Report: Majority of Mexican prisons controlled by gangs

September 24, 2012

A new report suggests that gangs control about sixty percent of Mexico’s prisons. KJZZ’s Steve Goldstein has more.

The report was compiled by the Mexican government’s National Human Rights Commission. The commission says it visited one hundred state and local prisons and found that gangs controlled activities ranging from internal security to services provided to inmates. Drug cartels also control some of the facilities.

The report came out one week after 131 inmates broke out of a Northern Mexico prison in an escape coordinated by the Zetas drug cartel.

The National Human Rights Commission said there were 14 mass escapes from Mexican prisons in 2010 and 2011, involving 521 inmates.