Study: Despite decreasing crime, NM holds more people in its largest jail – Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
Over the last five years, while local jails in the United States have been holding fewer people, New Mexico’s largest jail has been detaining nearly one-third more people while they await their day in court.
That’s according to a recent study of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), located just outside Albuquerque in Bernalillo County.
Even though MDC hasn’t been as crowded in the last 10 years as it was historically, it’s been slowly holding more and more people, said Paul Guerin, director of the Center for Applied Research and Analysis at the University of New Mexico Institute for Social Research, which has studied the jail’s population since the 1990s.
Between 2019 and 2024, jail populations in the U.S. decreased by 15.3%, while the MDC’s population has grown by 30.3%, the report states.
Police-reported crime peaked in the U.S. in the 1990s and has generally decreased since, according to the report. While trends in police-reported crime in New Mexico, Bernalillo County and Albuquerque have always exceeded national trends, they have also gone down overall, the report states.
Over the last 10 years, local and state policymakers have affected how many people are booked into MDC and how long they stay there, according to the report. State policies and laws that have reduced these figures include voters’ approval of bail reform in 2016; the state Supreme Court’s case management order in 2015; and the statewide stay-at-home order in March 2020 that slowed the spread of COVID-19, according to the report.
On the other hand, policies that have packed more people into the jail have included New Mexico State Police “surges” in Bernalillo County in 2019 and 2021, and NMSP’s “North Star” operations with the Albuquerque Police Department, the report states.
On any given day last October, MDC held an average of 1,803 people, the highest figure since December 2014, the report states.
While the MDC was designed to hold as many as 2,236 people, it’s not allowed to exceed a cap of 1,950 people under a 2017 settlement agreement between the City of Albuquerque and people incarcerated in the jail who sued more than two decades earlier.
However, the report states that MDC “is closer to the McClendon Cap than ever in the last eight years.”
Guerin told Source NM in an interview that authorities are holding more people in MDC because they’re booking more people into the jail, and holding them there for longer periods of time under more serious charges.
Guerin said people in MDC should primarily be there under lower-level charges because those who are charged with more serious crimes are out of their communities for longer periods of time, so they have fewer chances of returning to jail.
In a given year, approximately 40% of the people held in MDC are there two or more times under less serious charges, the report states.
“The jail is consistently receiving people who are cycling in and out of jail,” Guerin said.
A prior report on pretrial detention found that more than 40% of people who are held in jail while facing felony charges stay in the jail for 120 days on average, only to have their cases dismissed, Guerin said.
The problem, Guerin said, is that these are people the system believes are the most serious offenders, and more than 40% of them don’t receive a conviction, for various reasons, good and bad.
This results in not only wasted money holding people in MDC, but also social costs like people being away from their families and losing their jobs, Guerin said.
The report suggests that policymakers consider whether people in MDC should be there or not.
“We should be more efficient in prosecuting cases if we think they’re guilty,” Guerin said. “I don’t know why we don’t.”
Guerin and co-author Senior Research Scientist Elise Ferguson published the report in June, and it has received disappointingly few reactions, he said.
“We and others who produce information that’s useful for policymakers, often that information is not used,” he said.
Guerin said he thinks what is driving policy instead are people’s impressions, anecdotal stories, politics and sensationalized media coverage.
“Information should drive policy,” he said. “My hope is that information would just inform policy, but I don’t even think we see that oftentimes.”
NM Gov: Special session ‘may be necessary’ to address federal fallout from Republican budget bill - by Julia Goldberg, Source New Mexico
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Thursday she may need to call a special legislative session to address the impact to the state from the Congressional Republicans’ passage of their so-called “big beautiful bill.” The GOP’s tax and spending legislation includes cuts expected to cause millions of Americans to lose health care access through Medicaid; curtail food benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; and hurt rural hospitals, among other repercussions.
“The Republican budget bill is an abomination that abandons working families and threatens the health and well-being of New Mexicans,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “Their vote to slash funding for health care and child nutrition to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-rich isn’t just bad policy—it’s an outright betrayal.”
The bill, she added, “will hit New Mexico hard. From cuts to Medicaid funding that keeps our rural hospitals open, to reductions in food assistance for children, to threats against education programs that ensure our kids have a brighter future, this budget puts politics over people. It also amounts to an egregious tax hike on Americans who will pay higher prices for health care, electricity, and other services.” The governor noted she is “prepared to call a special session if necessary to protect New Mexicans from their fiscal assault.”
Earlier this week, New Mexico Health Care Authority Secretary Kari Armijo told members of a newly established federal funding stabilization committee that as many as 88,530 New Mexicans will lose their Medicaid coverage due to provisions in the bill. The bill will also likely cause 58,180 New Mexicans to lose their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, she said.
New Mexico House Democrats issued a statement shortly after federal passage of the bill saying that “out-of-touch” Republicans had passed “the most cruel and backwards bill we have seen in our lifetimes.” Republicans, the statement said, “are kicking folks off their healthcare, shuttering our rural hospitals, letting children and seniors go hungry, and raising costs for all working people, in order to please President Trump and line the pockets of his ultra wealthy donors. This legislation will have a devastating impact on families across our country and right here at home.”
Legislative Finance Committee Director Charles Sallee also told lawmakers this week that New Mexico interest earning record oil and gas revenues will help buffer the state from some of the cuts, which House Democrats noted in their statement.
All three Democratic New Mexico members of the U.S. House of Representatives held a joint news conference shortly after the vote in Washington, D.C., with U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, who represents the state’s 1st Congressional District, referring to the tax and spending legislation as a “big, ugly abomination of a bill” and the “biggest rollback in American history, directly attacking our communities.”
Stansbury further cited the effects on New Mexicans’ health care, food security and education, saying the bill “is going to have truly catastrophic impacts for New Mexico.” Republicans, she added, are trying to downplay those impacts.
U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) posted her no vote on social media on July 3, 2025. (Courtesy photo) “And so our question is, then, ‘Why did they have to pass it in the dark of night in both the Senate and the House?’ It’s because they know millions of Americans are going to be hurt by it, but they don’t care. Their message to America today is: They won. America loses. They don’t care. You can lose your health care, you can lose your food assistance, you can lose your education. They don’t care.”
That being said, Stansbury added, “We don’t want New Mexicans to lose hope. We want them to use their understanding of what’s about to happen to fuel the fight. We have to take back the House.”
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, who represents the southern portion of the state in the 2nd Congressional District, described himself as “furious.”
“This is the biggest tax giveaway to the richest people in this country, and it’s being paid for on the backs of working families,” Vasquez said. “And the saddest thing is, is that it’s taking health care away from those who need it the most.”
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández from the 3rd Congressional District, said she refers to the budget reconciliation bill as the “betrayed for billionaires” bill. Leger Fernández further contrasted and described the types of bills passed under federal Democratic leadership, such as the Affordable Health Care Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan, which helped insure all Americans, invested in renewable energy and stimulated the economy, respectively, she said.
“It shouldn’t be that just the wealthy get the good life,” she said. “We all want the good education, a good home, good health care, a beautiful planet to live on, right? That’s the good life. But Republicans are actually, instead of …waking up thinking about the American dream…we are waking up into the American nightmare because their big, ugly bill undoes all the progress that Democrats were making.”
Proposal to remove protections for Mexican gray wolves could lead to extinction, advocates say – Danielle Prokopp, Source New Mexico
A bill introduced Monday, proposing to strip endangered species protections from Mexican gray wolves would mean “unrecoverable losses” for the Southwestern wolves, wildlife advocates said.
Arizona Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar’s bill, “Enhancing Safety for Animals Act,” would remove the wolf from the federal list of endangered species and end U.S. population restoration efforts in Mexico. Gosar’s office issued a news release saying “significant attacks by wolves on cattle, elk, moose, and sheep have occurred and have negatively impacted hunters and ranchers throughout Arizona.”
Delisting would also end federal investigation into wolf predation on livestock and reduce federal funding for livestock losses, Michelle Lute, executive director for Wildlife for All, told Source NM, and would further erode recovery programs.
“Stripping federal protections for Mexican gray wolves would invite another extinction,” Lute said. “This is not alarmist, this is what we’re already seeing.”
Mexican gray wolves once lived throughout the mountains and deserts of New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico, but were driven to near-extinction by the 1970s due to years of eradication to keep them from preying on cattle.
Two years after the passage of the Endangered Species Act, U.S. Fish and Wildlife added the Mexican gray wolf to the list, garnering federal protections. Officials captured the seven remaining wild wolves, and bred them back from extinction. Federal wildlife officials reintroduced the wolves in Arizona and New Mexico in 1998. Today, the national wild population is 286 animals. Reintroduction in Mexico occurred in 2011.
Tensions over the wolf introduction program have escalated in New Mexico, culminating in Catron and Sierra county boards issuing disaster declarations in resolutions earlier this year and asking state officials to step in, end federal wolf releases into the wild and kill wolves that prey on livestock.
Federal delisting would remove federal prohibitions on killing wolves, said Michael Robinson, senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.
“Bypassing the Endangered Species Act to strip all protections from beleaguered Mexican gray wolves and leave them vulnerable to Arizona’s shoot-on-sight laws would cause a massacre,” Robinson said in a statement. “The Southwest’s ecology would suffer, and we’d be left with a sadder, drabber landscape if Gosar and the livestock industry’s cruel vision for wolf extermination becomes law.”
Health officials warn of West Nile virus threat – KUNM News
The New Mexico Department of Health is recommending New Mexicans take precautions against the West Nile Virus, which can be transmitted through mosquito bites.
Recent rains across New Mexico may cause buildup of standing water, attracting mosquitoes that could be infected. While there are no cases of West Nile so far this season, July and August are usually peak times for the virus.
Common symptoms for the virus include headache, fever, and body aches. Anyone undergoing these symptoms should contact their health provider.
The NMDOH suggests using a few simple prevention methods to keep you and your loved ones safe, including, using insect repellent, keeping windows and doors closed, wearing long clothing which covers skin, and to remove or distance yourself from any water-catching materials that Mosquitos may inhabit- like rain barrels, pet-water bowls and old-tires.
Lastly, the evening and cooler hours of the day are peak feeding times for mosquitoes, so as the July 4th holiday comes up, please take extra care to prevent the insect bites during outside activities.
Find more information on the virus and prevention methods by visiting the NMDOH website.
Monsoon season brings the promise of rain for the arid southwestern US - By Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
Clouds build up in the early afternoon and gusty winds push in every direction. The skies darken and then comes the rain — often a downpour that is gone as quickly as it came.
This seasonal dance choreographed by Mother Nature marks a special time for the southwestern United States and Mexico. It is when residents clasp their hands, hoping for much-needed moisture to dampen the threat of wildfire and keep rivers flowing.
Forecasters say it has been a wet start to this year's monsoon season, which officially began June 15 and runs through the end of September. Parts of New Mexico and West Texas have been doused with rain, while Arizona and Nevada have been hit with dust storms, which are a common hazard of the season.
In other parts of the world, monsoons often mean months of never-ending rain.
In North America, the season can have considerable variability. The bursts and breaks depend on how much moisture is circulating and which way the wind blows.
Easing drought
The monsoon relies on the buildup of summer heat and shifting wind direction, which helps funnel moisture from distant bodies of water to areas where rain is sparse.
Just ahead of the monsoon, officials with the Navajo Nation declared an emergency because of worsening drought conditions across the reservation, which spans parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.
Below-average precipitation month after month has left little forage for livestock, and fire danger has ramped up as pockets of moderate and severe drought expand. Ranchers and farmers are being urged to reduce their herds, shift to drought-tolerant crops and limit irrigation.
New Mexico's governor also declared an emergency in May because of severe drought and escalating fire risk.
Forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Integrated Drought Information System say monsoonal rainfall only provides a fraction of the West's water supplies, with the majority coming from snowpack. Still, summer rains can reduce drought impacts by lessening the demand for water stored in reservoirs, recharging soil moisture and groundwater, and reducing the risk of wildfires.
New Mexico and Arizona typically stand to benefit the most from the North American monsoon, getting anywhere between 10% to 60% of their annual precipitation during the season. It has a lesser influence in Nevada and California, though southern Nevada on average gets 20% to 25% of its precipitation during the summer.
Along the Rio Grande at the base of the Jemez Mountains, Santa Ana Pueblo farmers are eagerly watching the afternoon skies. Pueblo Gov. Myron Armijo said they have already had several good downpours, and he wouldn't mind more.
But that will be for the spirits to decide, Armijo said. "You know, it's not up to us," he said.
Flooding fears
With summer rains come increased river flows and in some cases flooding in normally dry washes and across the scars left by wildfires.
Sandbag stations have been set up in communities across the region — from Tucson, Arizona, to Albuquerque and San Antonio, Texas. In Española, state transportation workers have closed a historic bridge that funnels traffic across the Rio Grande, citing concerns about higher flows further eroding a concrete pier.
On the edge of the Gila National Forest, New Mexico National Guard troops have delivered dozens of pallets of filled sandbags for residents who are preparing for flooding following a blaze that has charred about 74 square miles (192 square kilometers).
Meanwhile, hundreds of firefighters are hoping for higher humidity and rain to tamp down a wildfire that is racing through a mountainous area of the Navajo Nation. Fire officials reported that the flames made a 6-mile (9.66-kilometer) run in a matter of hours.
Once the fire is out, land managers acknowledge that the monsoon will be a mixed blessing, as rainfall on the charred hillsides will surely result in surges of runoff filled with ash and debris.
A tie that binds
Just as light and shadow move across the mesa tops beyond artist Daniel McCoy's studio, the Rio Grande pulses with each downpour, turning into what looks like a sudsy caramel concoction as it carries away sediment.
The river and the desert badlands and purple mountain peaks that border it are the inspiration for the giant canvasses McCoy is preparing for an upcoming show at the Hecho a Mano gallery in Santa Fe.
McCoy, who is Muskogee (Creek) and Potawatomi, grew up working on a farm with his grandfather in Oklahoma. He and his green thumb faced new challenges when he moved to the arid Southwest, where water shortages often lead to mandatory rationing and pleas for prayers.
A sign down the street from his studio reads in Spanish: "El Agua No Se Vende. El Agua Se Defiende." It means water isn't for sale, and the right to access the finite resource should be defended.
"It's made me mindful more than I ever thought I would be," he said of hearing stories from longtime locals about the preciousness of water.
But McCoy fits right in, living by the seasons and learning to tend to his drinking water well.
"When you're outside working, it's a different kind of time. You live more by what the sun's doing and what the water's doing," he said. "And so it's good to be connected to that."
Bernalillo County offers ‘Take a Ride on Us’ for Independence Day weekend - nm.news
Bernalillo County and its partners are once again providing free and safe rides for Independence Day weekend through the “Take a Ride on Us” program.
This initiative aims to encourage residents in Bernalillo, Sandoval and Santa Fe counties to plan ahead and avoid driving under the influence during the upcoming festivities.
From 10 a.m. on July 4 through 2 a.m. on July 7, individuals can utilize the Uber app to receive up to $10 off two trips. To access the discount, riders should open the Uber app, tap “Vouchers,” and enter the code NMUSA25.
The offer is valid for up to 2,500 rides and is available on a first-come, first-served basis. It is important to note that the discount is limited to Uber rides and does not apply to Uber Eats orders or cover driver tips.
The “Take a Ride on Us” program, created by Cumulus Media Albuquerque, is made possible through a collaborative public-private partnership. Key partners include Bernalillo County, Sandoval County, Santa Fe County, Glasheen Valles & Inderman Injury Lawyers, Sandia Resort & Casino and the New Mexico Department of Transportation.
Since its inception in 2017, the program has successfully provided over 63,000 safe rides in the Albuquerque metro area. This ongoing effort plays a crucial role in reducing impaired driving incidents and enhancing road safety during holidays and special events.
Here’s more information about Bernalillo County’s DWI prevention program.
All of New Mexico’s downwinders could be compensated under Senate’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ – Kyle Dunphey, Utah News Dispatch
The federal government’s program that gives payments to people sickened by nuclear weapons testing is one step closer to being reauthorized and expanded.
On Tuesday, Senate Republicans passed their massive tax and spending package, nicknamed the “big, beautiful bill” — among its many provisions is an expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, which expired more than a year ago.
If the bill clears the final vote needed from the House, downwinders in New Mexico will now receive compensation for their medical bills, marking a significant change to the program that advocates say was too narrow to begin with.
Here are the RECA highlights, found in the final pages of the Senate’s 887-page bill:
- Downwinders in all of New Mexico, Utah and Idaho would now be eligible for payments. Coverage would also be widened in Arizona to include all of Coconino, Yavapai, Navajo, Apache, Gila, and Mohave counties. Residents who lived in certain parts of Missouri, Tennessee, Alaska and Kentucky who were sickened due to the Manhattan Project would also receive coverage.
- The program’s new expiration date would be Dec. 31, 2028.
- In some cases, people who lived in affected areas for just one year would be eligible for compensation — the program previously required they live there at least two years.
- The compensation amount — originally $50,000 to $75,000 — would be increased to $100,000 in most cases.
- Uranium miners and workers based in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, Utah, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon and Texas would be covered. The timeframe of eligibility would also be extended to 1990.
“RECA is generational legislation for Missouri and will finally deliver justice for survivors in the St. Louis region,” said Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, who sponsored the provision. “I call on the House to quickly pass this legislation and send it to President Trump’s desk.”
RECA expired in June 2024 after Congress failed to reauthorize it, and in the year since, downwinders who were just recently diagnosed with cancer or who didn’t know about the program were left without compensation. The New Mexico delegation and radiation survivors marked the anniversary of its expiration by renewing calls for RECA’s expansion.
The program had been in place since 1990, but downwinders have long said it should be expanded. Despite studies suggesting the entire West was blanketed by dangerous levels of radiation during nuclear tests, downwinders in just 10 counties in Utah, as well as a handful of counties in Nevada and Arizona, were covered.
Last year, New Mexico Democratic U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján teamed up with Hawley to sponsor a bill that would expand the program to cover much of the West. The bill passed the Senate but stalled in the House, mostly over spending concerns.
In mid-June, when Hawley re-introduced the measure into the GOP budget bill, the delegation responded by noting, in part, that the measure has previously garnered bipartisan support.
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, who represents the state’s 3rd Congressional District, also noted in a statement provided to Source that over the years of fighting for RECA, the state’s delegation and the advocates have “built a broad coalition grounded in justice and science, yet Republican leadership refused to pass our bill and the program lapsed last year. Since then, people have been dying while Republican leadership in the House drags its feet. However, even a broken clock is right twice a day. While the broader Billionaires Budget Bill is deeply harmful in many ways, we are glad some Republicans are finally recognizing the value of RECA. New Mexicans have waited long enough. They deserve the compensation and recognition they’ve earned through pain and sacrifice.”
It’s not yet clear whether RECA has the support needed in the House to withstand the final vote. The New York Times estimates that the current proposed expansion will cost about $7.7 billion.
Correction: A previous version reported uranium workers in South Dakota, North Dakota, Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Texas were not covered under RECA. While these states were not covered in the initial version of the bill, it was expanded in 2000 to included these states.
Source New Mexico contributed reporting to this story.
Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com.