“Visiting Day” is a photography documentary project just finished in Mexico’s juvenile justice prisons – documenting what happens on visiting days. They will be exhibiting it across Mexico City in the coming months.

The goal of the Children in Prison Project is to reduce and eliminate excessive juvenile detention in Mexico. This includes both pre-trial, or pre-sentencing detention, as well as excessive prison sentences. About half of Mexico’s prison population is in pre-trial detention, awaiting trial without being convicted. Most of the kids in Mexico’s pretrial detention system will sit in prison for months before ever seeing a judge. Few have the possibility of being released on bail, and many of those cannot afford it. Kids from rural areas or indigenous communities often lack basic paperwork such as birth certificates, which means that regardless of the offense they will remain in detention. In some states in Mexico kids are in pretrial detention for as long as 14 months.