SAN JOSE (Reuters) -Costa Rica will begin construction this year on a new maximum-security prison inspired by the El Salvador mega-prison at the center of that country’s crackdown on crime, Costa Rica’s Justice Minister Gerald Campos said on Wednesday.
Costa Rica, long considered to be the safest nation in Central America, is grappling with a wave of homicides that have been attributed to drug gang violence. In 2023, it registered its highest-ever homicide rate, and opinion polls rank insecurity as the public’s top concern, positioning the issue as a central theme for national elections coming in 2026.
The Salvadoran government is providing technical assistance for the project, Campos said. The new prison is necessary because current facilities are nearly 30% overpopulated, creating conditions that allow incarcerated leaders to continue running criminal enterprises, he said.
“If we don’t do this, the system is going to collapse, and we risk internal conflicts, hostage taking, and riots,” Campos told a congressional committee.
The new facility, named the Center for High Containment of Organized Crime (CACCO), has been designed to hold 5,100 inmates, increasing Costa Rica’s prison capacity by 40%.
The government has budgeted the project at $35 million, with Campos saying El Salvador collaborated on blueprints and security technology. Specific details of the project have been declared confidential.
The model for the new prison, El Salvador’s 40,000-inmate Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), is the centerpiece of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s war on gangs.
While Bukele’s crackdown is credited with a sharp drop in El Salvador’s murder rate, human rights organizations report abuses within CECOT, describing inhumane conditions and deaths within the prison.
El Salvador’s government denies those allegations.
(Reporting by Alvaro Murillo; Additional reporting by Nelson Renteria in San Salvador; Writing by Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Tom Hogue)
