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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2007 
Crowded Mexican Prisons May Hamper U.S. Drug Fight
 Sergio Solache - Arizona Republic
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| | Prison overcrowding in Mexico is at its highest levels in nearly 10 years, with about 217,000 inmates crowded into facilities built for 164,000. |
Mexico City - Dangerous, overcrowded and corrupt prisons raise questions about Mexico's ability to handle a $1.4 billion, U.S.-funded crackdown on drug smugglers that aims to put even more people behind bars.
Prison overcrowding is the highest it has been in at least a decade, with nearly 217,000 inmates in prisons built for 164,000, according to Mexican government figures. Violence, drug-dealing and corruption among guards are rampant as wardens struggle to control inmates.
"In every 6- by 8-meter (20- by 26-foot) cell there were six beds and 10 guys. And that was a VIP room," said Alberto Orozco, 25, who spent six weeks in a Mexico City prison for robbery. "All we did was fight with the guards. Nothing but shouting and beatings."
Arrests in Mexico have soared since President Felipe Calderón began sending troops into drug-smuggling hotspots a year ago. The U.S. government has promised a $1.4 billion aid package, dubbed the Mérida Initiative, to help the anti-drug effort.
But of the first $500 million that the Bush administration has requested from Congress, only $3 million is destined for the prison system, according to a memo obtained by the Reforma newspaper. None of that money is going for building prisons.
"If they detain more people because of the Mérida Initiative, the effect will be tremendous," said Elena Azaola, a researcher with Mexico's Center for Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology. "The prison system will crash."
More behind bars
Mexican authorities say overcrowding worsened after reforms in 1994 that reclassified many misdemeanors as felonies and curtailed the right to bail.
"There is a policy of increasing and harshening punishments," said Antonio Hazael Ortega, director of the Mexico City prison system. "The possibility of conducting a trial while out on bail is increasingly remote, and that has increased the jail population."
The Chiapa de Corzo State Penitentiary in southern Mexico has seven times more prisoners than its capacity, according to the federal Public Safety Secretariat. The Copainalá prison in the same state is operating at 600 percent capacity. The Guamúchil Salvador Alvarado prison in Sinaloa, a state known for drug smuggling, is at 500 percent capacity.
"At any moment, a riot is on the point of breaking out in the prisons," Azaola said.
In 2005, 750 police and soldiers backed by armored vehicles were needed to retake control of the La Palma maximum-security prison after riots and protests.
On Dec. 8, 150 inmates escaped after a riot broke out in a Cancun prison. Most were recaptured, but three inmates were killed and 20 injured. The state prison, which had a capacity of 300 inmates, held 400.
The lawlessness caused by overcrowding has allowed drug lords to conduct business from their prison cells, expert say. An alliance between the Tijuana and Gulf cartels was negotiated by their leaders while they were being held in the same prison, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Shortages of beds have also affected Mexico's efforts to control its borders, a key priority for the Mérida Initiative.
In February, Mexico's National Commission on Human Rights said that, during a crackdown in 2006, Mexican immigration agents had jammed Central American migrants into overcrowded police lockups in Sonora state, denying them food and water for hours. Mexico's National Migration Institute denied any mistreatment.
Inside the prisons, a shortage of supplies means inmates must buy medicine, blankets, beds and food on the black market. That has led to rampant corruption among prison guards.
"You have to buy everything, everything," Orozco said. "If you want to shower with hot water, you have to pay 10 pesos (about $1). To skip roll call and sleep longer, it's 5 pesos."
A quarter of all bribes paid in the prisons are to bring in food and clothing, according to a study by Mexico's Center for Economic Research and Education.
Slow justice
Part of the overcrowding problem is the slow pace of the Mexican justice system, said Guillermo Zepeda, an expert on prisons at the Center for Development in Mexico, a think tank.
In Mexico, trials are waged in writing through an exchange of briefs. The average federal trial takes 263 days, according to the Federal Judiciary Council, compared with a few weeks or months in the United States.
To speed up justice, Calderón's government is proposing reforms to make "no contest" pleas easier. It is also urging Mexican states to adopt American-style oral trials, and it has increased the number of federal prisoners given parole by 48 percent this year. However, there are no immediate plans to build more prisons.
The Mérida Initiative also focuses on speeding up trials. It includes $41.9 million for computer systems to manage court cases, $2.4 million for witness-protection programs and $2 million to store evidence, Reforma reported.
The $3 million destined for prisons would go toward training and equipping guards.
Few details have been given about the rest of the $1.4 billion package, which will be doled out over three years. But little of the money will go toward building prisons, courthouses, forensic labs or other facilities, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon told The Republic last month. "I don't think we're going to be building too many buildings. That's really a Mexico state function," Shannon said.
Chris Hawley contributed to this article. |
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