Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

MEXICO: New Wave of Prison Riots, Deaths

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Oct 20 2008 (IPS) - At least 47 people have been killed in six different prison riots in Mexico since Sept. 14. After the latest, which was reportedly brought under control Monday, the authorities promised for the umpteenth time to improve the prison system, where jails are filled to more than 140 percent of capacity.

A riot that broke out Sunday and continued Monday in the prison in Reynosa, a town on the U.S. border in the northern state of Tamaulipas, left 22 dead and 34 injured, according to a preliminary report by the attorney-general’s office, which also stated that the police and military had regained control over the prison.

But inmates’ families claim the death toll was much higher, and that 60 or more prisoners were killed.

They said that what happened was a clash between rival gangs armed with high-power rifles and even grenades.

“This riot once again highlights the problems plaguing Mexico’s penitentiary and justice systems, their incongruities and the resulting human rights violations,” Guillermo Zepeda, an expert on security issues and prisons at the Development Research Centre (CIDAC), told IPS.

The current wave of riots began on Sept. 14 and 17, in the prison in Tijuana in the north, and continued on Sept. 18 in a jail near Monterrey in the northeast; Oct. 12 in Zacatecas, in the centre of the country; Oct. 13 in Culiacán, in the northwest; and Monday in Reynosa, where the prison built for 1,000 inmates currently holds 2,000.

In 2007, 80 prisoners died in riots in Mexico’s prisons, which hold more than 220,000 inmates, 45 percent of whom have not yet been sentenced.

As on earlier occasions, the attorney-general’s office promised to investigate the riot and to take measures to prevent a repeat.

In a recent meeting with legislators, the deputy minister of the prison system, Patricio Patiño, acknowledged that Mexico’s 441 prisons are severely overcrowded and rundown, the system is riddled with corruption, and prison staff is under-trained, while there is a lack of rehabilitation programmes.

Zepeda, who has written numerous reports on Mexico’s prisons, said that although it is not clear how to solve the problems facing the penitentiary system, there is some hope that things will change as a result of a constitutional reform that was passed in June, which outlines a complete overhaul of the legal system within the next eight years.

The country’s prisons have filled up far beyond capacity under the current system of closed door trials based on written evidence, in which judges rarely see the defendants.

“The prisons are 140 percent overcrowded on average, but in the capital and Tijuana, the overcrowding stands at 180 and 200 percent, respectively,” said Zepeda.

Ninety percent of inmates are not classified as highly dangerous, but they are housed alongside hardened criminals, said the expert, who described the country’s prisons as schools for crime.

The reform of the legal system, which will introduce oral trials open to the public, is expected to reduce the rate at which suspects are put under preventive arrest. It is also designed to restore the presumption of innocence, cut down the number of people held in preventive detention, and reduce the weight of confessions in trials.

In addition, a specific judge will be named to follow the entire legal process through to the sentencing stage, victims will be given greater leeway to present evidence, and judges will be required to be present at every hearing.

The riots over the past few weeks in Mexico are evidence of the serious problems facing the country’s prisons: overcrowding, rampant violence, drug trafficking, prostitution, corruption and “all of the evils that you can imagine,” said Zepeda.

Studies show that less than 10 percent of prisoners in Mexico do any sort of work, and there is just one guard for every nine inmates, while the ratio should be at least one to four, according to the United Nations Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD).

“What is happening today in Mexico is genocide in the prisons,” said Zepeda, who said the danger of dying in prison is extremely high.

Between 2003 and 2007 there were 54 riots and 909 major fights in Mexico’s prisons. In that same period, 168 inmates committed suicide and 224 were murdered.

Half of the inmates in Mexico’s penitentiaries are serving sentences for minor non-violent theft and burglary involving amounts of less than 600 dollars, and 80 percent of those who have received sentences have never even seen the judge who handed them down, according to a 2002 study by the Centre for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE), which added that a mere five percent of the robberies involved more than 7,500 dollars.

The study, based on surveys carried out among prisoners, also says that 80 percent were not informed of their right not to testify in their first appearance in court, and 70 percent had no lawyer or legal advice when they were first questioned by prosecutors.

CIDE concluded that it is not the most dangerous criminals who are found in Mexico’s prisons, but those who are unable to gain a favourable legal outcome because of poverty or ignorance about how the system works.