Overview
- The Centro de Alta Contención de Crimen Organizado (CACCO), inaugurated by President Laura Fernández, is a $35 million complex built next to La Reforma in San Rafael with capacity for 5,100 inmates.
- The government says the CACCO will hold the most dangerous suspects linked to narcotrafficking and organized crime under extreme security measures and orange uniforms.
- Officials and multiple news outlets say the design and strategy were explicitly inspired by El Salvador’s Cecot and reflect a regional shift toward stricter prison models.
- Fernández’s administration has already tightened prison regimes by limiting conjugal visits, restricting items from families, removing electrical outlets, closing internal shops, and launching inmate work programs.
- The move responds to recent rises in killings and large cocaine seizures in Costa Rica and comes with a push in Congress for laws to formalize paid inmate labor and other security measures, a change that could reshape prison operations and family access to detainees.