While filming on location in Veracruz, Mexico, Mel Gibson learned that an elderly Mexican extra was suffering from cancer. Gibson got the man a visa by writing to the American ambassador, and then personally arranged for him to be flown to an alternative cancer therapist in Arizona.
Alejandra Cuervo, a member of the production team, was hired by the producers prior to the commencement of principal photography to do extensive research, a living history, on El Pueblito that included talking with a number of its ex-inmates for first-hand experiences.
Vazquez:
Look, you're corrupt, we're corrupt. There's one difference. We're honest about it.
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Driver: Is this a prison, or the world's shittiest mall?
Officially named el Centro de Readaptacion Social de la Mesa, El Pueblito was constructed in 1956 in Tijuana to accommodate 2,000 prisoners as a new experiment in corrections. It allowed the families of those incarcerated to join them and remain close to them in prison to facilitate inmates eventual readjustment to the outside world. Wives, children, girlfriends, entire families would live inside the prison walls, some staying there full-time while others came and went at will. Children head off to school each morning return to El Pueblito in the afternoon. "El Pueblito" shut doors in 2002.