David "Cuba Dave" Strecker is set to finish out a full year in preventive prison for allegations of promoting sex tourism in Costa Rica. He says he was officially charged Thursday for the first time.
A judge's order to release 380 prisoners from Alajuela's overcrowded Gerardo Rodríguez prison has caused government infighting and pushback from the tourism industry.
Officials said the fight erupted following a dispute between leaders of two rival groups, including one led by a member of the Zetas drug cartel. The 60-year-old penitentiary houses 3,800 inmates, twice its capacity.
Costa Rica’s Justice Minister Cecilia Sánchez Romero was forced this week to defend before the Legislative Assembly the partial release of hundreds of inmates to reduce overcrowding. The program has sparked criticism from various sectors, including the Public Security Ministry.
There are few set criteria governing how transgender inmates should be handled by Costa Rican prisons. Many men who identify as women are sent to men's prisons.
Inside cellblock A-2, simple wooden frame bunks line as much floor space as possible. Inmates, many shirtless in the heat, lounge on their bunks if they’re lucky enough to have a bunk. The cellblock is crowded – designed to hold 40 with 108 living inside – but people squeeze by each other like strangers on a crowded sidewalk. Anything that doesn’t fit on the floor hangs from the ceiling and the walls. “Just wait till nighttime,” says a toothless inmate doing a 30-year sentence who called himself Francisco, “that’s when it gets bad."
Costa Rica’s Supreme Court ordered prison officials to come up with a plan to relieve overcrowding in the San Sebastián prison within one month. The court said prisoners "are sleeping on pieces of mattresses or on the ground, putting up with the cold” and rats climbing out of the drains at night.
In 2005, the country’s prisons were 4 percent overcrowded. Today there are an additional 4,793 people behind bars, bringing the overcrowding rate to 54 percent. There are a total of 13,923 people in prison in Costa Rica.
If people get squeamish at the thought of sleeping in hotel beds, image this: Prisoners at La Reforma penitentiary sued for nicer mattresses for their conjugal visits.
