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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | February 2007 
Report Slams Nation's Prison System
 Alejandro Suverza - El Universal
The nation´s prisons are "human storehouses where rehabilitation is unthinkable," according to a soon-to-be released report by the non-governmental organization Open Society Institute (OSI).
The OSI´s report titled "Economic and Social Costs of Preventative Prison" states that authorities at every level of government are boasting increased arrests and jailings to project a sense of security in society and to recuperate trust in institutions. Meanwhile, the human rights of hundreds of thousands of detainees are being largely ignored.
The report from the OSI - a group funded by billionaire George Soros - is expected to be made public within days and says that the nation currently imprisons 210,000 people, 90,000 of which have never been sentenced, about which the study says "they are legally innocent, because there is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty."
The report goes on to declare the prison system unlawful, unjust and costly.
"It is consuming too many resources that could be channeled to other more important areas of public safety and criminal justice, such as prevention and combating organized crime," it said.
The study says the nation spends 130 pesos per day to care for one of the 210,000 inmates, which translates to 27 million pesos spent daily or 9.93 billion pesos every year.
It costs 6.56 million pesos per day just to feed and clothe them.
The document says this misuse of funds directly affects efforts by authorities to fight crime. "The lack of security is due to a lack of resources for the anticipation and prevention of acts by criminal organizations, and poor funding for investigating and efficiently processing the most serious of crimes."
Mexican prisons, it says, are operating on average at 130 percent of their capacity, in some cases as much as 300 percent.
Inside the prisons "gangs of inmates impose and enforce their own rules, officials are corrupt and there is a lack of basic health standards."
The report reiterates many of the findings in a recent study by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) that said that living conditions were generally Hellish: a constant threat of violence and theft of one´s few belongings, lack of food and provisions from authorities and dangerous levels of overcrowding.
One researcher in that study, an investigator at the Center for Economic Research and Education (CIDE), reported that three out of four inmates said that clothing and blankets only came from visiting family. In addition, some 450 inmates told the CIDE researcher their family members had to pay a bribe to be allowed to give the inmate these provisions.
The OSI study added that the rates for suicide and murder in jails were nine and eight times higher than in the general populace.
According to Guillermo Zepeda, coordinator for the OSI´s prison project, all of these problems result from the overuse of the prison system in Mexico.
Zepeda said that Mexican tribunals are handling at any time hundreds of cases that each involve thousands of pages of paperwork. This results in a saturated system where judges´ agendas are booked solid for months and any delay or complication can set a case back indefinitely.
The report said that the sheer volume of paperwork means that hearings often last hours, making it nearly impossible for judges to be present the entire time. Often, the officials will delegate the task of presiding over hearings to their secretaries.
The role of the media and the public on ongoing cases was also noted in the OSI study. In it, it is described how judges will often allow a case to hang in limbo in lieu of releasing a prisoner in order to avoid a public outcry for being soft on criminals.
Zepeda said, "Mexico urgently needs institutional and procedural (judicial) reform that permits the transfer of resources away from the prosecution and severe - and costly - punishment of simple cases towards serious crimes where the accused have strong legal defense teams."
"As long as we keep this failed criminal policy, there´s little chance of reducing serious crime and restoring peace and tranquility." he added. |
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