Mexican prisons can’t hold inmates

Mexico’s prisons have failed to prevent inmates from escaping, by lack of planning by the government, when it began its war on drugs. And because of this, dangerous inmates, including cartel leaders and killers, have escaped from prisons, in mass breakouts, and others by just walking through the door.

When the Mexican government began the war on drugs, it failed to consider a prison system able to jail cartel members. As a result, tens of thousands of prisoners are being held in overcrowded, underfunded and poorly guarded facilities. In one mass escape, 153 inmates simply walked out of the prison at Nuevo Laredo, just across the border from Laredo, Texas, in November and rode away in a caravan. All remain at large.

A researcher at Mexico’s Center for Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology, Elena Azaola Garrido, says the Nuevo Laredo escape was the predictable result of a persistently neglected penal system cracking under pressure.

“It seems like an extreme, shocking incident, but to a lesser extent it’s happening all around the country,” she said.

Upi

In 2010, 350 inmates had escaped from Mexican prisons. This has President Calderon upset, as he says he locks them up, they let them out. And the prison’s interim director said all of the 43 guards are themselves, who were on duty during the breaks are awaiting trial.

Mexican and U.S. officials said the Calderon government is working to build federal penitentiaries, increasing the current eight facilities to as many as 20 by the end of next year, said Patricio Patino Arias, the federal prison system’s second in command.