Rico Mambo 2

YouTube Rehabilitation or Exploitation?

The story of Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) involves 1,500+ dancing prisoners, one prison warden-cum-vaudevillian director, and nearly five million YouTube views. At best, the immensely viral video of inmates lurching to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is a unique, Web-powered view into a rehabilitation center on the other side of the globe. At worst, it’s a voyeuristic peep show in an ongoing prisoner rights abuse case.

CPDRC is the creation of Byron F. Garcia, a provincial security consultant with the Filipino prison system and presumably the uploader of the original YouTube video whose user name is “byronfgarcia.” This user also uploaded what appears to be a promotional video of the CPDRC’s “new approach to penology.” Garcia explains the Busby Berkeley style calisthenics in the Sun Star: “While the goal is to keep the body fit in order to keep the mind fit, such may not actually happen if it is not done in a manner deemed pleasurable. Music, being the language of the soul, is added to that regimen.”

read more of the story at the inspiration link provided....