if you know the title of this entry then you are either from brasil or you listen to sepultura. that is the first line in the song "manifest". it is about the riot at carandiru prison. i just watched the film "carandiru". damn you crazy brazilians and your movies about crime and violence. i first heard about this movie when i was at a hostel in new zealand and some boys from brasil and mexico were watching this. just another prison movie i thought. this movie really wasn't like i thought it'd be. it wasn't the south american "american" me if you know what i mean.

i suppose what surprised me the most was how the inmates viewed rape. it seemed like rape was the worst possible crime and if they found out someone was sent to jail because of rape, why it made them want to carry out justice themselves. i was surprised because that's the reaction of women. i didn't think men would be so upset over rape since they are usually the rapists. and hello, you're in prison. it's everywhere around you. i guess they differentiate by context like there's levels or rape.

now i've never been in a turkish prison or a russian prison or a chilean prison, etc. i've never served time. regardless, i have this vision of what jail is like due to its portrayal in the media and that certainly did not match "carandiru". the living conditions were more like a college dorm than a prison to me. that is because the inmates were wearing casual street clothes and seemed to have a certain degree of autonomy within the prison complex. also, they had radios, tvs, and even stove burners in their cells.