TARGET 160420

THE DANCING PRISONERS
OF CEBU MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON

In 2005, Byron F. Garcia, the official security advisor to the local Cebu government in the Phillipines, was appointed head of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC), a maximum security prison located near the city of Cebu, in Cebu Province. The prison is for the worst and most violent prisoners in the Phillipine prison system. But Garcia had a personal belief that went counter to the practices of prison systems at the time:



At first, Mr. Garcia started the prisoners marching together as a form of uniform exercise and mutual cooperation between the prisoners. Later, music was added to help keep the paces. Naturally, that led to some fancy stepping and in the end, dancing. Finally, it changed into choreagraphed dances. When Mr. Garcia started posting videos of the pridoners, the "Dancing prisoners of Cebu" became known and even popular.



The choreographed dance routines and the publicity have resulted in more and more professional productions, involving special dance routines that tell stories, rather than just having all the prisoners perform the same movements.







And, if you watch the video closely, you will see that both the male and female prisoners take part in the dance routines, something that is absolutely unheard of in other maximum security prisons (but the three "females" pictured in the routine above are actually male.)

Today, the choreographed routines are very professional and the inmates, numbering more than 2000, are even becoming considered as "dancers" instead of "ex-cons" when they are released. The group even put on a special show for Pope Francis’ five-day visit to the Phillipines (the Pope witnessed the show, but did not visit the prison).

And the most important result of Mr. Garcia's policy is that as of 2016, there has not been a single incident of violence among the prisoners for four years.

Mr. Garcia's belief in how to treat prisoners was right.

The following video is an exerpt of one of the YouTube videos provided by Mr. Garcia of the inmates' productions. To see the entire video (I suggest that you do - it's great) click on the YouTube link at the bottom of this page.
(You may want to adjust the volume slide before starting the video.)

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If you got impressions for which this feedback is insufficient, more information,
pictures and videos can be found at the following web sites:

The Huffington Post
YouTube.com (Full video of the exerpt above)
YouTube.com (The production for the Pope's visit)
The Huffington Post (Dance for the Pope's visit)


Many thanks to Joan Sullivan for this target.