A recent fire in a prison massacre in Honduras and Mexico once again drew attention to the appalling conditions in prisons in Latin America. Many prisons are overcrowded, forcing inmates to pull hanging from the ceiling or bunk bed to the floor. In this issue you will see how the members of the gang Mara 18 crammed into cells in the prison Izalko in Sonsonate, El Salvador, and how female prisoners are serving sentences in the women’s prison in Ilopango in San Salvador.