Mexican Mafia show up in Nevada prisons

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005 | 9:28 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A branch of the Mexican Mafia is filtering into Nevada from California and is ending up in prisons here.

Jackie Crawford, director of the state Department of Corrections, said there are about 640 of the Hispanic gang members.

She told the legislative budget committees Wednesday this group is called "Surenos" and added, "We are not going to let them run our prison system."

Outside the hearing, she called them a "disruptive group" but declined to say where they are in prison. But she said they are descendents of families who were in the Mexican Mafia in California.

And they land in prison in Nevada for a variety of crimes. "It's part of clean-up-the-streets," in Las Vegas where the majority of the arrests are made, Crawford said.

"They love to decorate themselves," she said, displaying pictures of inmates with tattoos on their heads, back and chest. They favor the color blue.

Crawford's comments were made when she and her staff appeared before the Assembly Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee to detail a proposed $522.8 million budget, an increase of $82.9 million compared with the present biennium.

Figures presented to the committees show the cost per inmate of operating the system is $17,717 a year and that is expected to rise to $19,730 next fiscal year and $21,209 in fiscal-year 2007.

Fritz Schlottman of the department said the current population is more than 11,000 inmates and it is expected to rise by 418 next fiscal year and 376 the following year.

"We're out of beds," he told the committees.

Some of the prisons are operating at emergency capacity.

Besides more staff, Crawford said the proposed 10 percent raise for correctional officers will help the system attract and keep staff.

Schlottman said the consulting firm that predicted the prison population for the present two years made a "big miss" in the projections. For instance this fiscal year the consultant predicted a 1.4 percent increase in inmates and the number has grown by 7 percent.

Legislators asked if the new inmates arriving were convicted of the tougher crimes such as murder. But Schlottman said it was a "softer distribution."

Most of those coming in were convicted of larceny, car theft or burglary, he said, adding that the first year of the economic recovery may have fueled the crimes.

Gov. Kenny Guinn has proposed spending $20 million to reopen the mothballed prison at Jean and $58.6 million for three housing units at the High Desert State Prison for 600 inmates. The governor has also included $1.8 million in advance planning money for a 1,500-bed prison that would be opened in October 2010.

Inmates from Wyoming and Washington that have been housed in Nevada will be returned to their states to make room for the Nevada prisoners.