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 entering 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.
Puente Grande maximum-security prison, on the outskirts of Guadalajara, is one of three prisons where federal officers have taken control.
(Guillermo Arias -- AP)
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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. The next day, the privileges were restored.
Even as President Vicente Fox vows to wage the "mother of all battles" against drug traffickers, many criminal justice analysts here say his efforts are being undermined by outdated laws, lenient penal policies and corruption inside the jails.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, has claimed more than 100 lives this month, 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.
An especially brazen crime was the Jan. 20 slaying of six prison employees in the border city of Matamoros, which led Fox to pledge all-out war on drug traffickers in and out of prison. Officials said a team of killers set up a roadblock near the prison and seized the workers from their vehicles. They were found blindfolded, handcuffed and shot to death. Mexican soldiers have since taken control of that prison and a third maximum-security facility near Guadalajara.
As a result of the violence and intimidation, Fox has stepped up his own personal security, spokesman Agustin Gutierrez Canet said. Mexican drug traffickers have a long history of killing lawyers, judges, police officers and politicians who challenge them. Gutierrez Canet said the size of Fox's security detail has been increased, agents are being more vigilant about guests at his events and Fox is being more careful about wading into crowds to shake hands.
Miguel Angel Yunes, a top federal public security official, said sweeping changes were also 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. Yunes also said federal officials had found cocaine and 27 cell phones inside the prison, an ultramodern facility that had been the pride of Mexico's penal system.
More broadly, the disclosures of lax security and unusual privileges inside Mexican prisons 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.
"Mexico should continue to fight for true social rehabilitation of criminals," said Ensastiga, who serves on the justice and human rights commission in the lower house of Congress. "It's been proved in countries with life sentences or the death penalty that those don't lead to lower crime rates. On the contrary, they generate resentment that leads to higher crime rates."
Nearly 200,000 inmates are housed in 454 federal, state and local prisons across Mexico, and at some facilities, 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.
Even visits with prostitutes are allowed at certain prisons, according to Moises Moreno Hernandez, director of the Center for the Study of Criminal Science and Politics. Such privileges, he said, are believed to make sexual violence among inmates "virtually nonexistent."
To the dismay of many law enforcement officials, escaping from prison is not a crime in Mexico. As long as the escapee does not commit another crime while escaping -- such as assaulting a guard -- there is no penalty. 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, are questioning whether current laws and prison regulations, many dating back 70 to 80 years, are tough enough to 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.
"The whole system has to be changed to be more in favor of the people, and against the enemies of the people," said Alejandro Gertz Manero, who resigned last year as Fox's secretary of public safety. He said those who favor reform are often "seen as against human rights. But you have to change the law so that the most important thing is the human rights of victims rather than criminals."
Gertz said that if those who commit minor offenses were given alternatives to jail, prison officials could focus on the most violent and dangerous criminals.
Despite La Palma's impressive array of metal detectors, X-ray machines and video surveillance technology, federal officials said Arellano and Cardenas were able to communicate freely enough to arrange several killings of Guzman's associates, including a brother who was shot dead Dec. 31 inside La Palma.
One way to reduce security breaches, Gertz suggested, would be to speed up criminal trials. Many drug bosses inside La Palma, including Cardenas and Arellano, have been awaiting trial for many months or even years, during which they are allowed daily visits by their attorneys. Some were spending up to 12 hours a day with their lawyers; the new limit is one hour per day.
In some cases, federal officials said the lawyers were acting as messengers, passing on orders for murders or drug shipments. Leonardo Oceguera Jimenez, a lawyer for several drug traffickers who accompanied the inmates' wives to Congress last week, was shot to death two days later.
