The law stands in direct violation of both the Bolivian Constitution and the UN Charter on Human Rights. Many of the thousand plus prisoners who incarcerated without sentence often do not go to jail by themselves. In the women's jail alone more than 200 children live as inmates with their parents, the product of having no where else to go and the dedication by inmates to keep their families together. These families live under conditions that most people in the US would find unimaginable. Actual jail cells are a luxury, going only to those who can afford to pay for them.
Most prisoners sleep on mats in small winter-chilled concrete courtyards.
KEPT Hunger striking prisoners presented judicial officials with a list of ten specific demands, with two basic themes - swift action from the courts to release those who were imprisoned without sentence and improvements in the inhumane conditions under which prisoners are forced to live. Startled officials begged for time and prisoners agreed to a month. At a meeting on May 29, prisoners agreed to give officials one more month to act on their promises. The monument commemorates a battle in 1812 in which Cochabamba's women and children waged a heroic last stand against invading Spaniards. On June 29 the women and children of San Sebastian may well be forced to take up their own battle once more, over such radical demands as the presumption of innocence, the right to a day in court and a safe, decent place to sleep while they wait for that justice to move forward.