More on the Jailhouse Riot in Gómez Palacio

I heard an interview with Secretary of Public Security in the state of Durango last night in which he said that there were brawls resulting in injuries and deaths last month in the same local prison where 19 inmates were killed two days ago. Furthermore, there was an escape in March that led to the arrest of the warden and 11 employees. The fact that within weeks of the most recent events the same inmates could stash an arsenal big enough to mount a firefight is a pretty clear reflection of the problems in Mexico's penal system. I mean, it's not like officials should have been taken by surprise by this.

The same secretary (Jorge Torres Castillo, for those of you scoring at home) said that of the more than 1,000 inmates at the facility, almost 400 are federal convicts siphoned into the local jail because of over-crowding. Building more jails isn't going to solve Mexico's security ills, but it seems like increasing the number of beds in federal and state prisons by 50 percent would be a pretty good way to get a lot of people working, as well as reduce the danger of inmates running wild. Of course, with the recent cuts in public building projects this isn't going to happen.