Mexico prison riot: at least 52 people killed and 12 injured in Monterrey | World news | The Guardian

12.2.16

Mexico prison riot: at least 52 people killed and 12 injured in Monterrey | World news | The Guardian: “They left (Topo Chico) in the control of organized crime,” said Father Robert Coogan, a prison chaplain in the norther city of Saltillo, who belongs to a ministry that provides services to inmates in northern Mexican states.

The most recent report on prisons by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) found widespread evidence of “autogobierno” – or self-rule by inmates – and assigned the Topo Chico facility a score of 5.72 out of 10. The survey showed a deterioration in Nuevo Le�n prisons over the past five years; only five of Mexico’s 32 states ranked worse.

Managing prisons has proved difficult in Mexico as the inmate populations swell with detainees from the ongoing crackdown on organized crime and drug cartels. Overcrowding has aggravated existing problems of corruption and intimidation in the cell blocks: prisoners are forced to pay inflated prices for everything from protection to proper food to being marked present in roll calls.