Mexico`s last penal colony starts new life as nature center
(WorldNews Mexico)

ISLAS MARIAS, Mexico (AP) - It`s unclear if Islas Marias ever really worked as a penal colony: The remote Mexican archipelago is battered regularly by hurricanes, and its ramshackle, often century-old installations are sprinkled with the ruins of failed `productive` projects that once aimed to make the prison population self-sustaining. Now, with the prison just closed, the hurdles of distance, weather and decayed infrastructure may not make it easy for the islands to prosper in their new role as a nature center and education camp for children. It`s a rough, eight-hour boat ride out to the islands, which lie 70 miles (110 kilometers) off the Pacific shores of Mexico`s Nayarit state....