Frontera NorteSur, August 1999

Prison Facilities Move To Border Region

According to U.S. Bureau of Prisons' (USBP) officials, the southern border of the United States is being considered as the location for the majority of the country's new private prison industry. Authorities have been considering the border region for a number of privately run prisons that would primarily house "sentenced criminal aliens," as law enforcement agencies call the non-U.S. citizens convicted of crimes in this country.

"The (USBP) target area is the southern border of the United States, and the El Paso region would be an attractive one," said Michael Murphy, director of marketing and business development for Management & Training Corp. of Ogden, Utah, a private prison company. Murphy, who has met with federal government officials, said that the private prison industry has found that municipalities with above-average unemployment rates are the most receptive to prisons.

The area is expected to house 14,000 new prison beds in the next two years. This increase in prisons would create between 200 and 300 new jobs per 1,000 beds, said Jim MacDonald, vice president of research for First Analysis Corp. of Chicago.

Although Murphy could not comment on the federal government's exact plans concerning these new private prisons, he did say that precisely because many areas in Southern New Mexico and West Texas fit the description of receptive communities, his company has placed El Paso and New Mexico on their list of possible locations.

The recent discussions negotiating the possibilities of housing private prisons in the border region may have stemmed from the realization that most of the current border institutions are housing up to double their original capacity. La Tuna federal prison outside of El Paso, with an original capacity of 556 beds, is currently housing over 1,112 inmates. However, this is not just a "border" trend, nationwide, the USBP is close to 30 percent above capacity, said Todd Craig, spokesperson for the USBP.

According to Craig, the prison bureau is considering locating some of the prisons in Louisiana and Florida, however logistically he feels it makes more sense to put the prisons closer to the areas where the crimes are occurring. Also if the prisons are near the border, Craig said, they could house the prisoners awaiting deportation from the United States.

The response to the possibility of these new prisons in the region has been mixed. "We're a small community, and it's a very good place to be and a good place for kids. And I don't think I'd like a prison coming in at this point," said Gilbert Candelaria, an Otero County resident living close to a possible prison site. "It's great to have the jobs, but jobs versus everything else, I don't know."

While Candelaria would prefer the prisons stay away from his neighborhood, the Mayor of Anthony, Texas, Art Franco, said that he believes the town would only benefit from a new prison. "The town would get a certain amount of money per prisoner that was housed. We have to look at the effect on the community, but we already live next to a federal prison, and it's never affected us at all."

Another factor to consider according to Richard Durbin, chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney's office in San Antonio, who oversees the El Paso office, is the fact that new stepped up enforcement of drug and immigration laws are generating the increased demand for beds. "It's a sequential thing. We have seen a huge increase in prosecutions in our border office in the last several years. We are seeing huge numbers of illegal aliens, a very large influx."

Sources: El Paso Times, El Diario

"Zero Tolerance" Shows Results

Chihuahua Governor Patricio Martínez' "Zero Tolerance" security plan has already begun to show results, said State Attorney General Arturo González Rascón. González said that Cd. Juárez is the municipality that has shown the greatest change since the program was implemented, surpassing even the state capital Chihuahua City.

In order to prove that "Zero Tolerance" is working in reducing crimes, the attorney general compared crime statistics from the first eight months of the former administration to that of the current government.

"In Cd. Juárez there has been more than a 50 percent decrease in homicides victimizing young men, and murders affecting young women have decreased 48 percent." González added that of the "Sixteen illegal events surrounding females, 15 suspects are in custody and awaiting sentencing at the prison."

Another statistic that the attorney general used to prove the positive results of the public security plan was pointing out that the number of stolen vehicles is down from 4,046 to 2,891.

González said that he credits the decrease in crime in the border state to the strict regulations surrounding the sale of alcoholic beverages implemented by the new administration in October of last year.

The only statistic that the attorney general did not cover in his report was the number of deaths caused by illegal drug overdoses. According to statistics from González' office during the first six months of 1998, there were 26 reported deaths caused by overdoses; while in the same amount of time this year 46 cases have been reported. This shows an increase of 76.92 percent.

Source: El Diario