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Mexico’s prisons, as described by inmates and insiders and viewed during several visits, are places where drug traffickers find a new base of operations for their criminal empires, recruit underlings, and bribe their way out for the right price. The system is so flawed, in fact, that the Mexican government is extraditing record numbers of drug traffickers to the United States, where they find it much harder to intimidate witnesses, run their drug operations or escape.

The United States government, as part of its counternarcotics assistance program, is committing $4 million this year to help fix Mexico’s broken prisons, officials said

Mexico’s prisons are bursting at the seams, with space for 172,151 inmates nationwide but an additional 50,000 crammed in. More arrive by the day as part of the government’s drug war, which has sent tens of thousands to prison since President Felipe Calderón took office nearly three years ago.

Geography:  The incidence is lowest in Mexico, where the influence of the Church had been significantly reduced and restricted constitutionally after the Revolution in the early 1900's.  Surprisingly, in the three countries (Argentina, Brazil and Chile) in which brutal military dictatorships were actively supported by conservative church leaders in the 1980's, the incidences are just slightly higher than in Mexico.  Conservative Christians have the highest incidences in the other three countries (Colombia, Peru and Venezuela) which have been under nominally democratic, but unstable, governments.

Age/Sex:  Within men, conservative Christians are more likely to be found in the older people (age 45 and over).  Within women, the youngest ones (12 to 19 years old) are conservative, but there is a big drop once they become independent adults (20 to 24 years old).  The highest incidences of conservative Christians are found in women 45 years or older.  These older skews for conservative Christians does not augur well for the future as there are fewer successors within sight.