“At the heart of the problem is the river of bribes coursing through Mexican jails, from the few pesos inmates pay each day to get food and toilet paper to the fortunes that jailed drug lords pay to live in luxury or escape when they please.

“The authorities no longer control the prisons — the drug lords do,” said Pedro Arellano, a veteran prisoner rights activist. “The prisons have become officials’ petty cash box.”

In many of Mexico’s overcrowded prisons, drug suspects use money and influence to run their businesses from the inside, and to recruit new cartel members among fellow inmates.”

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/08/corrupt-insecure-prisons-undermine.html