Bulldozers bring prison reform

last updated 8 January 2015

Tijuana, Mexico

Mexican police this week demolished a sprawling luxury condominium for bribe-paying inmates inside La Mesa State Penitentiary. Prisoners once paid as much as $25,000 for the best of La Mesa’s 400 town houses, which boasted Jacuzzis, maids, and cell-phone service. President Vicente Fox promised a “complete cleansing” of the prison, and the bulldozing was the first step. For years, guards and wardens took bribes and looked the other way as inmates erected a “city within a city,” complete with drugs, prostitutes, pizzerias, and video stores. Some prisoners even smuggled in their wives and kids. “There was no law except the law of money,” one official said.