What’s inside El Salvador’s new mega-prison, the largest prison in the Americas?

There gigantic prison, in an isolated rural area with a lot of technology, is the “largest in America”, according to the Salvadoran government. Built in a valley a short distance from the imposing Chichontepec VolcanoIn Tecolucaabout 74 km southeast of San Salvadorhe Terrorist Containment Center (CECOT)stands out for its rigorous entry controls.

The prison was built to hold some of the 62,975 gang members detained under the controversial exceptional regime established by Nayib Bukelein response to an escalation of violence that claimed the lives of 87 people between March 25 and 27.

To build the prison, the State bought 166 hectares of which 23 were used to build eight pavilions that are within the perimeter surrounded by a concrete wall 11 meters high and 2.1 kilometers long, protected by electrified barbed wire.

To enter the prison, both inmates and security and administrative staff must reach the registration areas before going through three fortified gates controlled by security guards.

Every gang member that arrives, in addition to going through a body scanner You will need to register at an entrance area where you will be photographed.

To give autonomy to the prison, the Salvadoran Minister of Public Works, Romeo Rodríguez, said two wells had been drilled, a 600 cubic meter water supply plant had been installed, four cisterns and eight power substations had been constructed.

In order to guarantee electricity, the prison also has oil backup facilities. A wastewater treatment plant was also built.

In front of the cellblocks, there is a control room to operate the water and electricity systems so that the inmates do not have the possibility of “manipulating” the two services. and the pavilions have a curved roof which guarantees natural ventilation for the prisoners.

In jail, who was built in record time After seven months, 3,000 people were working and the work was supervised by a Mexican company.

Each pavilion has a construction area of ​​6,000 square meters, and in each of its 32 cells equipped with steel bars, “over a hundred” gang members will be housedexplained Minister Rodríguez.

The inmates have in each cell -about 100 square meters- there are two sinks with running water for personal hygiene, and two toilets.

Each cell also has cabins for iron sheet without mattress for inmates to sleep.

Moreover, in each pavilion there are dark “punishment cells” without windows which will be used with misbehaving gang members.

“No patio, recreation area or marital space has been provided”thus gang members only leave the cell when they go to a room for their virtual court proceedings.

Guards armed with pistols and assault rifles are in charge of guarding the detainees. Electronic equipment blocks cellphone signals, preventing communication from the prison.

“All the terrorists who have planned mourning and pain against the people of El Salvador will serve their sentences in CECOT, in the harshest regime,” the official said. Deputy Minister of Justice and Public Security, Osiris Luna.

Relatives of people detained under the exceptional regime denounced that They are asking for $170 a month to provide food and basic necessities to detainees.

What they buy for this money are seven small packets, the contents of which are not detailed on the sheets that the jailers have pasted on the walls of the prison. Family members only know that they give $35 for food, $15 for hygiene items, $30 for clothes, $20 for cleaning the area, and $70 for miscellaneous items.

GlobeLiveMedia attempted to contact prison authorities to find out their plans for charging the detainees, but there was no response. For now, in addition to the compulsory package system, there is a system of “institutional stores” in which family members deposit sums of between 5 and 150 USD per month to buy in stores located inside jails. “They buy everything at full price. A Coca Cola that costs 2.50 dollars outside is sold there for 10 dollars”, explained a relative of an inmate.

It is impossible to know how the prison authorities use the money given to them by relatives of detainees, or whether these funds are used in accordance with what is established by law. It is not possible to know because Nayib Bukele’s government has declared all information about the prisons and their security policies confidential.

Either way, and regardless of payment format, selling basic necessities to prisoners in El Salvador seems like a roundabout business. From March to today, the prison system has admitted some 64,000 inmates who, according to official figures, added to the population of around 40,000 that already existed before the emergency regime decreed almost a year. If, as family members and organizations suspect, mandatory collection is extended to all prisons, Nayib Bukele’s government could start earning some $17 million a month.

the president himself Bukele communicated on his social networks the first transfer of detainees to his mega-prison. With an impressive audiovisual display, he told how the arrival of the first 2,000 detainees happened. “This will be their new home, where they will live for decades, mixed together, unable to do more harm to the population,” he wrote on his Twitter account along with the images, further elevating his authoritarian rhetoric.

In the footage, you can see a group of gang members with bare torsos, wearing only white shorts and without any type of footwear, guarded by police officers as they line up in a large yard in another country jail.

Moments later, with their hands cuffed behind their backs, they are loaded into buses and transferred under tight security to the new prison, where they arrive at dawn. The whole route was guarded by several military helicopters which hovered over the buses and had the support of hundreds of police officers, security agents from the Directorate of Penitentiary Centers and even soldiers.

Once at CECOT, detainees were admitted to the cells in groups.

“Cell by cell, we are eliminating this cancer from society. Know that you will no longer leave CECOT, you will pay for what you are… cowardly terrorists”, wrote the Minister of Justice and Security, Gustavo Villatoro.

The organization Amnesty International He expressed “deep concern” about the new prison and called on Bukele to “change course” in his policy of mass arrests.

“Amnesty International has denounced a clear pattern of human rights violations within the current approach to public security in El Salvador. The construction of this new prison could mean the continuity and escalation of these abuses,” the organization said.

“Gang violence in the country must be addressed comprehensively and guarantee the human rights of the entire population,” added Amnesty, which called on “the international community to act”.

For the director of For the NGO Human Rights Commission of El Salvador, Miguel Montenegro, the mega-prison “is a shame for the country”.

The government boasts of having the largest prison in Latin America, which is not a source of pride but rather a challenge that carries risks of overcrowding and violence,” Montenegro said, saying that gangs must be fought “using methods that lead to rehabilitation”.

The rector of the Jesuit University of Central America, Andreu Oliva, believes that the government must bet on the “rehabilitation” of prisonersbecause “they deserve a second chance”.

Bukele accuses his detractors of “defending” gang members: “El Salvador has managed to go from being the least safe country in the world to that of the safest country in the Americas. How did we do this? Put criminals in jail. There is room ? Now yes. Will they be able to give orders from inside? No. Can they escape? No”.

On March 27, the emergency regime in El Salvador will be one year old and everything seems to indicate that Bukele and his Congress will extend it.

Continue reading: