Mexico & Nafta - February 2010 (ISSN 1741-444X)

Prisons: On 25 January, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, suggested that the state should ship Mexicans in Californian jails back to Mexico to serve their sentences. California is facing a budget deficit of US$19.9bn and Schwarzenegger is looking for any savings he can make. Schwarzenegger is suggesting that it would be cost effective for California to pay for new prisons to be built in Mexico to house the 20,000 Mexicans the state currently hold in Californian prisons. Schwarzenegger claimed that the cost of building and operating prisons in Mexico would be half the cost of doing the same work in California. California has 33 prisons housing 150,000 inmates. According to Schwarzenegger, the cost of imprisoning each inmate is US$49,000 a year.

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