Some New Mexico lawmakers are considering another attempt at establishing independent oversight over the state’s prison system.
Previous legislation to appoint an ombudsman or some other independent oversight hasn’t gotten very far at Roundhouse.
But after the release last month of a video by the ACLU of New Mexico that apparently showed an incarcerated man being beaten at the Central New Mexico Corrections Facility in Los Lunas, as guards just watched, oversight is getting more consideration.
ACLU Senior Policy Strategist Barron Jones told the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee on Monday that conditions in New Mexico prisons are unsafe.
“It’s not what it was five or ten years ago. It’s atrocious, some of the treatment that goes on and some of the levels of violence, and it’s on both sides,” he said. “These corrections officers are sometimes behaving as if they are untouchable. We need to do something different.”
But Milan Representative Democrat Eliseo Lee Alcon, who is a former correctional officer, says there is also plenty of abuse of guards by the inmates.
“It works both ways. Eventually it’s going to get to that point where that staff member, that correctional officer is going to get to that point where that officer doesn’t care anymore because no matter what he does, he’s going to be abused,” he said. “Not only is he going to be abused by the inmates, but if he so much as steps just a little bit off to the side, the administration is going to be all over him or her.”
Any legislation is still being written but it’s expected to be modeled after a bill introduced in 2021 in the House that never got past a committee vote.
Criminal defense attorney Matthew Coyte told the committee there needs to be both independent oversight that can report to the legislature and additional reforms to improve conditions for both inmates and corrections employees.
He says it would be far better than being forced by the courts to make changes.