Pope Francis said today that incarceration cannot be the only solution for Mexico's crime problems, as he visited a prison days after a riot killed 49 inmates at another penitentiary.
"The problem of security is not resolved only by incarcerating; rather, it calls us to intervene by confronting the structural and cultural causes of insecurity that impact the entire social framework," Francis said in an address to hundreds of inmates.
The 79-year-old pontiff was wrapping up an intense, five-day trip to Mexico with a visit to Ciudad Juarez, the world's former murder capital, where he prayed with inmates.
After his speech he hugged and shook hands with female and male prisoners. One man kneeled before the pope, sobbing and kissing his hand.
The pope often visits prisons while abroad and he chose the 3,000-capacity state prison of Ciudad Juarez for the last day of his Mexico journey.
He visited the facility's newly-painted chapel and addressed hundreds assembled in its yard, telling them they should use their experiences to help "put end to this cycle of violence and exclusion."
"The one who has suffered the greatest pain, and we could say 'has experienced hell,' can become a prophet in society. Work so that this society which uses people and discards them will not go on claiming victims," he said.
The Juarez prison was the scene of deadly riots a few years ago, with scores of prisoners killed.
On the eve of the pope's Mexico arrival last week, a brawl erupted between groups of inmates fighting for control of a prison in the northern city of Monterrey, during which they slaughtered each other with bats and shivs.
Francis is due to celebrate mass at a gathering at the Mexico-US border later in the day to pray for migrants -- a heated topic of the US presidential campaign.
