One of the most heated issues in current public debate has been the jail system, mainly because far from being a place of rehabilitation it has been a place of overcrowding, violence and steep public spending both in California and Baja California. With more than 150,000 inmates, the California jail system is maxed out, and the governor is pushing the idea of freeing 40,000 non-violent inmates not only to reduce overcrowding, but also to save the state 1.2 billion dollars a year.
Many of those ex-convicts would soon be deported to Baja California because of their immigration status. Many of them belong to violent jail gangs, are addicted to drugs and, despite their immigration status, have never been to Mexico in their adult lives.
The prospect of such deportations has worried residents and authorities alike, because the mass deportation of inmates comes at a critical time where the Baja Penitentiary system is 35 percent overcrowded, arrests are up and a major legal system overhaul is scheduled for the beginning of 2010.
“This decision of liberating inmates in California will definitely have an impact in the public safety conditions along the border, where we already have a very complex scenario,” said Baja California Attorney General, Rommel Moreno Manjarrez.
His California counterpart, Jerry Brown, acknowledged that the deportation of ex-convicts could impact security in both sides of the border, and agreed to work with Rommel to create a plan to mitigate the impact. The plan includes working together in a system to share information about deportations and inmates, including a fingerprint database for future reference. Read more here...
Many of those ex-convicts would soon be deported to Baja California because of their immigration status. Many of them belong to violent jail gangs, are addicted to drugs and, despite their immigration status, have never been to Mexico in their adult lives.
The prospect of such deportations has worried residents and authorities alike, because the mass deportation of inmates comes at a critical time where the Baja Penitentiary system is 35 percent overcrowded, arrests are up and a major legal system overhaul is scheduled for the beginning of 2010.
“This decision of liberating inmates in California will definitely have an impact in the public safety conditions along the border, where we already have a very complex scenario,” said Baja California Attorney General, Rommel Moreno Manjarrez.
His California counterpart, Jerry Brown, acknowledged that the deportation of ex-convicts could impact security in both sides of the border, and agreed to work with Rommel to create a plan to mitigate the impact. The plan includes working together in a system to share information about deportations and inmates, including a fingerprint database for future reference. Read more here...
