Along Mexico's border, just going to work can risk death

The Director of the Jaurez Municipal Jail , Feels that it is better to be in Jail with 2800 inmates than to be outside of it !
Jaurez Mexico , A great place to Be !


El Paso Times
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Prison director Gerardo Ortiz has an armored car and five bodyguards at his beck and call. Still, he doesn't leave the municipal prison here very often. It's too risky.

Like the 2,800 inmates locked up in the Ciudad Juarez municipal jail, Ortiz is an inmate, too, of sorts. The only place he feels safe is inside the prison. So he sleeps in a small prison apartment replete with a punching bag to relieve the tension.

Ask him how long he's served as the prison warden, and the answer comes quickly: "Eleven months and 10 days." His goal: "Leave here alive."

Occupying a senior public service job along Mexico's troubled border with the U.S. literally can mean facing death - especially in Ciudad Juarez, where rival drug cartels are at war and the homicide rate has soared.