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The Mexican Prison Situation

Submitted January 27, 2005 - 8:34 pm by Al Giordano
Charles asks:

What is really going on? Why is the Mexican government sending troops to occupy its high security prisons?

I reply:

Mexico's prison system is (like that of the U.S.) overcrowded and rife with corruption. In both countries, it is easier to procure illegal drugs inside the walls than outside. And both countries' prisons are overcrowded precisely because of the war on drugs, which swamps law enforcement to the point where the governments can't deal with real crime: that is predatory, and violent, crime.

One famous narco-trafficker, a couple years ago, by the name of Chapo Guzman, just "walked out of" one of Mexico's three "maximum security" prisons. He went free, after reportedly bribing guards to look the other way.

More recently, another prisoner, reported to be close to another famous narco-trafficker, was killed inside the prison. Stories in the Mexican press revealed that the prisons were cesspools of violence and crime: nothing new there. Prisons in both countries are. But the press attention made it a political issue.

So Mexico City Governor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called on the national government to put the Armed Forces in charge of the prisons. At first the Fox administration balked at the suggestion, terming it ridiculous, but tried its own crackdown at the prisons. Then some reputed narcos or organized criminals dressed up in police uniforms outside the prison and set up a "road block" that appeared to be searching cars. When the guards arrived at work, they killed them. It was violence between criminals and law enforcement agents; typical drug war fare. Been happening for years... but... A few more sensational press stories later, the government did an about-face and sends in the military.

Not that many expect the military (comprised of soldiers even more underpaid than prison guards) will be able to get a grip on the situation. An overcrowded prison is an overcrowded prison. But the problem is not new anyway. What is new is that the media makes a big deal about it. And this, too, gives Washington and lazy U.S. reporters more "evidence" to wave that the drug war in Mexico is supposedly boiling out of control.

In any case, nobody has suggested that a single disappeared gringo was last seen in one of those prisons.

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