Word: prisons
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...says his department recently introduced a proposal, yet to be deliberated on by legislators, that would reduce the average daily prison population by 27,300. Of course, politicians, particularly state Republicans, are loath to endorse any measure that smacks of releasing prisoners early or that could be viewed as being soft on crime - which has been a roadblock to reforming the system in the past. Prison-reform advocates are hoping the ruling by the federal court will inspire political will for their cause...
Over the last year, Mexico has suffered from a seemingly never-ending list of escapes, riots and murders in its prisons. In October 2008, prison inmates hurled grenades and sprayed Kalashnikov rounds at each other in a penitentiary in the Pacific state of Sinaloa. A month earlier, federal police stormed a rioting jail in the border city of Tijuana, resulting in the death of 23 prisoners. Just this past May, in the mining town of Zacatecas, 53 inmates simply walked out of a jail, leaving in a 17-car convoy backed by a helicopter...
...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...
...face of the challenge, U.S. officials have earmarked $4 million to help bolster Mexican prisons, part of an aid package to support the fight against the drug 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...
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...