Pubdate: Wed, 23 Feb 2005
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2005 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact:  http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan, The Washington Post
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)

INMATES UNDERCUT DRUG WAR

President's Efforts Stalled By Corruption

MEXICO CITY   The drug traffickers' wives clicked through the halls of 
Congress in high-heeled boots, glowering behind designer sunglasses. For 
several days, they had been barred from La Palma federal penitentiary, and 
they were upset that their usual privileges -- including conjugal visits -- 
had been suspended.

The visits were halted when the government sent hundreds of army troops, 
backed by tanks and helicopters, to take control of La Palma on Jan. 14, 
after federal officials learned that drug traffickers were running criminal 
empires from their cells in the maximum-security prison and ordering 
executions both inside and outside its walls.

But Gilberto Ensastiga, a congressman who listened to the wives' 
complaints, agreed that all prisoners had the legal right to family visits, 
and accompanied them to a meeting with the national human rights 
commission. Privileges were restored the next day.

Even as President Vicente Fox vows to wage the "mother of all battles" 
against drug traffickers, many criminal justice analysts say his efforts 
are being undermined by outdated laws, lenient penal policies and 
corruption inside the jails. As a result, one of Fox's proudest 
accomplishments in four years in office, putting an unprecedented number of 
drug cartel leaders behind bars, is turning into a crisis.

Drug-related violence, much of it directed by powerful inmates in La Palma, 
killed more than 100 people in January, according to federal officials. The 
war started when Benjamin Arellano Felix and Osiel Cardenas Guillen, two of 
the biggest traffickers in Mexico and leaders of competing drug cartels at 
the two ends of the U.S.-Mexico border, joined forces behind bars. Once 
archrivals, they became partners in La Palma, working out of adjoining cells.

Mexico's top organized-crime prosecutor, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, 
said the two inmates plotted against a third trafficker, Joaquin "El Chapo" 
Guzman, who had escaped from another maximum- security prison in 2001 by 
hiding in a laundry truck. The resulting turf war has led to scores of 
executions, prompting U.S. officials to warn Americans of the 
"deteriorating security situation" along the Mexico border.

Miguel Angel Yunes, a top federal public security official, said sweeping 
changes were taking place at La Palma, just west of Mexico City. New 
employees were brought in after 105 of 148 guards flunked lie detector and 
drug tests. Federal officials also found cocaine and 27 cell phones inside 
the prison, an ultramodern center that had been the pride of Mexico's penal 
system, Yunes said.

Such disclosures have fueled a growing debate about the overall approach to 
criminal punishment. Mexico's justice system stresses rehabilitation; the 
death penalty and life sentences are outlawed on the theory that even the 
most violent offenders can be redeemed.

Almost 200,000 inmates are in 454 federal, state and local prisons, and at 
some, inmates' wives and children are allowed to stay overnight. Some 
prison yards resemble villages, with children riding bicycles and prisoners 
earning money by selling tacos or renting out videos.

Escaping from prison is not a crime in Mexico. There is no penalty as long 
as another crime, such as assaulting a guard, is not committed during an 
escape. As one Supreme Court justice has explained, "The person who tries 
to escape is seeking liberty, and that is deeply respected in the law."

A growing number of critics, however, question whether current laws and 
prison regulations, many dating back 70 to 80 years, can deal with the 
extreme violence caused by sophisticated modern-day drug cartels that ship 
billions of dollars worth of marijuana, cocaine and heroin into the United 
States.

Fox has proposed an overhaul of the prison and criminal justice system that 
would give police broader authority to investigate crime, rein in the 
excessive power of federal prosecutors, and reduce the system's notorious 
reliance on confessions obtained by torture. It would also give judges more 
flexibility to order restitution or community service for minor offenders. 
The plan is now before Congress.
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