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 shared images showing rows of inmates dressed in orange, seated with shaved heads bowed and their hands behind their necks, in poses resembling photographs from El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), the mega-prison where President Nayib Bukele's government holds tens of thousands of gang members and suspected gang affiliates.
Costa Rica's maximum security prison, which it calls the High Containment Center against Organized Crime (CACCO), has been presented by the government of President Laura Fernandez as a symbol of a new "tough on crime" approach championed by her administration in response to a security crisis facing Costa Rica, once one of the most peaceful countries in the Western Hemisphere.
"Costa Rica is writing a new chapter in its penitentiary history," Justice Minister Gabriel Aguilar said in a statement. "CACCO is a monument to national security, a forceful response to organized crime, and a guarantee that the state will exercise its authority without hesitation." Aguilar has said the new facility will also help reduce overcrowding in the prison system.
The prison has a capacity for 5,100 inmates, equivalent to 20% of the country's prison population.
Costa Rica, long regarded as one of the safest countries in Latin America, has in recent years experienced a sharp rise in violence linked to drug trafficking and organized crime. The country recorded a record number of homicides in 2023, although figures have since stabilized. Authorities attribute most killings to disputes between criminal groups over drug trafficking routes and markets.
(Reporting by Álvaro Murillo; writing by Stefanie Eschenbacher, editing by Cassandra Garrison and Rosalba O'Brien)