Spanish jails are remarkably modern

Spanish jails are remarkably modern, well equipped and tolerant places. Some boast glass-backed squash courts, swimming pools and theatres. Most of the British prisoners in them do not apply to serve their time back home in Britain’s run-down, aggressive, Victorian built prisons. I’ve seen the inside of Brixton, the Scrubs and a cpouple of other’s , a prison-hardened East End drug trafficker in Salamanca’s Top Jail told me once. ”This is a million times better. I miss my mum, but I’m not going back.’
‘A country ‘s health can be measured by how it looks after its weakest member’s, a Spanish prison governor explained to me. If that is so, Spain in in fine fettle. Amongst other things, prisoners get private conjugal visits from their wives or girlfriends in rooms equipped with double beds. This jail, and others, are mixed, though the different sexes live in separate wings. Some couples even meete and get married in Spanish prisons.
From the book ‘Ghosts of Spain’ By Giles Tremet