I don’t know about you, but I was very excited to read that Costa Rica has expressed interest in getting into one of the best regional growth industries—massive prisons. Up in El Salvador, Bukele has built the prototype prison for long-term jailing: CECOT, the Center for Terrorism Confinement. Now our president has indicated that he too may want to be part of the fun. There may be a delay in becoming part of the regional team, as the Salvadoran prison, built to hold 40,000 inmates, currently has only about 15,000 criminals under lock and key. But they are working hard to fill all that empty space, as Bukele is currying favor with the powers that be in Gringolandia to receive whatever tattooed flotsam is sent his way. Always room for one more, señor!
Building a walled city to imprison violent gangbangers seems a little risky for Costa Rica. Our neighbors in Central America have decades of experience with war and gangs, and the harsh punishment meted out is retribution for the years of life under the violent barrio-by-barrio rule of gangs such as MS-13. The idea of bringing thousands of violent, hardened criminals together in a giant prison here in Ticolandia sounds like the plot of a bad action/terror movie. It does not take a lot of imagination to foresee a disastrous scenario where the gangs all unify behind the walls, crush the guards overlooking the complex, and spill into the streets, running wild and unchecked from the Caribbean to the Pacific.
I would have something different in mind for Costa Rica. Just as El Salvador had to crush gangs in order to restore order for their law-abiding citizens, Costa Rica should also go after the most visible group of gangs responsible for ripping off the hard-working citizenry for their own financial benefit. I refer, of course, to the many white collar criminals found throughout the country, infiltrating every province, with their grubby hands in every municipality and every governmental organization. No need to name names here—due to Costa Rica’s strict libel laws that seemingly protect these same crooks who feed from the public coffers, I will leave it up to the reader to decide which well-known names I have in mind.
As our country has no shortage of these criminals in coats and ties, the prison we build would be large and have space not only for the homegrown variety, but like Bukele is doing in El Salvador, we could offer prison space for those well-heeled convicts throughout the Americas. What an economic boon it could be for our country! Not only would other countries pay us to take in their lawbreakers, but we could also craft tour packages for the families of the incarcerated to come and enjoy our beautiful country while visiting their loved ones in our sparkling new secure facility. Like the medical tourism packages that entice people to come here and get their teeth fixed for a quarter of the price stateside while also taking some tours, this would be a chance for a new revenue stream that could bring in millions of dollars annually.
Prisoner tourism—a whole new field, innovative and unique—that would keep Costa Rica flush with foreign investment and simultaneously benefit every law-abiding citizen tired of the choriceros who milk us just as the gangs milked the good people of El Salvador. All we need now is to build the prison, quickly and efficiently. Remembering the amazing work the Chinese did in building our beautiful national stadium, here is hoping that we are already on the phone with Beijing for this new project.
