After being disincorporated from the Federal Penitentiary System, the penal colony of Islas Marías has begun transferring 525 inmates to other prison complexes in Mexico.
Alfonso Durazo, Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, reported on his Twitter account that these inmates were taken to other federal centers for social rehabilitation with the help of the National Defense Secretariat and the Secretary of the Navy.
“Together with @SEDENAmx and @SEMAR_mx, we carried out the transfer of inmates from the Federal Penal Colony of Islas Marías to federal centers for social rehabilitation; We have already transferred 525 convicts. As is known, Islas Marías will be in charge of
@SEMARNAT_mx.” said Durazo.
The Islas Marías Federal Prison was constructed in 1905. One of its more notable prisoners was the Mexican progressive writer Jose Revueltas who wrote his first book Los Muros de Agua (The Walls of Water, publ.1941) while incarcerated there.
The Islas Marías (“Mary Islands”) are an archipelago of four islands that belong to Mexico. They are located in the Pacific Ocean, some 100 km (62 mi) off the coast of the state of Nayarit and about 370 km (230 mi) southeast of the tip of Baja California. They are part of the municipality (municipio) of San Blas, Nayarit.
Mexico’s newly-elected president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced on February 18, 2019, that his administration will close the Islas Marías Federal Prison, replacing it with a new cultural center that will be named for Jose Revueltas
