Overcrowding and crime: hell of Mexican prisons

Plagued by riots, murders and escapes, the prolonged crisis in Mexico’s overcrowded prisons is being worsened by the infiltration of cartels and the corruption of authorities. The high-profile escape of the country’s most-wanted drugs lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in 2015, and a riot last year in a Monterrey penitentiary that left 49 dead, have only underscored the challenges facing the government. “The crisis comes down to two factors,” said Guillermo Zepeda, head of the Jurimetria legal affairs watchdog. “Overcrowding on the one hand, and on the other the penetration of organised crime into penitentiaries.”

The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto has vowed to tackle the endemic problem with more infrastructure and equipment, as well as more and better paid prison staff.

In the past year, it has succeeded in reducing the prison population by 30,000, but 58 per cent of the country’s current 216,831 inmates still live in overcrowded conditions, and more than a third of Mexico’s 375 prisons are filled beyond capacity.

Gangs have effective control of cell blocks in some prisons and fight among themselves for control, triggering riots, murders, escapes and clashes.

This year alone there have been shoot-outs, fires and the escape of 29 inmates from prisons in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas. The son of Juan Jose Esparragoza, one of the founders of Guzman’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, managed to escape from a prison in the state of Sinaloa.

Images of a “narco-fiesta” went viral on social media this year, showing jailbirds in the western state of Jalisco swigging alcohol, feasting and watching a live concert in which the band played songs hailing the gang boss who had organised the party.

Another video showed inmates being forced by members of a rival gang to clean their cells.

Just a few days ago, police found guns and a tunnel in another prison in Tamaulipas where 80 per cent of the inmates are members of the Gulf Cartel.

Memories are still fresh of Guzman’s spectacular escape from a maximum security penitentiary two years ago, ducking down a tunnel under the very noses of his guards and staying on the run for months. That was the second time he had busted out, having carried out another high-profile jailbreak in 2001.