I knocked on the guardhouse. When the stern-faced guarded opened the gate I showed him my ID and my letter authorizing me to enter the Mexico City boys’ prison. I registered, removed my belt and left everything but my notepad and pen. Then he led me down a passageway and into the large courtyard of the juvenile prison.
The director, a slender middle-aged woman named Alejandra gave me a lengthy tour of the facility; the dining room, kitchen, courtyard, wood shop, class rooms, and dormitories. As we went to each of the eight dormitories, she would ask the boys “Are you treated well? Are you well fed? Do you have any complaints?” Yes, Yes and No were the automatic answers each time.
Some boys were playing soccer in a concrete courtyard. Others stood in a circle joking with a guard. They all wore the same “uniform” of blue sweatpants, white t-shirts and blue flip-flops. It left an impression of happy boy with enriching activities, kind of like summer camp.
The last stop on the tour was a guitar class. The volunteer music teacher sat with about ten boys and they all played and sang a song they had written called Visiting Day:
“I
feel so sad
I am
angry
Because
I am here
But
I trust
In
my family
Even
though I did not want to listen.”
“Misplaced
Out
of control
I
cannot be happy here
When
all of my family is somewhere else
Being
locked up is so hard.”
“Saturday
and Sunday
Families
hurry to see their kids
And
try to have a good time.
Even
though it is just a little while
To
be together even though they are locked up.
Because
it´s the law.”
“The
sad rain
Of
Families crying
Because
they have to be separated
For
all of the damage
They
have caused
By
following evil men.”
“They
didn’t realizing
That
so many people
Support
and love them
When
they were in the street
Always
drugged
My
poor mother looked
To
the heavens crying.”
“Saturday
and Sunday…
Because
it’s the law
Because
it’s the law.”
The boys had written a dozen such songs for an upcoming music program. These were not summer camp songs. “With my shadow I am not alone”, “I want to be like air to be in anyplace” and “I do not want to be chained, I do not want to die here” were some of the lines from their songs.
Once the boys found out that I was an American lawyer they all wanted to tell me their stories. Most of them had been grabbed off the street by the police without knowing why they were being arrested. One mother, who tightly held her son’s hand, told me she had searched all over the city for him the day he disappeared and finally found him the next morning at the juvenile prison.
Most kids saw their parents every weekend on visiting day. Not Pablo.[1] Pablo was a small, smiley little thirteen-year-old. He hadn’t talked to his parents in weeks. They didn´t even know he was in prison. Pablo came from an indigenous community in the mountains of Oaxaca about eight hours from Mexico City. Despite his smile, he was scared and very alone.
The most ubiquitous image of juvenile delinquency in the Mexican media is the “niño sicario” or child assassin, a thirteen year old boy who confessed to participating in ten murders. Despite the sensational journalism surrounding this one case, 90 percent of the juveniles in Mexico City were arrested for property crimes and less than three percent for homicide.
The justice system is hard on petty criminals but ineffective at prosecuting organized crime and violent offenses. This is because prosecutors rely almost exclusively on confessions, often extracted by mistreatment or torture, but they are not experienced in building complex cases based on carefully gathered evidence. The United States Agency for International Development has been helping Mexico reform its justice system and increase the respect for human rights. But almost no resources have gone to the juvenile system.
I wished Pablo luck, just like I wished luck and said a prayer for every child I met. They would need it.
Kids in Mexico’s detention system often suffer from depression and stop going to school. Some will join gangs and be rearrested as adults for serious crimes. The lack of services to help them transition back makes Mexico’s public security problems worse by turning petty-criminals into serious adult offenders.
As I left I thanked Pablo for talking to me. He was accused of a petty theft and would normally be released on bail. But until his parents showed up and paid $450 he would stay in prison. Pablo wasn’t alone. About ten percent of the kids here couldn’t afford to pay bail and had to stay in prison for up to six months until the end of their trials. Because it’s the law, because it’s the law.
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