Inside the World's Toughest Prisons

Danli prison, Honduras,

home to over 700 inmates,

many of them serving time for murder and for rape.

With three times more prisoners than it was built for and not enough funding,

the authorities have decided on a risky approach.

They've armed the toughest prisoners with weapons

and given them the power to police themselves.

I'm Paul Connolly,

and for the first time on television...

Fuck's sake!

...I'm going behind bars in Danli prison

to live like an inmate.

They've taken a very serious interest in me.

I want to find out how this potentially explosive system works.

At any second, something could boil over.

In a world where criminals enforce the rules.

I definitely feel very, very much out of my comfort zone.

With a steady stream of drugs and weapons flowing inside these walls,

survival alone has a price tag,

making this one of the most lawless prisons

in all of Central America.

Honduras, the murder capital of the world.

Over 400 people are killed here every month.

-Many victims of a vicious turf war... -

...between drug traffickers running cocaine

from South America to the US.

But now the military is fighting back,

taking gangs off the streets

and filling the prisons with some of the country's most dangerous criminals.

Danli prison squeezes over 700 inmates

into a compound built for just 240.

It's so overcrowded, the guards let the prisoners run the interior.

OK.

And I want to experience what life in here

is really like for an inmate.

So this is how it starts, if you're found guilty of something,

if you're convicted here at Danli courthouse,

you're headed for Danli jail, you're cuffed up, you're frisked down,

and you're loaded up into a truck.

On the way to the prison,

I take a good look at my new surroundings.

I know Honduras is Central America's second poorest country,

but, still, I'm shocked by what I'm seeing.

I suppose it's the case here that no matter what you're told to expect,

it's always going to be a shock, it's always going to be a surprise.

I did expect to see poverty, but not on...

not on this scale. It's an incredibly poor place.

And I suppose what's constantly playing on my mind,

is the danger element.

For now, I'm protected by armed guards.

But once inside Danli prison,

it will be murderers and rapists who are in control.

As we get closer, I worry, too,

about how bad living conditions are going to be.

The government spends only 43 pence per day to feed each inmate.

There's no surveillance, no electronic security,

and basically the prison has been left to rot for the last 30 years.

Well, first impressions are that

you know, none of what's in here is what I'd imagined.

It's com-- So strange and so unfamiliar and so bizarre to me.

I mean, there were, on the outside when we were coming in,

there were kids walking past the gates, going to school.

There are chickens and then in very sort of stark contrast,

you see police everywhere, you see serious, serious firepower,

and even stranger is that, you know,

it's against this incredibly lush tropical background.

It's like a prison in Jurassic Park.

Most of the convicts in Danli are imprisoned in a compound

surrounded by five meter walls.

And, in here, the prisoners are in charge.

Locked inside the Bartolinas,

a maze of cramped, overcrowded cells.

Outside is where the guards patrol and where they live .

It's also where my time as an inmate kicks off.

-What is your name? -It's Paul Connolly.

Is it the first time you've been jailed?

Yes, I've never been in jail before.

Go there, to the showers.

Before I can go inside,

the guards check that I'm not bringing in anything illegal.

Take off your clothes and your shoes.

So, what are you-- What is it that you're...

that you're looking for?

If you've been injured, you might bring in drugs or something.

Now get dressed. Everything is fine.

Finished? Now I can put it back again?

All right.

Even though I'm being stripped down,

this still feels like a fairly lax search.

It's not the most thorough of searches if you did want to smuggle something in,

I suppose in the cavity that shall remain nameless.

But I'm thankful it didn't go any further than that.

The next step is to take my fingerprints...

and my mug shot.

Look at the camera!

Then I'm sent on my way, into the lions den.

Just looking inside, they're taking a very serious interest in me.

It's here, in this holding cell,

that I say goodbye to the guards, as they lock themselves out.

Once I set foot inside the prisoners compound,

then all bets are off.

I'll have to play by the prisoners' rules

enforced by convicts known as co-ordinators,

and their godfather-like leader, Nery Calero.

So, I'm waiting for this guy they call Nery who is the general co-ordinator.

He is a convicted murderer.

I don't know if I'm going to be targeted for being a westerner,

for being a newbie, for being fresh meat in here.

And I definitely feel very much,

very, very much out of my comfort zone at this second.

Look after him.

Bring him in, yeah!

Nery doesn't even greet me,

instead he orders two of his co-ordinators to lead me in.

Go in there, you are going to be searched.

Enter in here?

Your shirt.

So I need to take off my clothes?

Everything, everything.

And it turns out Nery's boys don't trust the thoroughness

of the guards' strip search.

Yeah, I get it.

Your shoes.

So I have to take off everything?

Yes, everything.

Why?

Because of security.

He could bring a knife or something like that.

Fuck's sake.

This search feels a hell of a lot more intimidating.

And you do this to every inmate that comes in here?

Every single one?

Yes, we do.

These guys want me to know that they're in charge.

That's got to be one hell of an introduction, huh?

My name's Paul Connolly

and I'm on a mission to find out

how one of the most toughest lock ups in Central America works.

Danli prison in Honduras.

I'm now inside the very heart of the jail

in an area known as the "Bartolinas".

Here, there are no guards.

Instead, inmates known as "co-ordinators" enforce the law.

I've only been here half an hour, but already,

some of my crew has seen knives, even guns.

I am properly nervous.

All right.

But, now, I'm about to come face to face

with the man in charge of all the prisoners...

A murderer called Nery Calero.

We found nothing.

What crime did you commit?

-Robbery. -Robbery.

All right... Go down, so that I can explain.

Nery forces me to kneel before him.

It's like I'm giving allegiance to a king.

All these guys with batons on their waists or hands

are part of the prison security, and are also inmates.

You have to respect them, if they tell you to do something, you have to do it,

the way they tell you to,

because they only maintain order inside so that nothing happens to you.

If, all of a sudden, someone wants to hurt you,

they are the ones who will protect your life.

If you have money on you,

you can buy one of these beds.

These are for sale.

If there is an available bed of course.

If there are none, you will sleep on the floor.

You sell them here?

That's right.

Only the bed without a mattress will cost you 135 US dollars here.

That was a baptism of fire.

I am totally and utterly out of my depth here.

You know, we were told on no uncertain terms

that whilst the guards and the co-ordinators

would do everything in their power to protect us,

our protection wasn't guaranteed,

and there is this...

undercurrent, there's a latent tension in here

that just makes you feel that any second,

something could boil over,

and there could be trouble.

And while I'm trying to keep a poker face,

it is-it is making me nervous.

Now it's time to check out the cell Nery has assigned me to.

So, I'm on my way to my cell, cell number 25.

And I am already attracting a hell of a lot of attention here.

Bring him in, bring him in!

Cell 25 is only half the size of a squash court.

It was built for seven people

but now 22 inmates live and sleep in here.

They're all under the control of a co-ordinator called Walter,

who's serving an 18-year sentence for drug dealing.

I will explain the rules that we have in this Bartolina.

You need to ask your family to bring you a bucket

so that you can shower as there's a bathroom outside.

You have to ask your family to bring you a small mattress

because you will sleep here. And this is the only available space.

-Here on the ground? -Yes.

-Next to the other inmates. -OK.