Abstract
On July 11, 2015, the boss of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, vanished from his cell in a supermax prison on the outskirts of Almoloya de Juárez in the state of Central Mexico. The tunnel through which Chapo disappeared had been carved out directly underneath Federal Social Reinsertion Center #1 (CEFERESO-1), then almost incredulously straight up and into his single-occupancy cell. Thirty feet below the cell’s shower space/escape hatch, the subterranean corridor was only 30 inches wide and 5′6″ tall (exactly Guzman’s height), but it was 4,921 feet in length, well-equipped with florescent lighting, an elaborate PVC ventilation system, and a custom-built motorcycle designed for the railcar tracks that spanned nearly a mile from CEFERESO-1 into an inauspicious home built of unpainted cinderblock (McGahan 2015).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Alves, J. A. (2014). On Mules and Bodies: Black Captivities in the Brazilian Racial Democracy. Critical Sociology, 42(2), 1–20.
Blok, A. (1988). The Mafia of a Sicilian Village, 1860–1960: A Study of Violent Peasant Entrepreneurs. New York: Harper and Rowe.
Carter, J. H. (2014). Gothic Sovereignty: Gangs and Criminal Community in a Honduran Prison. South Atlantic Quarterly, 113(3), 475–502.
Cave, D. (2013, April 19). Even Violent Drug Cartels Fear God. New York Times.
Cheliotis, L. (2014). Decorative Justice: Deconstructing the Relationships Between the Arts and Imprisonment. International Journal for Crime, Justice, and Social Democracy, 3(1), 16–34.
Chesnut, R. A. (2012). Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint. New York: Oxford University Press.
CNN International. (2015, July 18). Seven Prison Workers Charged in Connection with ‘El Chapo’ Escape. http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/17/americas/mexico-el-chapo-escape/
Darke, S. (2014). Managing Without Guards in a Brazilian Police Lockup. Focaal, 68(2014), 55–67.
Darke, S., & Garces, C. (2017, January). Informal Dynamics of Survival in Latin American Prisons. Special Issue of Prison Service Journal, 229.
Dayan, C. (2011). The Law Is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Dayan, C. (2014). With Law at the Edge of Life. South Atlantic Quarterly, 113(Summer), 3.
Duno-Gottberg, L. (2015). “Dangerous People” Hot Spots. Cultural Anthropology. http://www.cultanth.org/fieldsights/644-dangerous-people
El Debate. (2015, July 13). Periodista que reportaba la fuga de ‘El Chapo’ fue detenido. http://www.debate.com.mx/mexico/Periodista-que-reportaba-la-fuga-de-El-Chapo-fue-detenido-20150713-0190.html
Garces, C. (2014). Ecuador’s Black Site: On Prison Securitization and Its Zones of Legal Silence. Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 68, 18–34.
Grillo, I. (2011). El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency. New York: Bloomsbury Press.
Hernandez, A. (2014). Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers. New York: Verso.
James, J. (Ed.). (2003). Imprisoned Intellectuals: America’s Political Prisoners Write of Life, Liberation, and Rebellion. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
James, J. (Ed.). (2005). The New Abolitionists: (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings. Albany: SUNY Press.
James, J. (2013). Afrarealism and the Black Matrix: Maroon Philosophy at Democracy’s Border. The Black Scholar, 43(4), 124–131.
La Jornada. (2013, July 31). Torturas, extorsiones e insalubridad en el Cereso de Saltillo. La Jornada. http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/07/31/estados/034n2est
Leeds, E. (1996). Cocaine and Parallel Politics in the Brazilian Urban Periphery: Constraints on Local-Level Democratization. Latin American Research Review, 31(3), 47–83.
Martin, D. A. (2014). Borderlands Saints: Secular Sanctity in Chicano/a and Mexican Culture. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
McGahan, J. (2015). The Gritty Details of El Chapo’s Escape. The Daily Beast 17/19. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/19/the-gritty-details-of-el-chapo-s-escape.html
Moten, F., & Harney, S. (2013). The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study. Wivenhoe/New York: Minor Compositions.
Postema, M., Cavallaro, J., & Nagra, R. (2017). Advancing Security and Human Rights by the Controlled Organization of Inmates. Prison Service Journal, 229, 57–62.
Reel, M. (2015, August 3). Underworld: How the Sinaloa Drug Cartel Digs Its Tunnels. The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/03/underworld-monte-reel
Reiter, K. (2016). 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Roberts, N. (2015). Freedom as Marronage. Chicago: University Chicago Press.
Salvatore, R., & Aguirre, C. (1996). The Birth of the Penitentiary in Latin America: Essays on Criminology, Prison Reform, and Social Control, 1830–1940. Austin: University Texas Press.
Shoatz, R. M. (1995). I Am Maroon! In F. Ho & Q. Saul (Eds.), Maroon the Implacable. Oakland: PM Press.
Skarbek, D. B. (2010). Self-Governance in San Pedro Prison. The International Review, 14(4), 569–585.
Thompson, G. (2017, June 12). How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico. ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/allende-zetas-cartel-massacre-and-the-us-dea. Accessed 14 June 2017.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Garces, C. (2018). Chapter 6 Narco-capitalism and Carceral Marronage in Northern Mexico: What La Flaquita Knows. In: Martin, T., Chantraine, G. (eds) Prison Breaks. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64358-8_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64358-8_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-64357-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-64358-8
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)