The "Model Prison" of the Isle of Pines
The prison complex was a gigantic rectangle surrounded by a double fence of barbed wire with a guard shack every 50 meters. Along the outside of the fence line, towards the east, was a large open trench that we called the “Turd Soup” (la mojonera) that took away the urine and excrement of the more than eight thousand inmates plus the guards that were inside the prison. When one entered the Prison Complex, there was a street and two rectangular buildings, five stories high on each side.

After a cross street, there were the Circulars Nos. 1 and 2, also five stories high. A little further down there was a bigger Circular, in the middle, the mess hall, and then two more Circulars (Nos. 3 and 4). At the end there were two massive square buildings only 1 story high. There was located the morgue, the Punishment Cells, a warehouse and the clinic. On the field to the side of Circulars 1 and 2, they built the famous "pens," an open space approximately the size of a city block surrounded by a high chain-link fence.
The gates of the cells faced the center of the Circular and opened to a narrow balcony, about a yard wide, that bordered around the central hall. There were 5 such balconies, one in each floor. A narrow stairway, that permitted the passage of only one person at a time was the only way down
In the middle of each Circular there was a watch tower where a guard, armed with a rifle, was posted at all times. The guard could see the inside of all the cells. The entrance to this tower was through a tunnel from the outside of the building.
The Model Prison of the Isle of Pines was built by president Gerardo Machado in the 1920's and it closed on March 23, 1967. All the political prisoners who were there at that time were scattered to different prisons in other parts of Cuba. From January 1 1959 to its closing in 1967, over 15,000 men were incarcerated there for political reasons.

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