Inmates of Chile’s Largest Prison Find Solace in Caring for Stray Cats

Some say they have been first introduced in to take out the rats. Others contend they wandered in on their very own.

What everybody can agree on — together with those that have lived or labored at Chile’s largest jail the longest — is that the cats have been right here first.

For many years, they’ve walked alongside the jail’s excessive partitions, sunbathed on the metallic roof and skittered between cells crowded with 10 males every. To jail officers, they have been a peculiarity of types, and largely ignored. The cats stored multiplying into the a whole bunch.

Then jail officers realized one thing else: The feline residents weren’t solely good for the rat drawback. They have been additionally good for the inmates.

“They’re our companions,” stated Carlos Nuñez, a balding prisoner exhibiting off a 2-year-old tabby he named Feita, or Ugly, from behind jail bars. Whereas caring for a number of cats throughout his 14-year sentence for residence housebreaking, he stated he found their particular essence, in contrast with, say, a cellmate or perhaps a canine.

“A cat makes you are worried about it, feed it, deal with it, give it particular consideration,” he stated. “After we have been outdoors and free, we by no means did this. We found it in right here.”

Recognized merely as “the Pen,” the 180-year-old foremost penitentiary in Santiago, Chile’s capital, has lengthy been often known as a spot the place males stay in cages and cats roam free. What’s now extra clearly understood is the optimistic impact of the jail’s roughly 300 cats on the 5,600 human residents.

The felines’ presence “has modified the inmates’ temper, has regulated their habits and has strengthened their sense of accountability with their duties, particularly caring for animals,” stated the jail’s warden, Col. Helen Leal González, who has two cats of her personal at residence, Reina and Dante, and a set of cat collectible figurines on her desk.

“Prisons are hostile locations,” she added in her workplace, carrying a good bun, billy membership and fight boots. “So in fact, whenever you see there’s an animal giving affection and producing these optimistic emotions, it logically causes a change in habits, a change in mindset.”

Prisoners informally undertake the cats, work collectively to take care of them, share their meals and beds and, in some circumstances, have constructed them little homes. In return, the cats present one thing invaluable in a lockup infamous for overcrowding and squalid circumstances: love, affection and acceptance.

“Generally you’ll be depressed and it’s like she senses that you simply’re a bit down,” stated Reinaldo Rodriguez, 48, who’s scheduled to be imprisoned till 2031 on a firearms conviction. “She comes and glues herself to you. She’ll contact her face to yours.”

He was referring to Chillona, a relaxed black cat that has develop into the darling of a nine-man cell filled with bunk beds. Mr. Rodriguez stated he and his cellmates used a bowl of water to coax Chillona out of hiding after her earlier inmate caretaker was moved to a different part of the jail.

“Little by little, she would method us,” he stated. “Now she’s the proprietor of this room. She’s the boss.” A number of cellmates every claimed that his mattress was her favourite.

The pairing of convicted criminals and animals is hardly new. Throughout World Struggle II, German prisoners of battle in New Hampshire adopted wildlife as pets, together with, according to one account, a bear cub.

Formal applications to attach prisoners and animals grew to become extra widespread within the late Seventies, and after persistently optimistic outcomes, they’ve expanded the world over, together with to Japan, the Netherlands and Brazil.

They’ve develop into significantly fashionable in america. In Arizona, prisoners train wild horses to patrol the U.S. border with Mexico. In Minnesota and Michigan, prisoners train dogs for the blind and deaf. And in Massachusetts, prisoners help care for wounded or sick wildlife, like hawks, coyotes and raccoons.

Connecting inmates and canines has repeatedly been proven to result in “a lower in recidivism, improved empathy, improved social abilities and a safer and extra optimistic relationship between inmates and jail officers,” stated Beatriz Villafaina-Domínguez, a researcher in Spain who reviewed 20 separate studies of such applications.

Canine have been the most typical animal utilized by prisons, adopted by horses, and in most applications, animals are delivered to the inmates, or vice versa. In Chile, nevertheless, the inmates developed an natural connection to the stray cats who stay alongside them.

But there was a time when the connection was not so optimistic. A decade in the past, the cat inhabitants was increasing uncontrolled and plenty of cats have been getting sick, together with growing a contagious an infection that left some cats blind. The scenario “even wired the inmates themselves,” stated Carla Contreras Sandoval, a jail social employee with two cat tattoos.

So in 2016, jail officers lastly allowed volunteers to return take care of the cats. A Chilean group referred to as the Felinnos Foundation has since labored with Humane Society International to systematically accumulate all the cats to deal with, spay and neuter them. They’ve now reached almost each one.

This system’s success has been partly because of the inmates, Ms. Sandoval stated. The prisoners accumulate cats that want care and convey them to the volunteers.

On a current day, 4 ladies lugged cat carriers into the jail grounds, on the hunt for various felines, together with Fortunate, Aquila, Dropón and her six new kittens, and Mr. Nuñez’s cat, Ugly.

The courtyard was chaotic, packed for an inmate soccer match, however prisoners politely made method for the ladies.

Rapidly, males cradling cats in tattooed arms got here bounding down stairs alongside the courtyard, handing animals via jail bars to the volunteers. In a single cease, Denys Carmona Rojas, 57, a prisoner serving eight years on gun expenses, doted on a litter of kittens in a field. He stated he had helped elevate many kittens in his cell, recounting one case through which he fed particular milk to a litter after the mom died throughout beginning.

“You dedicate your self to the cat. You are inclined to it, keep watch over it, give it love,” he stated, smiling to indicate off lacking entrance tooth. “The sensation that comes out of that — there’s nothing dangerous about it, man.”

Just like the inmates, the cats’ dwelling circumstances differ by part of the jail. Throughout a recess interval in probably the most crowded areas, the place 250 prisoners share 26 cells, prisoners packed a slender passageway, with garments drying overhead and cats darting between their toes.

Eduardo Campos Torreblanca, who’s serving three years for aggravated theft, stated every cell cared for at the least one cat, however his kitten had lately died. “He was tiny, a child,” he stated. “And somebody stepped on him.”

When the volunteers first arrived in 2016, they counted almost 400 cats, a determine that not noted new child kittens and a big cat colony that largely caught to the roof. Now that quantity has been steadily declining.

Why? Think about Mr. Nuñez, the home-burglary convict with two years left on his sentence.

When he’s freed, what would occur to his cat, Ugly? That was simple, he stated. “She’s coming with me.”