Costa Rica’s government will inaugurate its new maximum-security prison for organized crime on Oct. 14, at 12:30 p.m., officials announced Sunday night in a national broadcast. The facility, known as the High Containment Center Against Organized Crime (CACCO), sits within the La Reforma penitentiary complex in San Rafael de Alajuela.
The Ministry of Justice and Peace said the center will hold up to about 5,100 inmates in five modules of roughly 1,020 people each. According to the government, it is intended for leaders of criminal organizations, inmates considered violent, people facing extradition proceedings and prisoners who require special protection.
In the broadcast video, which included footage from inside the facility, President Laura Fernández said the government had promised the center and could now say with pride that it was ready. The images showed rows of beds with orange inmate uniforms laid out beside each one.
Justice Minister Gabriel Aguilar said inmates currently held under high-containment conditions elsewhere in the prison system will be the first transferred to the new center. The ministry has said the regime will include additional restrictions meant to stop inmates from coordinating criminal activity from behind bars, including limited time outside cells and isolation areas for those who cause disturbances.
The complex covers roughly 90,000 square meters (about 22 acres), with about 31,000 square meters (roughly 333,700 square feet) of construction. It was built from plans donated by the government of El Salvador, whose Terorism Confinement Center (CECOT), built under President Nayib Bukele, can hold up to 40,000 prisoners.
The public procurement file for the project puts its cost at more than $33 million. The opening comes well behind schedule. On Jan. 14, the administration of former President Rodrigo Chaves said construction would take 195 days, with the work promised for July 28. The project then passed to the Fernández administration, which took office on May 8. In June, Fernández and Aguilar said the center would be ready in September, a target that also slipped. The Justice Ministry reported the work was 95% complete as of Sept. 21.
The government has presented the CACCO as a centerpiece of its response to organized crime and drug trafficking. Costa Rica has recorded around 900 homicides a year recently, most of which authorities attribute to the drug trade. The Oct. 14 inauguration ceremony will be broadcast live on YouTube, according to the presidency.
