The characters of Oz, fictional characters on the television series about prison life, are a diverse mixture of inmates from various gangs and prison staff.
The corrections officers (COs) are mostly white (predominantly Irish and Italian) with many black and some Latino officers. The warden, Leo Glynn, is African American and started off his career as a CO at Oz. Most of the COs come from lower socio-economic classes. Some are amoral and prone to corruption. The main unit manager, Tim McManus, is the only authority figure who has not started off as a guard and this therefore gives him a different point of view about how to deal with the inmates. The rest of the non-correctional staff, such as Dr. Gloria Nathan and psychiatrist Sister Peter Marie ("Sister Pete") Reimondo, have a much more humane view of prisoners, and often push Glynn and the others to see the inmates as human beings. Overall, different factions within the staff are almost always at odds, trying to manage internal problems while keeping the public calm regarding the way the prison is being managed.
Rivera is the capital of Rivera Department of Uruguay. The border with Brazil joins it with the Brazilian city of Santana do Livramento, which is only a street away from it. Together, they form an urban area of around 200,000 inhabitants. As of the census of 2011, it is the sixth most populated city of Uruguay.
The city is located on the border with Brazil at the north end of Route 5.
On 21 March 1860 a pueblo (village) named Pereira was created by the Act of Ley Nº 614.
On 7 May 1862, it was substituted by the villa (town) named Ceballos and founded by the Act of Ley Nº 704, in honour of the Spanish viceroy Pedro de Cevallos. In July 1867 it took on the official name Rivera and was recognized as a villa. The Brazilian town Santana do Livramento already existed just across the border. On 1 October 1884, it became capital of the Department of Rivera by the Act of Ley Nº 1.757. Its status was elevated to ciudad (city) on 10 June 1912 by the Act of Ley Nº 4.006.
In 1943, the Plaza Internacional Rivera-Livramento (see photo) was built to celebrate the Fifth Conference of the Commission Mixta for Mixed Limits and as a hope for the future integration of the two towns, claimed to be the only international square in the world. From 1851 to this day, inhabitants of both communities are free to move in both sides. Customs and checkpoints are located outside the cities. Today, duty-free shops are one of the main economic resources of Rivera.