Panamanian Jails Filled to Brim : Justice: A crime wave, an overloaded court system and an outdated penal code are to blame.

Packed to the rafters with drug dealers, pimps and thieves, prisoners kill time at Modelo Prison by plotting jail breaks and stabbing each other with knives fashioned from steel bed frames and toothbrushes.

“When I first got here, all I could think about was dying,” said Scott Cumberland, from San Antonio, Tex., who is jailed on drug charges. “They say gringos like me are fresh meat.”

Panama’s jails have become teeming way-stations of anarchy and violence because of an overloaded court system, an obsolete penal code and a crime wave.

Cells are overflowing with detainees charged with everything from marijuana possession to murder.

Ninety percent of the country’s 3,200 prisoners are awaiting hearings and it can take years for a case to go to trial, said Manuel Bonome, director of Panama’s prison system.

Frustrated with delays, overcrowding and suppers of pigs feet soup, inmates revolt.

Since February, 184 prisoners have escaped from Panama’s jails while scores of inmates and guards have been injured in fights. Two prisoners have been killed.

“It is very tense,” said Sgt. Efrain Modesto, 46, a Modelo guard. “The prisoners stab each other; they break down the doors; they break the toilets.”

“A riot will spread through here like wildfire,” Cumberland added.

On Capt. Ramiro Villareal’s first day of work as Modelo’s security chief, prisoners kidnaped a guard and briefly took over a wing of the jail. In Villareal’s cramped office sits a cardboard box filled with knives, machetes and metal picks found in cells.

“God, we’ve got problems,” he said.

Shortly after the interview, police fired M-16 machine guns in the air to quell yet another Modelo riot.

Modelo was built in the 1920s across the street from a graveyard in El Chorrillo, the ghetto destroyed by the U.S. invasion last December. Despite having been designed for 250 prisoners, Modelo houses 1,000.

Even with 10 to 15 men jammed into cells built for four, inmates compete for floor space in the hallways to sleep.

At Coiba, a Pacific island penal colony, conditions are so bad that Bonome compares it to Devil’s Island. He said riots and escapes have plagued the country’s four other large jails as well.

“The prison system is a disgrace,” said Panamanian President Guillermo Endara, who tasted jail several times while protesting against former dictator Manuel A. Noriega. “I don’t understand why (prisoners) don’t riot more often.”

The prison population has soared with the crime rate.

During the invasion, hardened criminals escaped from jails while Noriega’s troops passed out machine guns. Armed assault tripled in Panama City as the new government scrambled to build a police force.

Accounts of bank heists, car thefts and muggings filled local newspapers, and police resorted to neighborhood sweeps with U.S. troops to track down thieves and gang members.

The Draconian penal code mandates jail for even small infractions. Parole does not exist and few detainees have the cash to post bail. Lawmakers may consider a bill to reform the code later this year.

Panama’s court system--slow and corrupt under Noriega--is being rebuilt. Most judges appointed under Noriega were fired. Apart from the old cases, the new judges have been flooded with 17,000 charges brought against Noriega allies after the invasion.

Most inmates cannot afford lawyers, and there is just one public defender for every 500 cases in Panama City.

“They put you in jail and you have to wait for six months to find out what is going on,” said Rene Rosario, a bearded, tattooed Modelo inmate charged with selling marijuana.

Not one of Noriega’s infamous cronies--held since December for human rights abuses and corruption--has been tried.

Human rights groups demand reform but changes will take years and cost millions, said Carlos Lucas Lopez, president of the Supreme Court.

“We do not have the resources to build new jails,” Lopez said. “Creating new courts and training new judges all have to be done. . . . We are trying to do it but results will only be seen after a few years.”

To relieve some of the immediate pressure, the Endara government has improvised.

On Sept. 25, 418 prisoners who had served most of their time were set free. As dozens of ex-cons poured out of Modelo, several held up their fists in triumph.