Mexico Week in Review

US PREPARING INTEGRATED PLAN ON DRUG WAR

The U.S. government is working on an integrated plan to address Mexico's escalating war with drug traffickers and could complete work on the initiative as early as this week, a top U.S. military official said.

Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, who oversees U.S. military interests on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border as the head of Northern Command, told the Senate that the plan would likely involve all agencies of government including law enforcement and the military. The military is already employing border security techniques mastered in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, including unmanned aerial vehicles and technology capable of locating underground tunnels.

But an interagency government team, meeting this week at the Department of Homeland Security, is expected to produce a broad new initiative to confront a drug war that has killed thousands in Mexico and spilled over into U.S. cities such as Phoenix in a surge of kidnappings and other gang-related violence. "This is a whole of government problem and I think the best response is an integrated approach and we're working toward that aggressively," Renuart said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "I think we'll have good plans come out of this work this week," he said. "The Mexican government is taking aggressive action to win. They are building momentum. I would not say they are losing," Renuart said when asked if the Calderon government was winning or losing.

Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has suggested Washington give Mexico assistance in counterinsurgency tactics used against Islamist militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, including surveillance drones. U.S. officials acknowledge that much of the violence is fueled by a stream of U.S. small arms moving into Mexico, while lamenting a rise in gang problems in the United States.

At a separate hearing before a panel of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Richard Durbin estimated that Mexican drug cartels are now present in at least 230 U.S. cities, compared to 50 cities in 2006. "They are the new face of crime in the area of globalization," Durbin said.

Meanwhile, Renuart said the Mexican military faces a challenge in border cities like Juarez, near El Paso, Texas. "They have been very effective when they've been in place," he said. "The challenge for the Mexican government is its sustainment of that effort because their military is not that large." He said the U.S. military is providing Mexico with assistance including tactics for raiding cartel operations and seizing weapons. The military is also tracking cartel movements along the border with cameras, listening posts and aerial surveillance vehicles, including unmanned drones, and passing their findings on to U.S. law enforcement, he said.

Asked about suggestions that U.S. troops be positioned on the border for added security, Renuart said it was unclear whether any need for additional manpower should be met by the National Guard or law enforcement agencies. The U.S. military is also providing law enforcement including customs and border security officials with technology used in Afghanistan to detect tunnels dug under the border.

Source: Reuters: 03/17
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CRADLE OF MAIZE ROCKED BY TRANSGENICS

Mexico has lifted the ban on experimental cultivation of transgenic maize imposed in 1999 in this country where the crop was first domesticated and shaped human culture. Biotech giants have put forward two dozen projects for approval and have announced investments of 382 million dollars up to 2012. The green light given by the government of conservative President Felipe Calderon to the trials, by means of an executive decree which came into force early this month, has provoked the indignation of activists and campesinos (small farmers) opposed to genetically modified (GM) maize.

GM maize seeds have been subjected to recombinant DNA techniques in the laboratory, to introduce one or more genes from other species which confer desirable properties such as higher yields or resistance to herbicides or disease. The groups opposing the measure warn that it will consolidate domination of the global market of GM seeds by transnational corporations and jeopardize the rich genetic diversity of native maize, domesticated in this country over 9,000 years ago and regarded as sacred by campesinos and indigenous people. "The activists wanted to reject experimental cultivation of transgenic maize on behalf of all Mexican farmers, but reason won out," Fabrice Salamanca, head of Agrobio México, told IPS. Agrobio represents the transnational biotech corporations based in this country: Bayer, DuPont, Monsanto, Syngenta and Dow. According to Salamanca, these companies are poised to invest in experimental cultivation, related research and infrastructure. "We hope that approval for the first field trials will be given in August," he said.

The applications are for experimental cultivation in northern Mexico, where large-scale maize cultivation is concentrated, based on commercial hybrid seeds or varieties improved by cross-pollination. "There are no applications to experiment with GM varieties in the southern states, where maize is grown as a subsistence crop for local consumption using native varieties, and where the wealth of traditional genetic diversity is located," Salamanca said. "No one is against the protection of native varieties of maize; on the contrary, we think there should be programs to support its producers. We will be working with agribusiness producers, a sector where it is logical to use transgenic seeds," said the head of Agrobio México.

The new decree limits the size of experimental plots to two hectares, which must be at least 200 meters away from other crops and separated from them by natural barriers, such as screens of trees planted on their perimeters. The ears of corn must be removed from each plant to avoid pollen being dispersed by the wind. At the end of the trial, after scientific assessment of the crop and harvest, the grains produced must be burned. The biotech firms hope that the experiments will demonstrate the advantages they claim for their GM seeds, and that in a year or so commercial planting will be allowed.

Miguel Colunga, leader of the Democratic Campesino Front (FDC) in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, said "the government made a terrible mistake when it allowed these experiments, because it has put (the country's) biodiversity and food sovereignty at risk." The FDC, part of an alliance of environmental and campesino organizations calling itself "Sin maíz no hay país" (roughly, "No maize means no Mexico"), will carry out protest demonstrations against the permits that are granted for experimental maize crops. "We might even burn the plots," Colunga warned.

On Mar. 6 the government published the decree introducing reforms and additions to the regulations for the Biosafety Law, approved in 2005. The new regulations allow experimental cultivation of transgenic maize after plans for the experiment have been duly authorized. The Agriculture and Environment Ministries must promote in situ conservation of native breeds and varieties of maize and its wild relatives through subsidy programs or other mechanisms in order to conserve biodiversity, the decree says. It also stipulates that before permission is granted for experimental cultivation, the authority must verify that there is no conventional alternative to the GM organism in question.

In cases where the authorities determine the non-authorized presence of genetically modified material in breeds, varieties and wild relatives of maize, they must take measures to eliminate, control or mitigate such presence, it says. Silvia Ribeiro, the Latin America spokeswoman for the non-governmental Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group), said the Calderon administration "concocted its own interpretation of the law in order to allow experimental crops because of pressure from transnational corporations." The Biosafety Law, regulations to which were only added in 2008, stipulates that the authorities must define special rules for experimental cultivation of maize. Instead, "they have issued some low-level rules that no one will follow," Ribeiro said.

In spite of the ban on growing transgenic maize, traces of GM varieties have been found from time to time on some farms since 2001, even in the south of the country where commercial seeds are not used. In some cases investigations are ongoing, but most incidents have never been investigated. Ribeiro and Colunga accused the members of Agrobio of bribing large farmers in the north of the country to keep pressing for the experiments to be allowed. "The companies have exerted pressure in every possible way," Ribeiro complained. "I know that some farmers grew transgenic maize illegally in Chihuahua at the request of the companies themselves, so that the government would have no alternative but to accept it," Colunga said. Large agricultural producers in the north, represented by organizations like Agrodinámica Nacional, have been demanding permits to cultivate transgenic maize on the grounds that they would be able to produce higher yields at greater profits.

Mexico produces 21 million tons of maize annually on a surface area of some 8.5 million hectares. Over three million campesinos, most of whom are poor, plant native maize or use seeds that have been improved by traditional methods, but there are also large agribusiness concerns that produce the crop. Mexico is not self-sufficient in maize, its staple food, and has to import some 10 million tons a year from the United States, mainly yellow maize which is used as animal feed - and which has drawn the most attention from the biotech industry. In the United States both transgenic and traditional varieties of maize are grown, on a surface area of 32 million hectares, with an annual production that is more than 15 times that of Mexico.

Agrobio's Salamanca said the companies never bribed or exerted undue pressure on farmers or the government. "These fake accusations create a false controversy, egged on by activists who claim to speak for all farmers, which is not true," he said. GM seeds are expanding their market share because they are in demand from farmers who appreciate their benefits, and there is no evidence that they cause any harm to health or the environment, Salamanca maintained.

However, the potential dangers of transgenics have been documented in several cases. In the United States, GM StarLink maize was withdrawn from the market in 2000 after consumers were affected by allergies. In addition, the transgenic MON-863 variety of maize, patented by Monsanto, was found to harm rats in laboratory experiments. But there are no conclusive data. Some renowned scientists support transgenic crops, while others oppose them. According to Ribeiro, the Mexican government's decision was not a defeat for the social movement, "but an imposition arising from pressure and bribes from the transnational companies."

The global environmental watchdog Greenpeace, campesino organizations and a group of Mexican research scientists belonging to the Union of Scientists Committed to Society (UCCS) have carried out demonstrations and debates in the past few years to oppose transgenic maize. They argue that corporations "enslave" the farmers who buy their seeds, as they oblige them to sign contracts according to which they can only sow the original company seed and are forbidden from saving the best seed from the harvest for the next year's sowing season, the ancestral practice used for crop improvement. But their greatest concern about transgenic varieties is that, if released into the environment, they could decimate the biological diversity of native maize and even alter the balance of this country's remarkable biodiversity.

Source: Inter Press News Service: 03/17
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US SHARES BLAME IN MEXICO DRUG VIOLENCE, SENATORS SAY

Efforts by Mexico and the United States to stem the skyrocketing border drug and weapons trade are failing, and both countries are to blame for the rise of violent cartels responsible for more than 6,000 deaths in Mexico last year, lawmakers and experts said in a Senate hearing. For years, elected officials in Washington portrayed Mexico as being largely responsible for the problems spawned by the increasingly powerful crime syndicates -- and for fixing them. But at an unusual hearing of the Senate judiciary subcommittee on crime and drugs and the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, lawmakers from both parties said repeatedly that Washington's inattention to decades of drug use by Americans had played a central role in the crisis.

Many also acknowledged that their own government's failure to stop the southbound stream of weapons and laundered cash had fueled the multibillion-dollar drug trade just as much as the northbound flow of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine and smuggled humans. "Mexico and America are in this together, and there is enough blame to go around," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the subcommittee chairman and assistant majority leader of the Senate. "The insatiable demand for illegal drugs in the United States keeps the Mexican drug cartels in business." He also said lax U.S. gun laws and poor enforcement had created an "iron river of guns" that had armed "Mexican drug cartels to the teeth." Durbin was one of several lawmakers who said Congress would begin considering ways to reduce U.S. demand for drugs through treatment and other methods.

The Department of Homeland Security and other U.S. agencies are preparing to deploy more federal agents to the border in response to the drug cartels, one law enforcement official said on condition of anonymity because the plan was not public. "The number of agents has not been determined," the official said.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), co-chairman of the narcotics caucus, said in the hearing that corruption in Mexico remained a crucial problem. But he also said U.S. authorities needed to share more intelligence and do more investigations with Mexico. He also said it was important to get rid of overlapping authorities between the Department of Homeland Security and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the other caucus co-chair, said the U.S. government and Congress needed to do much more to help Mexico. She said the U.S. must continue to fund the security aid package known as the Merida Initiative established by the Bush administration. She said the promised U.S. delivery of several helicopters and surveillance equipment had been delayed until 2011, and that Washington needed to reinstitute a ban on assault weapons and give U.S. law enforcement officials greater authority to dismantle gun and drug trafficking rings.

The hearing was the first by the Senate in this Congress to focus on the drug cartels; it followed several hearings last week in the House. It focused on how U.S. law enforcement agencies can better assist Mexican President Felipe Calderon's efforts to combat drug trafficking and related violence and corruption.

Arizona Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard said federal agencies needed to work far better with one another, with state and local authorities, and with their Mexican counterparts. "We are not winning the battle," Goddard said, adding that the drug gangs easily sidestep U.S. efforts by finding new trade routes and methods of smuggling, and by using hard-to-detect methods of financing such as "stored value" debit and credit cards that can hold huge sums of money. "Congress can and should play a significant supporting role," Goddard said. "We can't do this alone. We need federal cooperation, coordination and resources."

Several top U.S. officials defended their agencies' work, saying improvements were necessary but that they were cooperating better than ever with one another and with Mexico. William J. Hoover, assistant director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, cited numerous statistics to show how many weapons traffickers and guns had been seized on both sides of the border. But he acknowledged that 90% of the guns found in Mexico came from the U.S. Kumar Kibble, deputy director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, conceded that there were "a lot of intelligence gaps" in what U.S. authorities knew about how the cartels were moving their drugs, weapons and money. But Anthony P. Placido, the DEA's chief of intelligence, said the increase in violence was actually a sign of success. He described the cartels as "wounded, vulnerable and dangerous organizations."

Source: The Los Angeles Times: 03/18
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DRUG WAR BLOODBATH: U.S. GUNS ACCOUNT FOR 95% OF MURDERS

A minute is all the time that it takes for an employee in one of almost 7,000 gun shops dotting the U.S./Mexico border to accept a wad of cash from an eager customer, fill out a triplicate sales slip, and slide a nice, new Taurus .45 caliber pistol across the counter. Or two, or three, or twenty, as the case may be. Add those handguns to the countless tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of pistols, sniper and assault rifles, semi-automatic machine guns, shield-piercing bullets, grenades, plastic explosives, as well as anti-tank weapons outfitted with self-propelling rockets passing illegally through the hands of drug cartel foot soldiers and assassins. Throw in the array of weapons favored by DEA and CIA agents, Mexican federal police and military units, and other 'drug warriors,' of one sort or another. These are all people who are ready, willing, and able to use violence to get what they want. If it looks like you've got a battle on your hands, you do -- the Mexican drug war has hit boiling point.

Mexican authorities have been quite vocal in the past year about the role that the U.S. is playing in the escalation of gun violence in Mexico. Last year, no less than 20,000 weapons were seized in drug-related actions, raids, arrests, and shoot-outs; nearly all of them were sold in the U.S. (The Mexican government has finally been given electronic access, by the U.S. Department of Justice, to be able to trace the origins of registered weapons, but only if they are used in the commission of crimes.) Last month, the U.S. government's own Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, released its policy-shaping "2009 International Narcotics Strategy Report." As the bureau had to admit, "U.S.-purchased or stolen firearms account for an estimated 95% of the Mexico's drug-related killings."

Nowhere in the report was it emphasized, however, that there are at least 6,600 licensed gun dealers in the four states adjacent to the Mexico border. Or that legal loopholes grant thousands of other unlicensed gun "enthusiasts" and collectors across the country to sell their wares, without inspection or oversight, at weekend gun shows across the country. "A vast arms bazaar is rampant along the four border states, enabled by porous to nonexistent American gun laws," The New York Times editorialized on February 27, 2009, after the indictment of George Iknadosian, a gun-shop owner facing federal charges for knowingly providing weapons to members of the Sinaloa cartel. "There should be immense shame on this side of the border that America's addiction to drugs is bolstered by its feckless gun controls." The shame is warranted, and worth pondering. The action that needs to be taken, on the other hand, can afford no such luxury, because the people who have the misfortune to live in one of Mexico's deadly drug war zones have already become the casualties of our demanding drug habits, our orgiastic worship of guns, and our obsession with profit without concern for consequence.

In the international munitions and intelligence-gathering marketplace, the U.S. is the #1 supplier/dealer of arms, military transport, law-enforcement and detention equipment, surveillance technology, and "non-lethal" weaponry. On the higher end, weapons deals are usually on the up-and-up, insofar as they're attached to complex military aid packages, contracts with private contractors, and international "drug interdiction" agreements of the sort that Mexico has with the U.S. through the $1.3 billion Merida Initiative. Other times, the large-scale transfer of weaponry is far less "legitimate," as in the urban battleground that Mexican law enforcement and military forces now find themselves contending with, courtesy of the weaponry provided to Reagan and Bush-era Central American "allies." These weapons of war have found their way back up north -- and into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. Nearly every governing body or law enforcement entity imaginable (including Mexico's equivalent of the FBI, its federal drug control agency, and Attorney General's office) has been infiltrated by the cartels and wracked with espionage, graft, and corruption scandals. But Mexico is right to insist that the U.S. truly acknowledge the extent to which its own citizens (and policies) create and sustain the consumer market for illicit drugs. There's no getting around the fact that Americans have the highest illicit substance use and abuse rates in the world, and Mexican drug cartels are but the latest of our transnational network of "suppliers."

In the 21st century, the drug trade is like any other major industry in that it has been fully globalized -- sin fronteras, without borders. In just so happens that Mexico's narco-cartels are now in the lucrative position of picking up where other players in the transnational drug trade have left off -- or, more to the point, were temporarily or permanently forced out because of individual arrests, sting operations, asset seizures, or other interdiction efforts. Even if the Gulf, Sinaloa, Juárez, and Tijuana cartels were to be completely dismantled tomorrow, there will always be some enterprising individual, group, or full-fledged criminal syndicate to step in where others have been derailed. Why? Americans have a seemingly insatiable appetite for mind-altering substances, whether in the form of cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, tranquilizers, uppers, downers, and painkillers of all kinds. And what a profit-generating market this is. According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, wholesale drug profits amount to somewhere between $18 billion and $39 billion annually for the Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. Internationally, the illicit drug trade is estimated to generate at least $320 billion per year.

In light of that, the international drug war coordinating agency known as the United Nations on Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), has become a bit more forthcoming about pointing out the causal and interconnected variables linking the U.S. with their "supplier" nations. Leading up to the International Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which was called into session on March 11th in Vienna, UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa oversaw the preparation of several reports to measure the extent of progress toward a "drug-free" world, as outlined by an United Nations meeting and strategy in 1998. These reports, "The Threat of Narco-Trafficking in the Americas" (October 2008), and "Organized Crime and its Threat to Security: Tackling a disturbing consequence of drug control" (March 2009), are unsurprisingly opposed to the decriminalization or legalization of drugs. But they do, somewhat surprisingly, sing a different tune about the U.S. role in the international drug trade than in previous years.

Noting that 95% of the world's population does not engage in illicit drug use, and that there are far more deaths attributable to alcohol, tobacco, and legal drugs, the "Organized Crime" report highlights a "disturbing consequence of drug control," by way of "creation of a lucrative black market for controlled substances, dominated by powerful crime cartels and resulting in unprecedented violence and corruption." "Drugs are a commodity," as the UNODC states. "Profits are ploughed back into increasing the capacity for violence and into corrupting public officials. Together, violence and corruption drive away investment and undermine governance to the point that the rule of law itself becomes questionable." In his preface to "The Threat of Narco-Trafficking in the Americas," Costa makes another bolder-than-expected statement: "Tackling the threat of narco-trafficking in the Americas is a shared responsibility. No country is immune from the problem: all participate, either as a source of drugs, a transit country for trafficking, or an importer." On this point, Costa is absolutely right. By now, it has been clearly and abundantly demonstrated that Americans aren't just the biggest consumers of illicit drugs in the world, but that the sheer number of our gun shops -- and the ease with which weapons can be purchased -- are significantly responsible for the level of gun violence in Mexico. Still, as recently as August 2008, by comparison, FBI Director Mueller's speech at the 5th Annual Border Security Conference made no mention whatsoever of the role of American-sold weaponry in the violence on Mexican streets. (Instead, he attributed the situation, as many American drug warriors do, to "gangs," "stronger border security," and "progress" by the Mexican government
in taking down drug cartels.)

The cartels are swimming in money, while everyday Mexican citizens in several parts of the country are swimming in terror and fear, edged in between violence between the narco-traffickers (and their School of Americas-trained assassins, The Zetas), the federal police, and the military. But never mind all of that, because there are bigger things for Americans to worry about. For the past month, the crisis of drug-related violence in Mexico has (finally) become the focal point of numerous Congressional subcommittee hearings, press conferences, and high-level Cabinet meetings. (It took nearly 6,300 murders last year, and more than 1,000 since the beginning of 2009, to get this country to start paying attention.) U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has called Mexican drug trafficking cartels "a national security threat," while President Obama met with Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Michael Mullen to discuss options to support the Mexican government, including surveillance and reconnaissance. And last week, Roger Rufe, director of operations for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), appeared before a Congressional subcommittee to explain that DHS is ready to act, if necessary, to secure border towns. The Defense Department and National Guard would only be called in, he assured members of the House, if a "tipping point" were reached -- without explaining what such circumstances would entail.

For their part, television news networks ranging from FOX to CNN have set about creating a hysterical flutter of speculation about the likelihood of about teenage Latino "sleeper cells;" hypothetical collaborations between Hezbollah and drug cartels; the "nightmare scenario" of a crazed, drug-fueled invasion from Mexico; and the perceived need to militarize our border to new heights. None of this would seem to be of particular comfort to the people of Ciudad Juárez. They wouldn't have much time to contemplate why CNN anchorman Don Lemon would take the time to argue with a Texan mayor about the "spillover effect" that the town of McAllen knows isn't taking place; or why FOX News' Geraldo Rivera turned to "terrorism expert" Bernard Kerik (disgraced Homeland Security nominee, former Taser-executive, and multiple felony-charged former NYC police commissioner), for his opinion on whether the U.S. federal agencies and military forces should be moving into Mexican territory to get the situation under control. (Although the connection was never made clear, Kerik and NYC comrade Rudy Giuliani were hired in Mexico City, several years ago, as high-level policing and counterterrorism preparedness consultants to the government.)

And that's because, across the border from El Paso, Texas, the people of Ciudad Juárez (pop. 1.5 million), exist for this moment in time underneath the unyielding thumb of Mexican military occupation. Daily life is being dictated by the commands and checkpoint interrogations of nearly 8,000 federales (black-riot-gear-clad federal police officers) and fatigue-green-clad military troops (nicknamed the "green tsunami" by Juárez media), who have taken complete control over local law enforcement agencies. Stationed across the state of Chihuahua, but concentrated in Juárez, most of these troops are exclusively trained in wartime offensive strategy and tactical maneuvers that leave little or no room for anything but a violent outcome. Although barely reported in the U.S. press, citizens of Juárez (and other cities or towns) have accused the military of serious human rights violations since President Felipe Calderon launched his 2006 crackdown on narco-trafficking, including beating people for "confessions," electrical torture, rape, and the practice of enclosing heads in plastic bags filled with water to simulate (or achieve) drowning.

Calderon wasn't without public support for the crackdown on drug cartels, who were battling each other-with increasing displays of public violence--for dominance in the drug business. Indeed, crime had long since been an issue in border cities like Juárez owing, in large part, to the constant influx of hopeful migrants and dislocated workers looking for employment in one of the legions of foreign-owned factories, assembly plants built by foreign companies looking to cash in on the low-wage workforce handed to them by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Among other developments in the post-NAFTA border region, hundreds of young women have disappeared, raped, and been murdered in Juárez, by the hundreds, and they still do. Drugs are readied for cross-border journeys here in ways that are both mundane (e.g., kilos of cocaine hidden in the frame of a car) and mind-boggling (e.g., 140 pounds of marijuana strapped to the back of a man flying, in darkness, in an "ultralight," a motorized aircraft resembling a hang glider.) Increasingly, many of the drugs stay in Juárez, and other parts of Mexico, something that has led to large-scale addiction the likes of which the nation has never seen. But just as the acts of gruesome sexual violence, murders and disappearances of young women in Juárez have gone beyond the realm of random sexual violence, so, too, have the escalating cartel v. cartel-military v. cartel battles over 'narco-turf' gone beyond what anyone would reasonably consider "drug-related crime." In this border city, nearly 2,000 drug-related murders have occurred since January 2008, including more than 200 murdered in the first two months of 2009.

In this sense, the people of Juárez are the actual, immediate victims of (our very own) drug war "spillover effect." It's too late for the thousands of people who have already lost their lives to related violence, but it's not too late to pull the plug on the easy flow of weaponry to Mexico. And it's certainly not too late for the American people to recognize and resolve, once and for all, that this is a war that cannot be won: not under any circumstance, not by any country, not by any political leader, and not with all the firepower in the world. For the sake of Mexican people, the welfare of all of our global neighbors, and yes, for ourselves, it's time to close this ill-begotten book on the war on drugs, once and for all.

Silja J.A. Talvi is an investigative journalist and the author of Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System (Seal Press: 2007). Her work has already appeared in many book anthologies, including It's So You (Seal Press, 2007), Prison Nation (Routledge: 2005), Prison Profiteers (The New Press: 2008), and Body Outlaws (Seal Press: 2004). She is a senior editor at In These Times

Source: AlterNet.org: 03/18