The Rise of the Mega-Prison

You might be familiar El Salvador's Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or Terrorism Confinement Center, usually simply called CECOT. It's the maximum security mega-prison designed to hold up to 40,000 inmates (it currently holds fewer than half that). It's one of the largest prisons in the world, and it's how President Bukele's government was able to lock up the MS-13 and Barrio 18 gang members that had taken over his country, and give the Salvadoran people back their communities. It sits on an 80-acre site and was built and opened in just seven months. 

In the U.S. media, CECOT is portrayed as controversial. The prison holds the worst of the worst — men who have committed the most heinous acts of violence and terrorism and who cannot be rehabilitated. These are men who were recruited into this life at such a young age that it became a lifestyle, a religion to them. Decapitating bus drivers because they drove into the wrong territory, sacrificing babies to the devil, and chopping an old woman's hands off because she couldn't pay extortion fees were all in a day's work. 

Almost everyone inside will never see freedom again in their lifetimes. While some claim it's a hub for human rights violations, many others — including the ones who should have the biggest say, the people of El Salvador — claim it's what saved their country. Homicide rates are practically nonexistent there now. When CECOT was built, gangs were broken up and leadership isolated so that it couldn't run things from inside. 

CECOT is no longer just a prison in El Salvador. It's become a necessary model for all of Latin America. 

In November 2025, Ecuador opened El Encuentro, a maximum security prison designed to hold 800 highly dangerous inmates, and the country is currently working to build a larger prison that will hold more. Colombia's new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, has vowed to build up to 10 mega-prisons in remote areas of his country. Chile's new president, José Antonio Kast, visited CECOT earlier this year for inspiration. Paraguay began mass transfer of prisoners to its Minga Guazú Social Reintegration Center last summer. Leaders in Guatemala, Panama, Peru, Honduras, and Argentina have also announced plans to begin working on similar prisons — they're either battling political opposition and judges or in the process of building now. 

Many of these leaders rely on CECOT as the model and have consulted with Bukele for assistance.  

Costa Rica's Centro de Alta Contención contra el Crimen Organizado (CACCO) will likely be the next mega-prison to open its doors in the Western Hemisphere. It's located in San Rafael de Alajuela, about 12 or so miles northwest of San José. It's designed to hold about 5,100 inmates, and will prioritize those involved in organized crime, high-risk prisoners, prisoners who are extraditable, and those who were still running criminal networks from ordinary prisons. 

In January of this year, former president Rodrigo Chaves, along with Bukele, held a ceremonial groundbreaking. CACCO was modeled after CECOT, and will include similar features, such as communal high-containment cells, armored corridors, electronic surveillance, communications blocking, towers, biometrics, and orange uniforms (something Costa Rica has not used in decades). 

CACCO was slated to open this summer, though most media is reporting that it's only about 90% ready, and will require another month or two of construction before it can house inmates. 

In a recent interview with El País, current Costa Rican president Laura Fernández was asked if her country is going "Bukele-style." 

"There is no ‘Bukelization’ here; what we have replicated is President Nayib Bukele’s model of maximum-containment prisons, because people deprived of liberty from within prison continued to run their businesses, commit frauds, and order contract killings," she fired back.   

Which brings us to the reason these mega-prisons are on the rise. 

"History has shown that jailing large numbers of people is not an effective anti-crime policy," according to InsightCrime. "Understaffed and underfunded prisons are breeding grounds for violence. Inmates form groups for protection and begin to compete for turf and business within prison walls." 

Here's more: 

Many of the region’s most powerful criminal groups were forged inside overcrowded prisons, including Tren de Aragua, which formed in Venezuela’s Tocorón prison and in a few short years became the regional bogeyman of organized crime; Brazil’s biggest criminal groups, the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) and Red Command (Comando Vermelho); as well as the Choneros, the Lobos, and the Tiguerones in Ecuador. In El Salvador, as well, prisons used to function as de facto headquarters for the gangs. Starting behind bars did little to curb these groups’ growth; most came to control the prisons they occupied, using them as spaces to coordinate criminal activities, a steady stream of recruits, and a springboard to expand onto the streets. 

Tren de Aragua is a perfect example. I wrote a bit about that last year: 

But TdA actually dates all the way back to 2014 when a man named Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, aka Niño Guerrero, was locked up at Tocorón Prison, which is located in the Aragua state of Venezuela. According to the State Department, 'During his time there, Guerrero expanded the influence of Tren de Aragua from extorting prison inmates and bribing prison guards to assuming the overall control of the Tocorón prison as well as the control of gold mines in Bolivar State, drug corridors on the Caribbean coast, as well as control of some of the clandestine border crossings between Venezuela and Colombia.' 

The BBC reported that because of Guerrero's growing power, the jail essentially turned into a luxury resort and included a zoo, nightclub, and swimming pool. 'Families of inmates moved into the compound. Inmates had access to a makeshift bank, a betting shop, a restaurant, and a baseball diamond, while their children could marvel at flamingos and ostriches in the animal enclosure.' Meanwhile, Guerrero came and went as he pleased, reportedly living 'like a king.' He had his own floor in the prison, complete with personal bodyguards. He also had no major rivals or opposition, which helped him grow TdA throughout Venezuela. It eventually made its way to the Colombian border. By 2018, it was spreading through other South American countries, including Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, and Brazil. 

(For what it's worth, we killed Guerrero in June.) 

What CECOT and these new prisons do differently is cut off communication from the outside world. No visits. No phones. Orders from gang and cartel leadership can't leave the prison. Prisoners rarely leave their highly monitored cells and do not leave the building at all. Inmates from various criminal organizations are purposely separated. Signals are jammed. Police and military presence is heavy. As I said, these men will never be released back into the general public. There are no rehabilitation programs. 

As matter of fact, one of the very first things President de la Espriella of Colombia did when he took office earlier this month was transfer high-risk criminals to maximum security prisons.  

And all the videos we see of the prisoners kneeling in their underwear, having their heads shaved, with guards closely monitoring them — those aren't necessarily designed for you and me. They're a reminder to those who haven't been caught that the old ways of doing things are gone. Plain old prisons that were out of the public eye, where prisoners ran amok and even gained control are no longer where terrorists end up. If they continue their ways, they'll end up in this hellhole, for which Bukele and the other leaders of these nations do not apologize and do not hide from the public.  

Stripped down to the bare minimum, bowed down in submission when moving

Why Aren’t American Prisons Like CeCot⁉️ pic.twitter.com/Esiy0Hgpvi

— TheRealCherokeeOwl 🦉 (@CherokeeOwl) April 18, 2025

Sure, many argue that this is a human rights issue. But as Bukele says, what about the rights of the thousands of people these criminals raped, murdered, tortured, and terrorized? Sometimes, you just can't have it both ways. The good guys should always get the better end of the deal.