Outsource Prisons to Mexico, Says CA Governor

by Te-Ping Chen · 2010-01-27 07:45:00 UTC
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In the same week that the U.K.'s David Cameron raised brows with his call to create floating prisons, looks like another politician has jumped the shark. This time, it's California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, weighing in with an equally outlandish solution to California's prison problems: outsource inmates to Mexico.

Quoth the Governator:

"[We'll] pay them to build the prisons down in Mexico and then we have those undocumented immigrants be down there in a prison..."

Schwarzenegger predicts the move would save the state $1 billion, which in turn (he said) could be spent on higher education.

For a state that currently spends some $35,500 a year to incarcerate a prisoner -- from a total $8 billion prison budget that outstrips higher-education spending altogether -- one could see the appeal.

Except that, well, the Governor seems to be tripping down fantasy lane here. To begin with: pinning prison problems on immigrants looks less persuasive when you consider that they only make up 19,000 of the state's 171,000 inmates. Two: as Foreign Policy notes, Schwarzenegger's timing was a little misplaced, as just this past week 23 Mexican inmates were killed in a Durango prison riot (this on top of 40 inmates killed in prison riots last year). As Mexico has launched its offensive against drug cartels, its prisons have gotten increasingly "crowded and dangerous," with inmates launching numerous breakout attempts, including one operation that set 53 jailbirds free. I.e., not the kind of partner you'd want in any new penal experiment.

Three: Of course, there's the tiny, awkward fact that Schwarzenegger appeared to be making most of what he was saying up.

His spokesman, Aaron McLear, was flummoxed by the governor's improvised comments. Schwarzenegger wasn't presenting a real proposal, he said -- just riffing on "a concept somebody mentioned to him." And McLear had no idea where the $1 billion figure came from at all.

Have California's prisons really deteriorated to the point that the only solutions the Governor can find are imaginary ones?

Photo Credit: Dana Gonzales

Te-Ping Chen Te-Ping Chen is a freelance writer and U.S. Truman Scholar whose writing has appeared in the Nation Magazine, the South China Morning Post magazine, Le Soir, and Slate.com.
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