“Money answereth all things” (Ecclesiastes 10:19). Nowhere is Solomon’s proverb more literally fulfilled than inside a prison. The Chilean penal system, like every penal system I have studied or heard testimony about, runs on two parallel economies: the official one, administered by the state, and the informal one, administered by corruption. The second economy is, by far, the more powerful. Understanding this reality—and navigating it without losing your soul—is one of the most practical challenges facing any Christian behind bars.

The Informal Economy

Let me describe what I observed so that outside ministers and family members understand the environment they are engaging with. In módulo 118, the gendarmes operated a food business on the side. They brought in almonds, walnuts, eggs, and other foods from outside and sold them to inmates at double or triple the market price. Dark-colored (inadmissible) soft drinks: Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Crush were available at padded prices. The mozo—the inmate designated as the módulo’s administrative assistant—collected orders and money from inmates, purchased goods from the prison kiosk. A monopoly, and discreetly transferred the profits for informal goods to the gendarme on duty, who notoriously carried a wad of cash.

Special cell privileges could be purchased. A man who wanted to live alone, even in relative comfort, paid the mozo fifteen thousand pesos twice a month. Those who occupied the coveted single cells on the top floor—with wooden or tiled floors, painted walls, pictures, and reliable television and cell phone reception—paid fifty thousand to a hundred thousand pesos (60 to 120 USD) monthly. Long-term inmates estimated that a shrewd gendarme could at least double his salary through undeclared cash. Those in the drug business ensured cells were free from raids or inspections for a price, perhaps 250 USD to 350 USD per month.

Cell phones, which were officially prohibited, even if de facto allowed during the Covid-19 quarantine era, entered the prison through multiple channels: corrupt guards carried in the lion’s share, some lawyers smuggled them inside their briefcases, and a few visitors concealed them in bodily cavities that the guards were legally prohibited from searching due to human rights regulations. For the right price, anything could be obtained: phones, drugs, prostitutes, even conjugal arrangements outside the official schedule. Sheets were set up in the visitation hall to set up sexual “quickie” stalls, while the gendarmes’ cameras conveniently went unmonitored for those sectors.

This was not unique to módulo 118, the Valparaíso Penitentiary, or Chile. It occurs in most large módulos and in most Chilean prisons—and, according to every account I have read or heard, in prison systems around the world. The state produces such activity not accidentally but inevitably. As I pondered the situation, I concluded: “There is nothing surprising going on here. It is the nature of the state to produce such corruption. More than any disease or natural disaster, nothing in history has been more lethal to people than the state.”

The Extortion Machine

Beyond the garden-variety corruption of food sales and cell phone smuggling, the Valparaíso prison in 2021 harbored a more sinister economy: sexual extortion. Among the seventy professing evangelicals in módulo 103—the módulo then officially designated for “brethren”—I was told that only about ten were uninvolved in this scheme. The operation worked as follows: an inmate would post on pedophile forums using stock nude photos of underage girls, attracting perverts who eventually revealed their full names, phone numbers, and addresses while sending explicit photographs of themselves. The inmate’s girlfriend posed as the girl in the photos when she called the pervert. Hence, the inmate’s girlfriend facilitated the crime and was complicit. Upon receiving all the needed evidence, the inmate would then call the victim, posing as the “girl’s” father, and demand a cash deposit to avoid legal consequences. Some inmates earned millions of pesos—thousands of U.S. dollars—per month through this scheme. The entire operation was run from inside prison cells on smuggled cell phones, financed by drug money, and tacitly tolerated by the módulo floor administrators. A believer who reported the activity would be expelled from the fourth floor and sent to live with the “gentile” (non-Christian) population on the lower floors—a dangerous demotion that could end in violence, particularly if the “Christian” inmate were a widely detested pedophile or arsonist.

I confronted the Evangelicals I met about these practices. All denied involvement. Whether they were truthful, I could not verify. But the episode revealed a truth that every prison minister must internalize: the label “Christian” means nothing in prison. Only the fruit matters. “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16).

The Weaponization of Institutional Power

On a national scale, the corruption was so pervasive as to be farcical. National Independence Day raids of 31,767 inmates across seventy-seven prisons confiscated only 927 cell phones—barely three percent of inmates, when at least half possessed phones—and a mere 1.3 kilograms of drugs. The show continued regarding a never-ending battle that the gendarmes had no interest in winning—especially those who participated in the contraband trade. How could those involved give up such lucrative brokerage by actually eliminating contraband? A fellow inmate, Miami, confirmed through his connections that the price for being granted Sunday home-visit benefits in certain facilities was one million pesos—roughly a thousand U.S. dollars—paid directly to prison staff. Such corruption stories were commonplace. A guard named Cabo Saavedra stopped a clever visitor trying to smuggle a significant quantity of drugs into the prison stuffed inside a large, seared-shut chunk of meat. He might have been an exception to the rule, or he might have been trying to protect the monopoly profits and the guards in the drug business. It was not easy to tell. Drugs also entered stuff into roasted chickens and hollowed-out avocado pits, or dissolved in soda pop, among many other ingenious means. But no one increased the supply of drugs more than the guards themselves, proven by the fact that when there was no visitation during the Covid-19 lockdown for nearly two years, the supply of drugs remained the same (or even increased).

The Conducta System: Justice Without Due Process

Beyond the financial corruption, the institutional authorities wield a weapon more insidious than bribery: the conducta score—the behavioral rating system that determines every aspect of a prisoner’s future. Parole eligibility, conjugal visits, early-release benefits, weekend home visits—all are contingent on maintaining a “good” or “very good” conducta score. And the score is determined not by objective criteria but by subjective assessments by social workers, guards, and administrators who may harbor personal grudges, political motivations, or institutional incentives to keep inmates confined.

My own conducta (behavior or conduct) score was unilaterally lowered by a social worker, Carolina Ibaceta, and a sergeant, Yáñez, in Casablanca jailhouse, based on an allegation of “passively threatening her”—with no witnesses, no evidence presented, and no opportunity for me to testify on my own behalf. In Chile, a man’s time in jail can be extended by a year based solely on the accusation of a disgruntled professional. That single administrative action derailed my parole eligibility, eliminated my conjugal visits, and pushed back my early-release benefits by months. The injustice was compounded by its arbitrariness: the system granted enormous power to individuals with minimal accountability, and the consequences fell entirely on the prisoner. After many months, I beat the rap spawned by those two and the nefarious Warden Rodrigo Jesús Parra Pardo (to their great chagrin) in the Chilean Supreme Court.

Lieutenant Parra in Casablanca embodied this petty tyranny. He lowered my score, stripped my conjugal visits, and seemed to enjoy the spectacle. I refused to make eye contact with the man. When he asked, “How are you?” I stared, frowned, and looked away. “That man’s a son of Satan,” I said to nearby inmates. There was no disagreement. But my defiance, while spiritually satisfying, carried no institutional consequence for Parra. He had the power. I had the principles. In the short term, power always wins in jail. But the Christian trusts that in the long term—at least in the eternal term—principles prevail.

My friend Miami confirmed with his connections that the price for being granted Sunday home-visit benefits at certain facilities was 1 million pesos—roughly 1,000 USD—paid directly to prison staff. The conducta system was not merely flawed. It was a marketplace where justice was for sale, and the poor man’s liberty was the commodity being traded.

When Guards Demand What Violates Conscience

The Christian inmate faces a recurring dilemma: how to function within a corrupt system without becoming part of it. The line is not always clear.

Buying food from the kiosk at inflated prices is, practically speaking, unavoidable. The alternative is diarrhea and malnutrition. Using a smuggled cell phone to communicate with family, friends, and legal counsel is technically illegal, but for many inmates, it is the only available means of communication. I used a cell phone throughout my imprisonment—first a Nokia, then a Huawei P10 that my pedophile, quasi-Mormon cellmate Mauricio helped me secure. Without it, I could not have communicated with my wife, my lawyers, my supporting churches, or attended the Historic Baptists’ Zoom worship services. Was this a compromise of conscience? I did not think so, and I still do not. The prohibition on cell phones serves institutional convenience, not moral principle. Indeed, it is more important to obey God by loving one’s wife and caring for her by calling her and attending the worship services and Bible study than to obey the perennially wayward state and its atrocious and godless public policies.