Word: mexico
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...toting hitmen to diamond-clad capos. But, now, where does he put them all? A few dozen of the top dogs have been extradited to the United States and some other ranking members have been put in a specially built 800-prisoner capacity top security penitentiary in Mexico State. But tens of thousands of more convicts are shunted into state and city jails across the country, causing record overcrowding and overwhelming ill-equipped local guards. (See pictures from Mexico's drug wars...
...problem affects basic things like just not having enough water for all the inmates," says Deputy Warden Jose Luis Herrera, who let TIME inside one of the wings of Mexico City's Eastern Prison - the most populous jail in all of Latin America. "Then we have visiting hours when tens of thousands of family members can show up." Opened in 1976, the prison in the capital's rough Eastside was built for 4,700 prisoners. It currently has 12,500 inmates...
...armies. Calderon has also promised to build more pens to cope with the burgeoning numbers. But some working in the prison system say the difficulties in the controlling the inmates will not be solved by raising more jail houses; the crisis, they say, also stems from profound problems in Mexico's justice apparatus. More than 41% of the nation's total prison population of 220,000 has not even been convicted and sentenced even though many of the prisoners have already spent several years behind bars. "There should be less focus on trying to put more people in prison...
...Mexico also struggles with corruption among prison officials, some of whom are susceptible to the influence of their prisoners - especially the traffickers from the multi-billion dollar narcotics industry. For example, the escape of the 53 prisoners at Zacatecas was clearly an inside job: a closed circuit video showed guards sitting and watching as the escapees marched out of the cells into the waiting convoy. The warden and several guards have since been arrested, though they have yet to be charged. Many of the escapees were members of the Zetas, a feared drug paramilitary based over the border from Texas...
...barbed wire fences and watch towers. Phone calls have even been traced to attempts to extort ransoms from terrified victims on the outside. The Eastern Prison is currently installing a new security device to block cell phone signals inside the prison walls. (See pictures of crime-fighting in Mexico City...