Costa Rica Megaprison to Limit Conjugal Visits to 30 Minutes Every Six Months
Officials say the 5,100-bed facility will ease overcrowding and tighten controls on contraband and inmate movement.
- On Monday, Costa Rica began moving inmates into the new High Containment Center for Organized Crime , with suspects in the killing of police officer Gerson Rosales among the first transferred to the maximum-security facility.
- The facility in San Rafael, Alajuela, has capacity for 5,100 inmates across five modules of 1,020 each, designed to reduce national penitentiary system overcrowding from 59% to 15% once fully operational.
- Justice Minister Gabriel Aguilar Vargas announced strict protocols requiring inmates to wear orange uniforms and shower after visits. Aguilar said these measures stop weapons, drugs, and other contraband from entering the facility.
- Current regulations for high-containment prisons allow intimate visits every two months for up to two hours, though no formal change to that rule has yet been confirmed for the new facility.
- President Laura Fern, who toured El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison last week, defended the project against opposition criticism, stating the government must address Organized Crime that has recruited young people for years.
19 Articles
19 Articles
Los Angeles Times
Independent EspañolThe Ministry of Justice of Costa Rica moved the first 123 prisoners to the newly opened prison inspired by the Center for the Confining of Terrorism (CECOT) that Nayib Bukele raised in El Salvador.
The Independent
The Independent (US)Costa Rica transfers first inmates to new mega-prison inspired by El Salvador's CECOT
The facility has room for 5,100 inmates, representing 20% of the national prison population
Shackled, shaved and in uniform: first inmates arrive at Costa Rica mega-prison
SAN JOSE, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Costa Rica has locked up the first 123 inmates in a new mega-prison, built with the help of the Salvadoran government in the outskirts of capital San José, the country's justice ministry said on Tuesday. The ministry shar...
Costa Rica's new president, Laura Fernández, has once again given journalists a chance to peek inside the notorious and controversial prison near the town of Tecoluca. The "Terrorist Detention Center," as the facility is officially called, houses tens of thousands of prisoners crammed into cells with four-story metal bunk beds without bedding. They are believed to be mainly gang members who made the Central American country of El Salvador one of…
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