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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | October 2007 
Mexico May Create Island Penal Colony for Drug Lords
 Laurence Iliff - The Dallas Morning News
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| | Isla María Madre is located about 70 miles off the coast of Nayarit, between Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlán. |
Isla María Madre, Mexico – Newcomers to this stunning Pacific island won't get an umbrella drink or the keys to an open-air Jeep for sightseeing. Instead, they're more likely to be handed a shovel, a list of rules and a housing assignment – with few early checkouts.
This island paradise – about 70 miles off the coast of Nayarit, between Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlán – is no resort. It's a minimum-security prison where inmates, called "colonists," are expected to work hard, be at roll call daily and stay out of trouble.
Welcome to the isolation model for "narco island" – a get-tough, maximum-security prison for drug kingpins that Mexico would like to build on an adjacent island.
Like Alcatraz, the proposed narco island would isolate drug capos to keep them from continuing to run their business from jail.
Officials laid out details of the proposed island exclusively to The Dallas Morning News on Oct. 19, during a tour of the Islas Marías, calling the penal colony a model for rehabilitation.
The plan is part of President Felipe Calderón's strategy to revamp a backward legal system – complicated by drug traffickers who have legions of lawyers and vast economic resources. And it's an important piece of an anti-drug plan between the United States and Mexico in which the U.S. would kick in $1.4 billion for things like helicopters and communications systems.
But for actual construction funds, Mexico is looking to the Japanese government and the Inter-American Development Bank, said an official on the condition of anonymity.
Public Security Minister Genaro García Luna told The News in an interview last month that the government was "working on a study to see if we could create an island where we would have greater control over visits, communications, meetings."
The current prison, which Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz opened in 1905 to house violent criminals and political enemies, would have its own court system. And lawyers, who often work with traffickers as liaisons with their cartels, would have to travel to it by boat. The effect would be similar to extraditing the capos to the U.S. without them ever leaving Mexico.
Although Mexico's Supreme Court has opened the door to dozens of extraditions, some drug lords have definitive legal sentences that prevent them from being sent to the United States and some extradited capos may eventually return to face charges in Mexico.
José Arturo Yañez Romero, a law enforcement expert who now trains detectives in Mexico City, said the narco island "in principle, sounds like an interesting idea."
The problem is the human corruption that undermines the best-laid plans. Even some politicians work on behalf of the narcos, he said.
For example, La Palma, the maximum security prison outside of Mexico City, was almost taken over from within by drug traffickers two years ago before army tanks and hundreds of soldiers took control. Prior to that, two inmates there were killed inside with handguns.
"The maximum security model has not functioned in Mexico, and by analogy, this [narco island] will function in the same fashion," said Mr. Yañez. "They are going to have to show us how this is different."
Practical considerations
But officials who laid out details of the narco island last week stressed that it is only a proposal for now – and one with logistical hurdles.
One of those hurdles is potable water.
The current minimum-security prison on María Madre successfully uses desalinization for its water needs because fresh water is hard to come by on the islands. The desalinization equipment was purchased years ago, so its cost is not a factor.
The proposed maximum-security prison on María Magdalena next door could perhaps use something similar, officials said, though cost would have to be taken into account.
A second concern is preventing an assault on the island from paramilitary drug enforcers seeking to spring their leaders – though the navy patrols the area and any vessel or aircraft approaching the facility would be spotted from miles out, officials said.
Prison guards would be constantly vetted and subject to lie detector tests.
And despite their seclusion, the traffickers would have access to their lawyers and the ability to defend themselves. Human rights monitors would guarantee that, officials said.
"Sadly, one sees lawyers who spend all day as [narco] messengers and no longer as lawyers," said Celina Oseguera Parra, commissioner for the federal prison system, which has seven facilities throughout Mexico.
The narco prison would help end that, she said.
Currently, attorneys visit with their clients nearly every day – all day. That would be impossible on the island, where boat trips would be limited. For example, there is only one boat trip per week to the Islas Marías – on Thursdays. The boat arrives in the morning and leaves late afternoon.
Inmates at the proposed maximum-security island also could use video conferencing to have contact with judges who are not at the facility, Ms. Oseguera Parra said during the tour of the minimum-security prison on María Madre.
Wearing an Indian dress and a broad smile, Ms. Oseguera Parra said the current minimum-security prison is an example of how the government is trying to improve the prison system by also focusing on rehabilitation.
Ms. Oseguera Parra said that once the minimum-security prison is up to its full population of 5,000, the cost per prisoner will be about the same as a regular federal facility because the inmates will do all the work and the island will be self-sufficient in food. Likewise, fewer guards are needed given the nature of the facility.
She acknowleged, however, that the cost per prisoner at the proposed narco island will be higher than that of a maximum-security prison on the mainland, given that food and fuel will have to be shipped in. "But it's worth it," she said.
In some ways, María Madre is already a low-level narco island since most of the "colonists" are in for nonviolent drug offenses like transporting narcotics or growing them.
More freedom
Slated for closure a few years ago, the colony is being repopulated thanks, in part, to a testimonial video.
In it, colonists encourage prisoners around the country – with the exception of violent offenders, rapists and child molesters – to consider the island environment.
Prisoners on the island are not crammed six to a cell, and they're not subject to abuse by prison gangs or shakedowns by guards or exposed to the constant temptation of readily available drugs.
During free time, colonists can roam on their bikes, shop and visit with their families, who are encouraged to move onto the island.
Roberto Castañeda Bravo, 49, and one of those on the video, arrived here three months ago from a federal prison in Los Mochis, Sinaloa. He was convicted of transporting drugs, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years.
"It's so different here. When you can move freely, it changes you. It gives you your life back," said Mr. Castañeda as he painted an open-air reception room last week a few yards from the deep blue sea. "There are dangerous people here, but they change 100 percent when they are given some freedom."
Several hundred new colonists have been recruited through the video. As new housing is built on the island, the population is expected to rise from the current 1,066 inmates (plus 275 noninmate relatives and 100 employees) to more than 5,000 inmates in 2012.
Inmates work in agriculture, ranching, carpentry and construction. They are divided into 11 "encampments" around the island, which is 14 miles long and 8 miles wide. The proposed narco island on María Magdalena is about half that size. The third island in the chain, María Cleofas, is tiny and largely uninhabitable.
The 150 children on the island attend one of three schools on María Madre – from kindergarten to middle school. At age 14, they must go back to the mainland to live with relatives or in orphanages.
The island's baker, an inmate who gave his name as Manuel, said he married his wife in a church ceremony here, and she lives with him in modest housing with their newborn baby.
"Me, personally, I'm very happy here with my wife, with my family," he said, adding that "love convinced her" to move to the penal colony.
Families like Manuel's get groceries, up to $280 a month from relatives for purchases on the island, and are allowed to run small businesses.
"It's cool here," said Phillip Smith, 42, of Tennessee, one of two Americans on the island. "You work three or four hours and then you have some time for yourself."
On one bulletin board outside a store, a handwritten sign reads: "Mexican snacks sold today in Silvia's house, sopes, quesadillas, tostadas ..."
Few transgressions
The island is not completely without rule breaking. And there are cells for those who do – often for drug use or violence. Inmates find ways to make clandestine alcohol, and drugs can be found by those who aggressively seek them out.
But the ultimate punishment – banishment from the island – is a strong incentive to say clean, said penal colony director Enrique Herrera Chi, who personally checks on work projects.
And since the rationing of sugar last year, Mr. Herrera Chi said, the production of alcohol has dropped. It's not hard to spot a drunk with three roll calls a day, he said.
There have been 78 escapes in 100 years, although few in recent years, said the warden. Currently, one inmate is missing and could have escaped or died.
Islas Marías has gained a reputation as "Club Fed" as a result of the promotional video and news reports. But its historical reputation is actually as one of the worst-ever prisons in Mexico, a source of books – including one by acclaimed writer José Revueltas, who wrote the prison book Walls of Water – and movies about forced labor in salt mines and torture.
Only in the 1990s did it begin changing its status to a rehabilitation colony for nonviolent offenders.
But is it really punishment?
Officials say the loss of freedom is punishment enough for people whose crimes are relatively minor. And by adjusting to the society on the penal colony, they are more likely to adjust to regular society when their term is up. And that means less crime.
"They have committed a crime that has hurt society," said Ms. Oseguera Parra, standing before the beachfront town square in one of the encampments. "But they are human beings."
liliff@dallasnews.com |
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