18 77. There is a great distance between the classical, dark prisons with individual cells and the promiscuous, noisy ones, but they are both devastating for the inmate. He is destroyed both by incarceration in cells, condemned by Silvio Pellico, and by the undesirable promiscuity described by Dostoyevsky. Mateo Alemán, in his “Guzmán de Alfarache”, had already described the noisy, crowded prison in Seville: “ a jumbled republic, a brief hell, a protracted death, a bridge of sighs, a vale of tears, a madhouse where each one screams out and treats madness as his own.” At the Penitenciaría del Litoral -which is not an unheard of abyss in the landscape of prisons- there was an area, one hundred and twenty square meters, called the “quarantine,” where there were “three hundred inmates sleeping on the ground,” according to the statement of an expert witness. In the case we are discussing here, this promiscuous prison, without the slightest classification –disregarding constitutional provisions and international standards-, exercised its demolishing power. 78. The statement of the victim is an eloquent one and it is not contradicted by other information in the proceeding before the Inter-American Court. The respondent’s plea addressed various aspects of the case, but not the prison conditions at the so-called Penitenciaría del Litoral. “One night (there) –stated the detainee- is like hell. A normal human being cannot bear it. Those who had no cells spent the time in the aisles, climbing the walls, moving from one cell-block to another and trying to steal through the cell bars. They also went into the cell-blocks to smoke crack. One could buy anything in this prison, there were drug deals, cocaine, alcohol and weapons. People went around armed.” One is surprised and filled with admiration that the spouse of the accused, together with their young daughter, could bear to remain with him over the weekends at the Penitenciaría del Litoral. She visited him seventy-four times, and these must have been an equal number of anguishing episodes. 79. This case and many others have been documented, throughout the contemporary world, by literature and films that reflect the worst aspects of this “black genre.” A chronicle with the suggestive title Midnight Express en Equateur was mentioned in the trial that led to the September 7, 2004 judgment. Part of what happened there has to do with principle 1 –a very well numbered principle that governs the rest- of the body of principles that I mentioned above, and which reads: “All persons under any form of detention or imprisonment shall be treated in a humane manner and in regards for the inherent dignity of the human person.” 80. Precautionary and penal deprivation of liberty affect multiple rights of the inmates, and even the rights of third parties not involved in the crime, linked to the inmate by love or dependence. This is inevitable, as long as there are prisons. But it would be necessary to review penitentiary doctrine and provisions, and to ensure that the negative effects in both situations are minimal insofar as possible. However, in many cases the conditions under which incarceration is ordered and practiced are far from fostering this “minimization” of the negative effects, which would be a natural and reasonable consequence of restricted use of the penal system. Excessive severity and unwarranted restrictions may improve the lot of those in charge of the investigation or custody of the accused. This opens the panorama of corruption in the prosecution of crimes. There are jails where everything has a price –exactly like in Howard’s chronologically remote time, actually very near- and the inmate must find ways to survive. 81. Having seen the prisons through the Case of Tibi, which is only one observatory among thousands, not an exceptional, uncommon case, we must inquire about the “reasons” –allow me this expression- for prison, which is a complete confinement, under