Link to my Article: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/costa-rica-start-building-massive-el-salvador-inspired-prison-2025-08-14/
This year Costa Rica is moving ahead with plans to build a new maximum-security prison, called the Center for High Containment of Organized Crime (CACCO), inspired by El Salvador’s controversial mega-prison. The prison will be designed to hold 5,100 inmates, increasing Costa Rica’s prison capacity by 40 percent. Right now, prisons in Costa Rica are operating at 30 percent over capacity. The cost of CACCO will be an estimated $35 million. Also, El Salvador will be assisting Costa Rica technical help, offering blueprints and security protocols. Costa Rica is long considered the safest state in Central America, however; there has recently been a spike in gang related violence, so much so that in 2023 they recorded their highest ever homicide rate. The Justice Minister of Costa Rica Gerald Campos says that overcrowding allows gang leaders to continue coordinating their criminal enterprises from behind bars. Campos also says that the prison is a necessity for preventing of riots, hostage taking, internal conflict, and to avoid the collapse of the Costa Rican prison system.
This new project is important because it signals a shift in Costa Rica’s traditional image as a peaceful, low violence country into one trying to control their organized crime. Working with El Salvador means Costa Rica is serious about bringing crime down in the country, as El Salvador’s prison (CECOT) was credited with the sharp drop in El Salvador’s murder rate. However, CECOT is very controversial as human rights organizations report inhuman conditions and death within the prison.
The Costa Rican Government will continue expressing the urgency of the prison, as their current prison system in overcrowded. They will justify the project saying that it will create a large drop in gang activity just like CECOT did for El Salvador. If the prison is successful other countries in Central America or around the world with high crime rate might also to adopt El Salvador’s idea and start to build similar prisons. If this happens then human rights organizations will grow with concerns questioning the conditions that all inmates will have.
Costa Rica building CACCO shows that the state will re-establish order and maintain their own legitimacy. It also highlights the balance Costa Rica will need to maintain between security and human rights, since adopting El Salvador’s model will raise concerns about prisoner conditions. The prison is a top priority for Costa Rica as the polls rank insecurity as the publics top concern, going into the national elections in 2026. By building this massive prison, Costa Rica is reinforcing it’s ability to control rising violence, showing how states rely on their monopoly on violence to maintain legitimacy and authority.