[Letter from Lima] | All Politics Is Local, by Daniel Alarc�n | Harper's Magazine

[Letter from Lima] | All Politics Is Local, by Daniel Alarc�n | Harper's Magazine: To understand a place like Lurigancho, it’s best not to dwell on words like prison or inmate or cell, or on the images these terms generally connote. The 7,400 men who live in Lurigancho, Peru’s largest and most notorious penal institution, do not wear uniforms; there is no roll call or lockdown or lights-out. Whatever control the prison authorities have inside Lurigancho is nominal. They secure the gate to the prison, and little else.