He feeds them mice he captures in a cage he made out of scrap metal. Mathieu is getting out this month. He'll be thrilled to leave the windowless old chapel he shares with 23 other inmates. Under successive dictatorships, political prisoners were held here instead of with other prisoners. The more fortunate residents of the cell own a slim layer of foam.
Some inmates have nothing.
The prisoners spend most of their time looking vacantly through the rusting bars of the chapel onto a courtyard. Only 818 men out of 3,063 in the country's jails have been convicted of crimes. The same applies for 23 out of the 167 women held, and 14 minors out of 79 who are in jail. The lack of bail accounts in part for the overcrowding. The reason for no bail is both historical and practical.