Children's Day in Mexico - Don't Forget the Invisible Children

(ESPAÑOL) Today is Día del Niño or Children’s Day in Mexico. Around the city there will be parties, free rides at the fairs for children, even free McDonald’s hamburgers. I am sure that my daughter will come home from her school party with a large bag of candy to rival the Halloween spoils of children in the United States.

Mexico City Reforms its Juvenile Justice System

The Mexico City Assembly passed a new Juvenile Justice Law (Ley de Justicia para Adolescentes) last week. The new law creates an integrated adversarial system for all crimes. This will replace the existing hybrid system where "non-grave" crimes were tried in a semi-adversarial system with oral trials but "grave" crimes were tried under Mexico's traditional inquisitorial system. The differences between the adversarial system and inquisitorial system are significant. The inquisitorial system in Mexico is an off-shoot of a Spanish-style written system, where prosecutors file written briefs and written evidence, the defense gives written responses and the judge makes written rulings. Each step of the process is painful and drawn-out. The adversarial system uses oral hearings where lawyers state their cases orally, the judge responds and provides a ruling at the end of the hearing.

Spring Break in Prison

Visiting Day at adult prison in Mexico City

This week in Spring Break in Mexico. Kids actually have two weeks off from school for spring break. But don't worry, school goes until July14th.

As we are finishing up our work for the week and planning to get out of Mexico City for a few days, it got me thinking about what spring break is like for kids in prison.