Costa Rica opens 5,100-capacity CACCO prison

Costa Rican President Laura Fernández inaugurated a new maximum-security prison on October 14, opening a 5,100-capacity facility modeled on El Salvador’s high-profile CECOT prison. The High-Containment Center Against Organized Crime, known as CACCO, is intended for people authorities consider the country’s most dangerous criminals, as the government steps up its response to organized crime and elevated homicide levels. The prison’s design was donated by El Salvador and takes the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, as a reference. CACCO is located within the La Reforma prison complex near San José. Its capacity is about one-fifth of Costa Rica’s current prison population, according to officials cited in reports on the opening. No inmates had been transferred when the facility opened. The Costa Rican Justice Ministry expects the first transfers at the end of October. Officials have said the prison will hold high-risk inmates and help the state regain control of a prison system they say has been infiltrated by organized crime. Fernández said at the inauguration that the facility would make Costa Rica a global benchmark for prison security.