Largest terrorist prison opened in South America

They can hold up to 40 thousand prisoners

One of the largest terrorist prisons in Latin America has opened in El Salvador. The capacity has doubled, now it can hold 40 thousand prisoners, and it is virtually impossible to escape from there. Thus, the authorities decided to deal with the overload of the penitentiary system.

Government crackdown on criminal gangs in El Salvador has led to a sharp increase in the number of prisoners. Since President Nayib Bukele asked Congress in March to approve a state of emergency, police and the army have arrested more than 62,000 people suspected of being members of criminal gangs and aiding criminals.

The measure suspended some constitutional rights, including allowing the authorities to make arrests without a warrant and allowing the government access to citizens’ private correspondence. With almost 2% of the adult population behind bars, El Salvador has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

All this further complicated the situation of the already overburdened penitentiary system. The largest prison at that time, La Esperanza, somehow accommodated as many as 33,000 people, despite the fact that in reality its capacity is designed for only 10,000 prisoners.

In such conditions, without a more spacious room can not cope. A decision was made to build a so-called “Terrorist Detention Center” in the municipality of Tecoluca. Everything was completed 7 months ago.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele called the high-security prison “a key element for a total victory in the gang war.” The head of state even shared a video on social media showing prison officials giving the president a tour of the new facility.

El Salvador’s director of prisons, Osiris Luna, said the new prison will cover more than 166 hectares and will be guarded by 600 military personnel and 250 police officers.

“All these house boys, these terrorists from the organization that our beloved Salvadoran people have suffered, will stay at home and be subjected to a harsh regime,” Luna told state television.

The scale is really impressive. In addition to the huge area, the institution itself has 7 “rings” of security – from heavily guarded steel-reinforced cells for prisoners to a special patrol area, an electric fence and 19 watchtowers that make escape “impossible”.

Bukele noted that earlier prisoners felt too at ease in prison, having access to “prostitutes, computers, televisions, game consoles and mobile phones.” Prison officials told the president that the troublemakers would now be transferred to solitary confinement where they “won’t see the light of day.”

“El Salvador has managed to transform itself from the most insecure country in the world to the most secure country in America,” the president wrote.

By 2021, El Salvador’s penitentiary system had 20 detention centers with a capacity of 30,000 people and 35,976 prisoners.

The prison is said to be “the largest such facility in America.”

Note that the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador, at the request of the President, at the end of March 2022 approved the introduction of a state of emergency in the country against the backdrop of a sharp increase in crime. The politician calls local gangsters terrorists and promises 30-year sentences simply for the fact of belonging to an organized criminal group.

The state of emergency and the operations that followed it began in response to a surge in killings in and out of prisons. The crimes are attributed to the largest Central American gang “Mara Salvatrucha”. As the President of El Salvador noted, with the introduction of the state of emergency, crime in the country has decreased markedly, and the number of murders has dropped to zero.