AMERICA/MEXICO - Prisons become "universities of crime": the Church insists on re-education

Wednesday, 30 July 2014

Veracruz (Agenzia Fides) - "Family, school and civil authorities have the responsibility to stop the growth in the number of adolescents and young people who end up in organized crime groups": said the Bishop of the Diocese of Veracruz (Mexico), Mgr. Luis Felipe Gallardo Martin del Campo, SDB. According to a note sent to Fides, the opening of the XXXVI National Conference for Pastoral prison held in Veracruz, in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio in Mexico, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Mgr. Gallardo Martin del Campo said that "parents have neglected the education and care of children because of work and personal interests, and this can be seen in the statistics on crime today".
"We must insist in family pastoral - he continued - because today we see criminal gangs everywhere, and while parents are away because many times they work, children are left alone". Then he added, "It is sad to see that in the network of drug trade there are so many young people aged between 20 and 25". The Bishop turned not only to families but also to the authorities: "Even the authorities are responsible for this situation because prisons are becoming universities of crime", he remarked.
"The Church - he said - works in prisons for the regeneration of many of these young people, offers a program of rehabilitation and social re-integration to make sure that many are able to return to their families".
The major problems of prisons in Mexico regard the lives of inmates and overcrowding. The Church in Mexico, in its 92 dioceses, is engaged in prison pastoral with priests, religious and laity. (CE) (Agenzia Fides 30/07/2014)


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