Overview
- The Contraloría published its findings on Friday, October 16, 2026, documenting 265 adverse situations in 52 penitentiary facilities that together hold roughly 90,000 inmates.
- Videovigilance was widely deficient with 43 prisons reporting inoperative or defective cameras and many facilities failing to retain recordings for the 60-day minimum required by regulation.
- Auditors flagged 81 problems tied to insufficient staff, weapons, tactical gear and communications at security posts, including 24 prisons lacking enough personnel to cover towers, perimeters, monitoring and transfers.
- The report found 229 security agents with expired firearms licenses concentrated at specific sites, 50 failures in visitor-entry scanning equipment like X‑rays and metal detectors, and 41 perimeter defects in walls, fences and lighting.
- Thirteen prisons showed problems with signal-blocking systems that prevent mobile and radio communications and seven had no blocking capability at all, a gap that can let inmates coordinate criminal activity or extort victims outside the facility.