Medellín builds Colombia’s first megaprison inspired by Bukele’s model

Construction of Colombia’s first mega-prison, in Medellín HANDOUT / MEDELLIN MAYOR’S OFFICE / AFP The city of Medellín, in Colombia, is moving forward with the construction of Colombia’s first mega-prison inspired by the model of the famous prison for gang members created by President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, the city’s city council said. ✅ Follow the g1 international news channel on WhatsApp The prison will have capacity for more than 1,300 inmates under strict control measures, said Frederico Gutiérrez, the mayor of the country’s second largest city — which was one of the most violent in the world before the death of drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, in 1993. The megaprison project is inspired by Cecot (Terrorism Confinement Center), the maximum security prison in El Salvador, the target of complaints from human rights groups for alleged abuses against prisoners. Colombia thus joins other Latin American countries, such as Ecuador and Costa Rica, which build this type of prisons. See the videos that are trending on g1 More recently, the elected president of Chile, the ultra-rightist José Antonio Kast, visited Cecot and asked Bukele for “collaboration” to “improve” his country’s penitentiary system. Gutiérrez visited, on Thursday (19), the place where workers are working on the construction of the prison, which will be financed with public and private funds. The mayor, on the right of the political spectrum, assured that the center will not be guarded by employees of the national penitentiary authority, but rather by its own security team. He states that the prison, which will be ready in 2027, will have technological systems to prevent inmates from communicating, as one of the most common forms of extortion in the country is operated from within the prisons. The idea is that people detained will be “deprived of many privileges”, Gutiérrez told the press. Powerful criminal groups operate in Medellín. Security is at the center of the debate in the presidential campaign, whose elections take place on May 31st. The favorites, according to polls, are left-wing senator Iván Cepeda, one of the creators of President Gustavo Petro’s criticized peace policy of negotiating with armed groups, and right-wing lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella. The latter, which has the support of the Medellín mayor’s party, proposes building mega-prisons in which prisoners are “ten floors underground”, fed “with bread and water”.

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