The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Warden Fernandez recently attended a Chihuahua City meeting with other state authorities and the Tijuana-based company Ceinre in order to discuss the possibility of having maquiladoras operate in the state’s penitentiaries. Fernandez said a plan is under review to initially employ 500 prisoners in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua City and Parral, for the purpose of making room furnishings for the international hotel industry. In order to obtain extra space for the Ciudad Juarez site, the prison administrator added that using land now controlled by the Mexican Defense Ministry is under consideration. Private and public backers of the project hope tourists, in the comfort of their favorite resort, soon will be relishing the refreshing rugs and cool curtains made by Chihuahua's convicts.

A North Carolina-born businessman, Joe Robertson Ervin Jones, is the private sector's frontman for the Chihuahua maquiladora prison project. A one-time textile worker, Robertson began manufacturing products for a Hilton hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1975. He later ran plants in Orlando and Dallas before closing up US shop in 1997, laying off 600 workers and moving to Mexico. Now a nationalized Mexican citizen, Robertson is associated with two Mexican companies, Ceinre and JoeVilla.

Robertson's companies operate, or plan to operate, maquiladoras in Quintana Roo, Yucatan, Baja California and Chihuahua. A factory line employing about 50 workers who assemble blankets and other hotel furnishings was rolled out last September at a Quintana Roo state prison. Robertson's enterprise has been awarded the exclusive supplier contract for Marriott's Latin American hotels.

In an interview with the Mexican press at the recent maquiladora industry convention held in Acapulco, Guerrero, Robertson laid out his plans to have factories operating in virtually every Mexican prison, employing tens of thousands of workers.

"We want to motivate the prisoner to help his family and reintegrate (into society) with honor and integrity so he can recover his self-esteem, which is one of the biggest problems inmates have," Robertson said. "We want prisoners who are close to release not to return."

Robertson is pursuing a twin-plant strategy for Mexican prisons. The goal is to build a twin plant right outside the gates of the jail, allowing prisoners' wives to be employed in addition to the inmates themselves once they are released. Prisoners will be paid the minimum wage of about $4 dollars a day. One-third of the wage will go to the prisoner, one-third to his family and one-third to the prison administration. It’s not known if the twin plants will pay the traditional punctuality and attendance bonuses of the maquiladora industry, or if unions will be permitted to represent the inmate-workers.

Robertson contended that prison factories could serve to reduce crime and wayward social behavior by providing an income to prisoners who sell drugs on the inside in order to survive, as well as to their wives who sell their bodies on the outside. "This program is going to eliminate those type of problems and bring the family together when the prisoner completes his sentence," Robertson said.

Robertson and Company have an ambitious agenda. In addition to the Chihuahua plants, the prison industry investors have plans for jailhouse factories in other nations of Latin America, Canada, Spain, and Indonesia.

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Sources: El Diario de Juarez, November 9, 2005. Article by Javier Saucedo. Norte, October 31, 2005. Article by Francisco Cabrera. www.unidaddelvocero.com, September 15, 2005.

Reprinted with permission from Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico