it likely that Barcelona's "Model" will be in business for many years to come.