TIJUANA – Authorities transferred Saturday some 140 more state prisoners to the federal prison located on an island in Pacific, off the coast of Nayarit.

Saturday's transfer came a day after an attempted riot at the state prison in Mexicali, which was contained in about 30 minutes, according to Baja California's Department of Public Safety.

And it came two days after an initial 542 prisoners from Baja California's penitentiaries had been moved to the prison at Islas Marías. A total of 683 state prisoners now are housed at the prison, located 70 miles from the coast.

Jesús Grijalva, deputy secretary for the state penitentiary system, said in a release that the latest transfer is part of the on-going initiative to reduce prison overpopulation.

He said that the inmates that were transferred were serving sentences for federal crimes.

However, the president of an association of family members of current and former state prison inmates, Alicia Aguilar, refuted that contention. She said that many of the transferred prisoners were serving sentences for state crimes, mainly robbery.

"I have information that many of them were sent to Islas Marías in retaliation for the attempted uprising and others so they would not cause problems despite the fact that they only have just a few months left to serve," Aguilar said.

According to Grijalva, the transfers were part of the Baja California government's plan to ease overcrowding in the state's prisons and make good on one of the agreements the state made during the National Conference of the Penitentiary System, held in Tijuana last week.

On Saturday, the 140 inmates were transported by bus from each of the state's four prisons to Tijuana's international airport under police guard. From there they were flown on a federal flight to the island prison.

According to state prison authorities, a total of 18,107 inmates were housed by the state at the end of 2009 (the latest figures available), of which 7,200 were at the La Mesa prison, which only has capacity for 3,200, an overpopulation of 87 percent.

Baja California Gov. José Guadalupe Osuna said during the just concluded national conference that his administration had eased the overcrowding by adding 7,254 more beds in the state's prisons between 2009 and 2010 and transferring 2,000 inmates to the state penitentiary at El Hongo, in Tecate.

He said the overcrowding had dropped to 13 per cent and that the goal was for that figure to drop to 3 per cent next year by transferring inmates serving sentences for federal crimes and the construction of additional capacity at El Hongo.

omar.millan@sandiegored.com