--- title: "CECOT: The Alcatraz of Latin America" description: "It is the summer of 2015, and a businessman is walking down the street in El Salvador when two young men appear in front of him. The man began to beg the two men for his life, pleading that he had young children. But they didn't listen. One drew a pistol and shot the man, first in the shoulder, then the stomach, then twice in the head. The man's crime? He refused to pay an extortion debt to a gang. The debt…was $21.\n\nIt is December of 2022, and a man sits in a dimly lit chapel perched on a wooden church pew. He clutches a picture of his daughter, a psychology student with the alias Marta, close to his chest as he chokes back tears. His daughter was not dead, she was in prison. Except she hadn't done anything wrong. She had been in prison for 6 months. It is unknown where Marta is today.\n\nThis just leaves us with one question. What on earth happened here? How did El Salvador go from one of the highest murder rates in the world to one of the lowest in such a short time? How did the government go from total anarchy on its streets to restoring order and peace for the first time in a generation?\n\nWell El Salvador holds a dark secret. Deep in the middle of the country, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere, hides a hulking steel and concrete behemoth. It eats everything that wanders into its maw and is never full. A vault for El Salvador to lock away dangerous criminals and throw away the key. Today we're going to tell you a story about gang violence and one man's crusade against it. A story of how that man built a monument to his crusade in the form the most secure prison on earth, and how ordinary people have gotten caught in between.\n\nThe prison that nobody has ever been released from. A local police officer is reported as having said \"Not even El Chapo could escape from there.\" Where the worst of the worst go to rot in the highest security complex this side of the US border. The Alcatraz of South America.\n\nCECOT.\n\n## CECOT by the Numbers\n\nCECOT is an acronym, meaning \"Centre of Confinement for Terrorism\". To understand its significance, we need to appreciate what makes up this massive steel complex. It was built in the latter half of 2022 and started receiving its special guests in February of 2023. You'll need a while to get your head around just how mind-bendingly large it is. The complex covers 57 acres, but that is just the facility itself. The grounds around the facility patrolled by police and the army is a whopping 407 acres, around two and a half times the size of Disneyland and about 1000% less fun. It is one of the largest prison facilities in the Americas. It's also one of the most secure.\n\nWorking from the inside out, there are several rings of security that the prisoners here are held within. First are the cells. There are 32 cells in a cell block or \"module\". There are eight modules, also locked and guarded, each held in a separate sector, bordered by several electrified chain-link fences, barbed wire and patrolling guards. Beyond that stand four-metre walls of 60cm thick sheer concrete, topped with barbed wire and multiple guard towers. After that is the main prison wall itself, which is an eye-watering 11 metres high (taller than the length of a London bus). It stretches for over 2 kilometres around the main compound's perimeter, with 19 guard towers at varying intervals housing armed guards. If you did somehow manage to get past all of that, you would find yourself in 400 acres worth of government land, with the army and police patrolling several perimeter layers and using external watchtowers. That makes around seven circles of security. Hell itself, has nine.\n\nIt was built in Tecoluca, 74 kilometres (or 46 miles) south-east of San Salvador, almost exactly in the centre of the country, in the middle of a desert, miles from any civilian settlements. El Salvador's previous experiences saw prisons in more urban areas have their issues bleed out into local communities. Here, isolation is a strategic design feature to protect those communities. The prison's infrastructure is entirely self-contained and independent from the national grid, with its own wells to provide water and a substation to generate electricity. If the rest of El Salvador was somehow destroyed tomorrow, CECOT could still function. And it really needs a plentiful electricity supply too, as the entire complex is lit up like a Christmas tree. Every square inch of the exterior is covered in spotlights. After all, an escapee can't hide in the dark if there is no dark.\n\nThere are still several unknowns when it comes to officially established information about the facility. We know it is energy independent, but for obvious security reasons it is unclear exactly what that infrastructure looks like. We don't know the total number of cameras or the number of staff. Maybe most importantly of all, we don't know what it cost to build, especially at the speed it was built. For the cameras, estimations are in the thousands. In comparison to prisons of a similar size and security globally, the number of cameras other facilities have is estimated to be in the hundreds, making CECOT a surveillance outlier. It is pushing the boundaries of what is feasible and even practical in modern jails. The staff is estimated to number a few thousand, which given prisons of a similar size, isn't actually that many. CECOT at capacity is reported to be able to hold 40,000 inmates. Riker's Island in New York can house 20,000 inmates and has around 10,000 staff. Those running the complex who showed the El Salvadoran President around the prison on his YouTube channel (modern politics is bizarre) stated that everything in CECOT was designed and built to global international standards. There is no doubt it has been influenced by some of the world's securest prisons like ADX Florence Supermax in Colorado. ADX Florence cost the US government around $60 million to build in 1994. However, that facility is designed to hold under 500 inmates at its absolute maximum, not 40,000. Given that CECOT's main compound is 20 acres larger than ADX Florence, is primed to house 80 times the inmates and was built state-of-the-art three decades later, it is reasonable to estimate that CECOT's cost would significantly dwarf that of Florence and indeed most prisons on earth.\n\nThe cells inside each module amount to little more than concrete boxes. They have thick reinforced bars on the front-facing walls and metal mesh ceilings for constant monitoring by armed guards in the gangways above. Every cell is fitted with two concrete toilets and two concrete basins, though the water is turned on and off from outside the cell. The main floorspace of the cells are filled with quadruple-decker metal frames forming the inmates' beds. No mattresses, sheets or pillows are allowed, as even these can be fashioned into weapons. The whole complex holds 256 cells, with around 156 prisoners per cell. The Washington Post reports that at 98 people per acre, CECOT is designed to be one of the most densely populated prisons on earth. That's quite a tight squeeze. Especially when the temperature can reach 35 degrees Celsius with very little ventilation. The cells do not have any windows and as far as the El Salvadoran authorities are concerned; they do not need any. The design of the modules lets in a substantial amount of natural light during the day and fluorescent lighting is as ubiquitous inside as it is outside. These lights remain on 24/7, even while inmates attempt to sleep in order to maintain surveillance. The only exception is isolation. Solitary confinement cells are small, pitch-black-concrete boxes, with a concrete slab to sleep on and a concrete toilet.\n\nAll in all, the prison is as well equipped, if not better, than most on earth, even for the staff. A key element of the design of CECOT was the \"dignity\" that came with having a position there. Being a guard at CECOT provides you with a safe place to eat a hot meal, a comfortable place to rest, a recreational area and even a gym. The El Salvador government wanted to transform the previously sceptical perception towards its security services to one of respect. The prisoners naturally are not extended that courtesy and just in case the inmates get upset with that, CECOT has ample resources to handles these issues too. It has an armoury stacked to the hilt with rifles, riot gear and megaphones. Armed sharpshooters, especially in vantage areas, are a mainstay. But, if the prison officers do ever need help, they can call on the El Salvadoran police and army who are patrolling the outside. What's more, El Salvador's 6th infantry brigade are located only 20 kilometres away. The compound already has an army of vehicles, including a helicopter, and the open layout of the facility ensures multiple helicopters could land in the grounds if need be.\n\nNow if you knew nothing about El Salvador, you may think that this is overdoing things a smidge. Who are the monsters that would be locked up in such an inescapable place and why would a country need to build such a large complex for them? Let's look into the recent history to find out.\n\n## CECOT's Origins\n\nTo understand the current goings on in El Salvador that have led to the building of one of the most secure facilities on earth, we must first travel to 1980s Los Angeles, where El Salvador's gang problems originated. During the El Salvadoran civil war, between 1980 and 1992, many citizens fled to the US to escape the violence and persecution, forming a community of Salvadorans in Los Angeles. Some of these refugees literally ganged together in order to protect themselves against the native gangs of LA. One of the Salvadoran gangs was known as Barrio 18, or the 18th Street gang. The other was known as Mara Salvatrucha, or as it's more commonly known, MS-13, and both sects are bitter rivals. Both gangs today are known for their brutality, their indifference to the suffering of others and the wide range of criminal activities they specialise in. By the 1990s, this became such a prominent issue that the US Government began deporting dangerous Salvadoran gang members back to their homeland.\n\nBut the civil war had gutted the nation, infrastructure lay in ruins and no security left civilians vulnerable. This was the exact environment that these hardened gang members, now adept at setting up and running criminal organisations, were returned to. The New American Story Project reports as many as 4,000 gang members were repatriated to a nation that was wholly underequipped to do so. As a result, the gangs grew in the power vacuum up to tens of thousands. The result was that for over a generation, a cycle of extreme violence, extortion, trafficking and worse gripped the nation as both sides fought each other and the state for control. The government simply couldn't contain the violence and El Salvador's murder rate rose to a staggering 103 per 100,000 people in 2015. In other words, in 2015 one in every 972 people were murdered. All of this in a nation with a population smaller than New York City.\n\nThe prison system quickly became overwhelmed and the state was left with no option but to enter into unfavourable deals with the gangs in attempts to quell the violence. For example, Ciudad Barrios Penal Centre is a prison located in the capital, San Salvador that was previously exclusively for MS-13 gang members. The Guardian reports that the 2,600 inmates had such a hold on the place, that guards were too afraid to enter. I do not blame them. Inmates found ways to access just about anything they desired, including drugs, weapons, computers, phones, PlayStations and even prostitutes. Now whilst this sounds like a great time for them, it doesn't really scream \"punishment\" and one man in particular agreed with this. In fact, he agreed that the gangs had had it far too good for far too long and pledged to do something about it.\n\nEnter El Salvador's newest \"El Presidente\", Nayib Bukele. Bukele was previously the owner of a marketing company before deciding to get involved in politics, winning the 2019 Presidential Election with 53% of the vote. His anti-corruption, anti-establishment ideology, alongside the slogan \"There's enough money when no one steals,\" clearly resonated with the El Salvador electorate. Simply put, Bukele was a breath of fresh air from the main political parties responsible for the nation's mess. He was new and El Salvador needed new. In 2019 Bukele set about reclaiming the nation back from the gangs, known as his administration's \"territorial control plan\". El Salvadoran regimes of the past had often preached security and control as part of the nation's ongoing \"iron fist\" policy towards gang violence that emerged in the 2000s. Bukele was about to show the gangs how much of a punch that fist would truly pack.\n\nThe government went about taking back control of the prisons first. They installed phone signal blockers and gave phone companies ultimatums to shut off the service completely in certain areas. They went into the prisons, seizing any contraband they could find. They even ended the prison segregation policy. Now it might seem counterintuitive to put violent groups of people who hate each other together in a concrete box. However, despite concerns that it would only ramp up the violence, the gangs decided to conduct somewhat of a truce. Being locked up together meant they had to find ways to live with each other. If it was \"kill on-sight\" all the time, the gangs would quickly tear each other apart in the prisons, which was no good for them. A non-violent truce made the move look like a masterstroke by the President. But whilst Bukele had the upper hand bureaucratically, the gangs still maintained significant control in other areas of the nation and continued to make their presence known. President Bukele's policies had brought down El Salvador's murder rate significantly, but violent outbursts were still common. On the 27th of March 2022, the BBC reported that 62 people were murdered within 24 hours in El Salvador. President Bukele had had enough; the gloves were about to come off, once and for all.\n\nBukele's government declared a \"state of exception\", initially for 30 days, but this has been extended in perpetuity ever since and remains in force to this day. This emergency decree suspended various constitutional rights and granted law enforcement special powers to make arrests without evidence. It also allowed them to hold prisoners for longer than the ordinary limit of 72 hours without seeing a judge. Travel restrictions were implemented in known gang-heavy areas, some assembly was banned and the government granted itself access to citizens' private communications. And of course, arrests were made…lots of them. By 2024, only two years into the operation, over 80,000 people have been arrested in El Salvador. However, according to Human Rights Watch, even the El Salvadoran police themselves state that around one in every six people arrested are innocent. The Bukele regime was arresting so many people every month that by the end of 2022 the previously overcrowded and overwhelmed Salvadoran prison system was faring even worse. The regime knew they needed a new prison to match their new policy, a shining monument to national security. If the gangs were bad, they were going to be worse. It was in that moment that CECOT was born.\n\n## CECOT Prison Policy\n\nSo, we've told you why it was built, we've told you what you'd expect to find if you visited, but what is life really like for the prisoners at CECOT? Who are they? What have they done to get here? And how does CECOT handle such dangerous inmates? Well, this can broadly be broken down into two main areas: prison policy and inmate policy.\n\nPrison policy concerns the prison itself and its staff. CECOT is designed with several systems for the prison to run smoothly. Guards are paid fairly, well equipped and well trained. Guards and soldiers regularly conduct exercises to practice assaulting certain sections of the prison in case things should ever get out of hand. You can see a demonstration of this during President Bukele's tour of the facility, whereby riot gear-laden police stack up four-to-a-man against the cell doors, while a squad of marksmen sweeps the corridor. To ensure the prisoners are not colluding against them, counterintelligence teams operate in the prison and assess the mood on the ground at all times. One of the most important elements of prison security policy concerns contraband, to make certain these prisoners won't be procuring any PlayStations or partying with prostitutes. Anyone who enters the prison must pass through full-body, airport-style, X-ray scanners and manual frisks to make sure that they do not have contraband on them. What's more, any staff can select any specific inmate or even groups of inmates to be searched. They make sure there is nothing to hide and certainly nowhere to hide it. Even the more administrative prison policies are crucial to operations. Booking inmates into a digital system ensures that the state has a record of who these people are, why they're here and once you're in the system there's no way out of it.\n\nAs much as we would love to go more into detail about prison administration policy, we actually want you all to finish this video, so we'll move swiftly on to the inmate policy. What rules do the prisoners held here have to adhere to? Well for starters, prisoners are controlled at all times when outside of their cells. Unless in large groups, where they are made to sit body to body in large lines. Leg shackles are very common. Prisoners are put in irons when they are transported anywhere within the prison, which mostly means to isolation or sentencing. Every prisoner has a shaved head or a buzzcut and they are all given the same white boxer short, T-shirt combo. Prisoners spend the vast majority of their time in the 156-man cells previously discussed, with the metal shelving beds and the concrete toilet. Talking amongst the prisoners is frowned upon, although prison officers recognise the difficult to police such rules, hence the designated counterintelligence team.\n\nWhen we said that prisoners stay in their cells most of the time, we weren't kidding. There are no family visits to the prison, most likely owed to the contraband risk that visits would entail. So, prisoners have an awful lot of downtime. When its lunch time, prisoners are given food in their cells, which they eat with their hands as utensils are forbidden. Would you trust an MS-13 gang leader with a plastic fork? I wouldn't either. It is reported that for recreation, prisoners are exercised in the corridor for 30 minutes every day. This, alongside the bright lights at night is enough to keep prisoners tired and unstimulated, with very little fitness growth. One of the exceptions for leaving the cell is for sentencing, but even then, prisoners do not leave CECOT. Instead, digital hearings are carried out, whereby they are placed in a room with a screen. A key element of eradicating gang activity is removing the threat of retaliation during legal proceedings. A remote digital hearing physically prevents the inmate from threatening the judge of witnesses.\n\nThe Presidential tour of CECOT did show where prisoners would be put to work, building and making items for society such as chairs and woven goods. However, the reports that inmates are only let out of their cells for 30 minutes per day for exercise in the corridor contradict this idea. So, it is unclear at this time whether this is an envisaged future strategy, or whether something was lost in translation on how prisoners would be put to work. With the kind of security CECOT has, allowing convicts to build anything makes little sense. This is a place that denies inmates access to cutlery; it may be unwise to hand over angle grinders and sewing machines.\n\nThus far, prison and inmate policy at CECOT, as well as its onion-like layers of security, have made it impossible for anyone to successfully escape, nor is anyone likely to escape soon. Nobody has been released and there are currently no plans for any inmate to be released. Those who go to CECOT, go for good. The BBC report that the El Salvadoran authorities do not expect CECOT's prisoners to ever be released, as the type of prisoners detained there are simply too dangerous to ever reintegrate into society. So, who are these people that El Salvador are so afraid of, that they will lock them in a vault forever and throw away the key?\n\nWell, in brief, they are the worst of the worst. The identities of those who are currently at CECOT is not revealed to the public, but the facility is designed to house the very worst that El Salvadoran gangs have to offer. This includes personnel key to running the gangs, treasurers, communication heads and both national and regional gang leaders. On the list is also likely to be enforcers, extortionists, torturers and hit men. This is not a good place to wind up. And yet, it is believed that up to one in six of the thousands of people arrested by Bukele's government are completely innocent. Like in our example in the introduction, people are disappearing and family members do not know where they are. If the police suspected someone of doing a bad enough crime or being affiliated enough with the gangs, there's a very real chance that completely innocent people with extraordinarily bad luck could one day find themselves in CECOT forever.\n\n## CECOT's Legacy – Safety, Control, Abuse\n\nSo, what comes of all this? What is the legacy of this super prison? Well, like so many other things in this world, its complicated. We'll run you through both sides of the argument and you can decide for yourself which is right. It is undoubted that there is a \"bad\" legacy that comes with CECOT: a legacy of missing people, a legacy of one form of extreme violence replacing another, a legacy of an increasingly undemocratic nation that solves its problems through human rights abuses and unreasonable force. Don't get me wrong, the vast majority of the prisoners in El Salvador's system, not just CECOT, are unequivocally violent gang members who had a hold on the country for far too long. But does this justify potentially throwing innocent people behind bars with no due process? Does it justify torture? Does it justify extra-judicial killing? What about someone like Marta? Is having her and others disappear into the system indefinitely seen by the governing regime as the price of freedom for the nation? The human rights organisation Humanitarian Legal Relief released a report in April of 2024 that stated 241 people are confirmed to have died in El Salvadoran prisons since the war on gangs began, though the actual figure is likely higher as this only accounted for confirmed cases. According to the NGO's report, of these deaths, 44% were due to \"violent\" or \"serious torture\" and 29% were due to a \"lack of medical attention\". Now we're not trying to say, \"spare a thought for the poor MS-13 hitman\", as these guys are the worst of the worst, but one could argue that the state has a responsibility to look after its citizens, even those who have committed the worst possible crimes. The state has to be better than those it convicts, it's not fair, but that's true law and order. With an innocent arrest rate according to the Salvadoran police of one in six, it is undoubtable that some of the people in the prison system and even some of those who have died or suffered abuse, may well have been completely innocent. Whether the Bukele regime like it or not, whether their cause is righteous enough or not, they have innocent blood on their hands for that, no matter how many criminals they lock away. Whether the ends justify the means, we'll leave that up to you.\n\nCritiques of CECOT are far from limited to one NGO though. The BBC has reported that opponents of President Bukele have described CECOT as a \"black hole of human rights\". Similarly, Miguel Sarre, a former member of the United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture, has described it as a \"concrete and steel pit [used] to dispose of people without formally applying the death penalty\". Amnesty International states that El Salvador is experiencing a systematic policy of torture towards all those detained under the state of emergency on suspicion of being gang members. Families who maintain their loved one's innocence have reported family members being taken from their homes without even being shown an arrest warrant. From there, they were transported directly to detention centres or jails, before being subjected to group online hearings along with dozens of other detainees. In those hearings the judge would order a pre-trial detention, while the prosecutor's office investigated whether there was evidence for a formal charge - a process that the BBC states can last for months, or even years. Their cause is just until it's your door they're kicking down in the middle of the night. CECOT is a hammer, which makes every criminal a nail.\n\nBut we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about how much better El Salvador is for the state stepping in. You can never condone the humanitarian abuses in El Salvador, no matter whether a person is innocent or guilty. However, the state of exception and the territorial control plan does appear to be working. The fact of the matter is, Bukele's administration has taken dangerous criminals off the streets and they have lowered the murder rate in El Salvador from one of the highest in human history to one of the lowest on earth in a decidedly short period of time. No matter which way you slice it, despotic, undemocratic, unhumanitarian, that's results. That's why the legacy of a place like CECOT is so complicated so early in its life. From a societal perspective it is rational for the state to have taken such decisive action. The average Salvadoran citizen previously had to pay protection money through extortion so they didn't get killed. Now the streets are safer again. One citizen told the BBC, \"Before, we lived in fear. Not anymore.\"\n\nFor all the humanitarian discussion, El Salvador is already benefitting from this change. The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service stated that in August of 2023, El Salvador received 25% more foreign visitors than in 2019. The rise of tourism, in turn strengthens the nation's economy, givng the nationa route back to prosperity. El Salvador prior to 2019 was somewhat of a basket case, a society gripped by existential violence, extortion and fear. Another person was reported by the BBC as saying, \"This place was not safe at all until the President did that\" referring to the state of exception. The state, even if spectacularly heavy-handed, has upheld a moral principle that El Salvadoran citizens should not suffer for the gang's violence. And what did it cost? An expensive prison, a few constitutional rights and a signature.\n\nUltimately, the people of El Salvador agree. A CID Gallup Poll of 1,200 Salvadoran citizens in January of 2024 showed a 92% favourability rate with President Bukele. The self-proclaimed \"coolest dictator ever\" has stood by his staunch approach, tweeting: \"Let all the 'human rights' NGOs know that we are going to wipe out these bloody murderers and their collaborators, we will put them in prison and they will never get out.\" Salvadoran Justice and Public Security Minister, Gustavo Villatoro, stated \"we are eliminating this cancer from society.\" This is the way the Salvadoran government is choosing to justify its actions. They are cutting out a tumour and when you cut out a tumour, you have to get it all, even if that means you lose some healthy tissue too, to save the rest of the body. The situation for El Salvador was untenable for decades, the violence could not go on. No matter what they did, El Salvador was not going to legislate or negotiate its way out of it. After all, it had tried and failed. When every other tool in your toolbox was taken by gang members, sometimes the hammer is all you have left.\n\nWhere does that leave CECOT and El Salvador now? Well, the culture of the country is changing, the people are safer but the state is a force to be feared. There is a new status quo in El Salvador; one where the state sits at the head of the table, whilst the gang members are sent to bed with no supper. El Salvador will be pre-disposed to authoritarian rule even if the state of exception ever ends. But the Salvadoran people don't appear to mind this, as many feel they are safe for the first time in decades. The 2024 election in February saw Bukele re-elected in a landslide victory. As El Salvador forges a path on the world stage quite unlike any other, remember what was left behind. All the way in the middle of Tecoluca, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere, CECOT will still be there as an omnipotent monument to the state's security victory. The message is clear: best behave yourself, you don't want to end up here.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- CECOT, a supermax prison in El Salvador, holds the worst gang members in extreme conditions.\n- El Salvador's murder rate dropped significantly after President Bukele's crackdown on gangs.\n- CECOT's extreme security measures include constant surveillance and isolation for inmates.\n- Critics argue that Bukele's policies lead to human rights abuses and wrongful arrests.\n- Despite controversies, Bukele's approach has increased public safety and tourism in El Salvador.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What is CECOT?\n\nCECOT stands for 'Centre of Confinement for Terrorism.' It is a highly secure prison in El Salvador designed to hold the worst of the worst criminals, particularly gang members.\n\n### Where is CECOT located?\n\nCECOT is located in Tecoluca, 74 kilometres southeast of San Salvador, in the middle of a desert and far from any civilian settlements.\n\n### How secure is CECOT?\n\nCECOT is one of the most secure prisons in the Americas. It features multiple layers of security, including electrified fences, barbed wire, guard towers, and extensive surveillance.\n\n### What is the capacity of CECOT?\n\nCECOT is designed to hold up to 40,000 inmates, making it one of the largest prison facilities in the Americas.\n\n### What kind of inmates are held in CECOT?\n\nCECOT is designed to house the most dangerous criminals in El Salvador, including key gang members, treasurers, communication heads, and leaders of criminal organizations.\n\n### What are the conditions like inside CECOT?\n\nInmates in CECOT are held in densely populated cells with minimal amenities. They spend most of their time in these cells, with limited opportunities for exercise or recreation.\n\n### What is the impact of CECOT on El Salvador's crime rate?\n\nSince the implementation of the state of exception and the construction of CECOT, El Salvador has seen a significant reduction in its murder rate, making the streets safer for citizens.\n\n### What are some of the criticisms of CECOT?\n\nCritics argue that CECOT represents a human rights violation, with reports of torture, lack of medical attention, and the imprisonment of innocent people. Human rights organizations have described it as a 'black hole of human rights.'\n\n### What is the public opinion of CECOT in El Salvador?\n\nA significant majority of Salvadorans support the measures taken by President Bukele, including the construction of CECOT, as they feel safer and more secure with the reduction in gang violence.\n\n### What is the legacy of CECOT?\n\nCECOT's legacy is complex. While it has significantly reduced crime and improved public safety, it has also been criticized for human rights abuses and the potential imprisonment of innocent people.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Places video: CECOT: The Alcatraz of Latin America](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDr-sud_oV4)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Nayib_Bukele_durante_una_visita_al_CECOT.jpg) by Casa Presidencial / openverse, cc0.\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://places.site/article/cecot-alcatraz-latin-america.md canonical: https://places.site/article/cecot-alcatraz-latin-america datePublished: 2026-07-01 dateModified: 2026-07-01 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://places.site/author/simon-whistler publisher: Places image: "https://media.places.site/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/YDr-sud_oV4/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 00a7706e01a500eb596208ea9089057e22153c6a0dd2930010d9ec427d2ee813 tokens: 8028 summaryUrl: https://places.site/article/cecot-alcatraz-latin-america.md.summary.md --- It is the summer of 2015, and a businessman is walking down the street in El Salvador when two young men appear in front of him. The man began to beg the two men for his life, pleading that he had young children. But they didn't listen. One drew a pistol and shot the man, first in the shoulder, then the stomach, then twice in the head. The man's crime? He refused to pay an extortion debt to a gang. The debt…was $21. It is December of 2022, and a man sits in a dimly lit chapel perched on a wooden church pew. He clutches a picture of his daughter, a psychology student with the alias Marta, close to his chest as he chokes back tears. His daughter was not dead, she was in prison. Except she hadn't done anything wrong. She had been in prison for 6 months. It is unknown where Marta is today. This just leaves us with one question. What on earth happened here? How did El Salvador go from one of the highest murder rates in the world to one of the lowest in such a short time? How did the government go from total anarchy on its streets to restoring order and peace for the first time in a generation? Well El Salvador holds a dark secret. Deep in the middle of the country, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere, hides a hulking steel and concrete behemoth. It eats everything that wanders into its maw and is never full. A vault for El Salvador to lock away dangerous criminals and throw away the key. Today we're going to tell you a story about gang violence and one man's crusade against it. A story of how that man built a monument to his crusade in the form the most secure prison on earth, and how ordinary people have gotten caught in between. The prison that nobody has ever been released from. A local police officer is reported as having said "Not even El Chapo could escape from there." Where the worst of the worst go to rot in the highest security complex this side of the US border. The Alcatraz of South America. CECOT. ## CECOT by the Numbers CECOT is an acronym, meaning "Centre of Confinement for Terrorism". To understand its significance, we need to appreciate what makes up this massive steel complex. It was built in the latter half of 2022 and started receiving its special guests in February of 2023. You'll need a while to get your head around just how mind-bendingly large it is. The complex covers 57 acres, but that is just the facility itself. The grounds around the facility patrolled by police and the army is a whopping 407 acres, around two and a half times the size of Disneyland and about 1000% less fun. It is one of the largest prison facilities in the Americas. It's also one of the most secure. Working from the inside out, there are several rings of security that the prisoners here are held within. First are the cells. There are 32 cells in a cell block or "module". There are eight modules, also locked and guarded, each held in a separate sector, bordered by several electrified chain-link fences, barbed wire and patrolling guards. Beyond that stand four-metre walls of 60cm thick sheer concrete, topped with barbed wire and multiple guard towers. After that is the main prison wall itself, which is an eye-watering 11 metres high (taller than the length of a London bus). It stretches for over 2 kilometres around the main compound's perimeter, with 19 guard towers at varying intervals housing armed guards. If you did somehow manage to get past all of that, you would find yourself in 400 acres worth of government land, with the army and police patrolling several perimeter layers and using external watchtowers. That makes around seven circles of security. Hell itself, has nine. It was built in Tecoluca, 74 kilometres (or 46 miles) south-east of San Salvador, almost exactly in the centre of the country, in the middle of a desert, miles from any civilian settlements. El Salvador's previous experiences saw prisons in more urban areas have their issues bleed out into local communities. Here, isolation is a strategic design feature to protect those communities. The prison's infrastructure is entirely self-contained and independent from the national grid, with its own wells to provide water and a substation to generate electricity. If the rest of El Salvador was somehow destroyed tomorrow, CECOT could still function. And it really needs a plentiful electricity supply too, as the entire complex is lit up like a Christmas tree. Every square inch of the exterior is covered in spotlights. After all, an escapee can't hide in the dark if there is no dark. There are still several unknowns when it comes to officially established information about the facility. We know it is energy independent, but for obvious security reasons it is unclear exactly what that infrastructure looks like. We don't know the total number of cameras or the number of staff. Maybe most importantly of all, we don't know what it cost to build, especially at the speed it was built. For the cameras, estimations are in the thousands. In comparison to prisons of a similar size and security globally, the number of cameras other facilities have is estimated to be in the hundreds, making CECOT a surveillance outlier. It is pushing the boundaries of what is feasible and even practical in modern jails. The staff is estimated to number a few thousand, which given prisons of a similar size, isn't actually that many. CECOT at capacity is reported to be able to hold 40,000 inmates. Riker's Island in New York can house 20,000 inmates and has around 10,000 staff. Those running the complex who showed the El Salvadoran President around the prison on his YouTube channel (modern politics is bizarre) stated that everything in CECOT was designed and built to global international standards. There is no doubt it has been influenced by some of the world's securest prisons like ADX Florence Supermax in Colorado. ADX Florence cost the US government around $60 million to build in 1994. However, that facility is designed to hold under 500 inmates at its absolute maximum, not 40,000. Given that CECOT's main compound is 20 acres larger than ADX Florence, is primed to house 80 times the inmates and was built state-of-the-art three decades later, it is reasonable to estimate that CECOT's cost would significantly dwarf that of Florence and indeed most prisons on earth. The cells inside each module amount to little more than concrete boxes. They have thick reinforced bars on the front-facing walls and metal mesh ceilings for constant monitoring by armed guards in the gangways above. Every cell is fitted with two concrete toilets and two concrete basins, though the water is turned on and off from outside the cell. The main floorspace of the cells are filled with quadruple-decker metal frames forming the inmates' beds. No mattresses, sheets or pillows are allowed, as even these can be fashioned into weapons. The whole complex holds 256 cells, with around 156 prisoners per cell. The Washington Post reports that at 98 people per acre, CECOT is designed to be one of the most densely populated prisons on earth. That's quite a tight squeeze. Especially when the temperature can reach 35 degrees Celsius with very little ventilation. The cells do not have any windows and as far as the El Salvadoran authorities are concerned; they do not need any. The design of the modules lets in a substantial amount of natural light during the day and fluorescent lighting is as ubiquitous inside as it is outside. These lights remain on 24/7, even while inmates attempt to sleep in order to maintain surveillance. The only exception is isolation. Solitary confinement cells are small, pitch-black-concrete boxes, with a concrete slab to sleep on and a concrete toilet. All in all, the prison is as well equipped, if not better, than most on earth, even for the staff. A key element of the design of CECOT was the "dignity" that came with having a position there. Being a guard at CECOT provides you with a safe place to eat a hot meal, a comfortable place to rest, a recreational area and even a gym. The El Salvador government wanted to transform the previously sceptical perception towards its security services to one of respect. The prisoners naturally are not extended that courtesy and just in case the inmates get upset with that, CECOT has ample resources to handles these issues too. It has an armoury stacked to the hilt with rifles, riot gear and megaphones. Armed sharpshooters, especially in vantage areas, are a mainstay. But, if the prison officers do ever need help, they can call on the El Salvadoran police and army who are patrolling the outside. What's more, El Salvador's 6th infantry brigade are located only 20 kilometres away. The compound already has an army of vehicles, including a helicopter, and the open layout of the facility ensures multiple helicopters could land in the grounds if need be. Now if you knew nothing about El Salvador, you may think that this is overdoing things a smidge. Who are the monsters that would be locked up in such an inescapable place and why would a country need to build such a large complex for them? Let's look into the recent history to find out. ## CECOT's Origins To understand the current goings on in El Salvador that have led to the building of one of the most secure facilities on earth, we must first travel to 1980s Los Angeles, where El Salvador's gang problems originated. During the El Salvadoran civil war, between 1980 and 1992, many citizens fled to the US to escape the violence and persecution, forming a community of Salvadorans in Los Angeles. Some of these refugees literally ganged together in order to protect themselves against the native gangs of LA. One of the Salvadoran gangs was known as Barrio 18, or the 18th Street gang. The other was known as Mara Salvatrucha, or as it's more commonly known, MS-13, and both sects are bitter rivals. Both gangs today are known for their brutality, their indifference to the suffering of others and the wide range of criminal activities they specialise in. By the 1990s, this became such a prominent issue that the US Government began deporting dangerous Salvadoran gang members back to their homeland. But the civil war had gutted the nation, infrastructure lay in ruins and no security left civilians vulnerable. This was the exact environment that these hardened gang members, now adept at setting up and running criminal organisations, were returned to. The New American Story Project reports as many as 4,000 gang members were repatriated to a nation that was wholly underequipped to do so. As a result, the gangs grew in the power vacuum up to tens of thousands. The result was that for over a generation, a cycle of extreme violence, extortion, trafficking and worse gripped the nation as both sides fought each other and the state for control. The government simply couldn't contain the violence and El Salvador's murder rate rose to a staggering 103 per 100,000 people in 2015. In other words, in 2015 one in every 972 people were murdered. All of this in a nation with a population smaller than New York City. The prison system quickly became overwhelmed and the state was left with no option but to enter into unfavourable deals with the gangs in attempts to quell the violence. For example, Ciudad Barrios Penal Centre is a prison located in the capital, San Salvador that was previously exclusively for MS-13 gang members. The Guardian reports that the 2,600 inmates had such a hold on the place, that guards were too afraid to enter. I do not blame them. Inmates found ways to access just about anything they desired, including drugs, weapons, computers, phones, PlayStations and even prostitutes. Now whilst this sounds like a great time for them, it doesn't really scream "punishment" and one man in particular agreed with this. In fact, he agreed that the gangs had had it far too good for far too long and pledged to do something about it. Enter El Salvador's newest "El Presidente", Nayib Bukele. Bukele was previously the owner of a marketing company before deciding to get involved in politics, winning the 2019 Presidential Election with 53% of the vote. His anti-corruption, anti-establishment ideology, alongside the slogan "There's enough money when no one steals," clearly resonated with the El Salvador electorate. Simply put, Bukele was a breath of fresh air from the main political parties responsible for the nation's mess. He was new and El Salvador needed new. In 2019 Bukele set about reclaiming the nation back from the gangs, known as his administration's "territorial control plan". El Salvadoran regimes of the past had often preached security and control as part of the nation's ongoing "iron fist" policy towards gang violence that emerged in the 2000s. Bukele was about to show the gangs how much of a punch that fist would truly pack. The government went about taking back control of the prisons first. They installed phone signal blockers and gave phone companies ultimatums to shut off the service completely in certain areas. They went into the prisons, seizing any contraband they could find. They even ended the prison segregation policy. Now it might seem counterintuitive to put violent groups of people who hate each other together in a concrete box. However, despite concerns that it would only ramp up the violence, the gangs decided to conduct somewhat of a truce. Being locked up together meant they had to find ways to live with each other. If it was "kill on-sight" all the time, the gangs would quickly tear each other apart in the prisons, which was no good for them. A non-violent truce made the move look like a masterstroke by the President. But whilst Bukele had the upper hand bureaucratically, the gangs still maintained significant control in other areas of the nation and continued to make their presence known. President Bukele's policies had brought down El Salvador's murder rate significantly, but violent outbursts were still common. On the 27th of March 2022, the BBC reported that 62 people were murdered within 24 hours in El Salvador. President Bukele had had enough; the gloves were about to come off, once and for all. Bukele's government declared a "state of exception", initially for 30 days, but this has been extended in perpetuity ever since and remains in force to this day. This emergency decree suspended various constitutional rights and granted law enforcement special powers to make arrests without evidence. It also allowed them to hold prisoners for longer than the ordinary limit of 72 hours without seeing a judge. Travel restrictions were implemented in known gang-heavy areas, some assembly was banned and the government granted itself access to citizens' private communications. And of course, arrests were made…lots of them. By 2024, only two years into the operation, over 80,000 people have been arrested in El Salvador. However, according to Human Rights Watch, even the El Salvadoran police themselves state that around one in every six people arrested are innocent. The Bukele regime was arresting so many people every month that by the end of 2022 the previously overcrowded and overwhelmed Salvadoran prison system was faring even worse. The regime knew they needed a new prison to match their new policy, a shining monument to national security. If the gangs were bad, they were going to be worse. It was in that moment that CECOT was born. ## CECOT Prison Policy So, we've told you why it was built, we've told you what you'd expect to find if you visited, but what is life really like for the prisoners at CECOT? Who are they? What have they done to get here? And how does CECOT handle such dangerous inmates? Well, this can broadly be broken down into two main areas: prison policy and inmate policy. Prison policy concerns the prison itself and its staff. CECOT is designed with several systems for the prison to run smoothly. Guards are paid fairly, well equipped and well trained. Guards and soldiers regularly conduct exercises to practice assaulting certain sections of the prison in case things should ever get out of hand. You can see a demonstration of this during President Bukele's tour of the facility, whereby riot gear-laden police stack up four-to-a-man against the cell doors, while a squad of marksmen sweeps the corridor. To ensure the prisoners are not colluding against them, counterintelligence teams operate in the prison and assess the mood on the ground at all times. One of the most important elements of prison security policy concerns contraband, to make certain these prisoners won't be procuring any PlayStations or partying with prostitutes. Anyone who enters the prison must pass through full-body, airport-style, X-ray scanners and manual frisks to make sure that they do not have contraband on them. What's more, any staff can select any specific inmate or even groups of inmates to be searched. They make sure there is nothing to hide and certainly nowhere to hide it. Even the more administrative prison policies are crucial to operations. Booking inmates into a digital system ensures that the state has a record of who these people are, why they're here and once you're in the system there's no way out of it. As much as we would love to go more into detail about prison administration policy, we actually want you all to finish this video, so we'll move swiftly on to the inmate policy. What rules do the prisoners held here have to adhere to? Well for starters, prisoners are controlled at all times when outside of their cells. Unless in large groups, where they are made to sit body to body in large lines. Leg shackles are very common. Prisoners are put in irons when they are transported anywhere within the prison, which mostly means to isolation or sentencing. Every prisoner has a shaved head or a buzzcut and they are all given the same white boxer short, T-shirt combo. Prisoners spend the vast majority of their time in the 156-man cells previously discussed, with the metal shelving beds and the concrete toilet. Talking amongst the prisoners is frowned upon, although prison officers recognise the difficult to police such rules, hence the designated counterintelligence team. When we said that prisoners stay in their cells most of the time, we weren't kidding. There are no family visits to the prison, most likely owed to the contraband risk that visits would entail. So, prisoners have an awful lot of downtime. When its lunch time, prisoners are given food in their cells, which they eat with their hands as utensils are forbidden. Would you trust an MS-13 gang leader with a plastic fork? I wouldn't either. It is reported that for recreation, prisoners are exercised in the corridor for 30 minutes every day. This, alongside the bright lights at night is enough to keep prisoners tired and unstimulated, with very little fitness growth. One of the exceptions for leaving the cell is for sentencing, but even then, prisoners do not leave CECOT. Instead, digital hearings are carried out, whereby they are placed in a room with a screen. A key element of eradicating gang activity is removing the threat of retaliation during legal proceedings. A remote digital hearing physically prevents the inmate from threatening the judge of witnesses. The Presidential tour of CECOT did show where prisoners would be put to work, building and making items for society such as chairs and woven goods. However, the reports that inmates are only let out of their cells for 30 minutes per day for exercise in the corridor contradict this idea. So, it is unclear at this time whether this is an envisaged future strategy, or whether something was lost in translation on how prisoners would be put to work. With the kind of security CECOT has, allowing convicts to build anything makes little sense. This is a place that denies inmates access to cutlery; it may be unwise to hand over angle grinders and sewing machines. Thus far, prison and inmate policy at CECOT, as well as its onion-like layers of security, have made it impossible for anyone to successfully escape, nor is anyone likely to escape soon. Nobody has been released and there are currently no plans for any inmate to be released. Those who go to CECOT, go for good. The BBC report that the El Salvadoran authorities do not expect CECOT's prisoners to ever be released, as the type of prisoners detained there are simply too dangerous to ever reintegrate into society. So, who are these people that El Salvador are so afraid of, that they will lock them in a vault forever and throw away the key? Well, in brief, they are the worst of the worst. The identities of those who are currently at CECOT is not revealed to the public, but the facility is designed to house the very worst that El Salvadoran gangs have to offer. This includes personnel key to running the gangs, treasurers, communication heads and both national and regional gang leaders. On the list is also likely to be enforcers, extortionists, torturers and hit men. This is not a good place to wind up. And yet, it is believed that up to one in six of the thousands of people arrested by Bukele's government are completely innocent. Like in our example in the introduction, people are disappearing and family members do not know where they are. If the police suspected someone of doing a bad enough crime or being affiliated enough with the gangs, there's a very real chance that completely innocent people with extraordinarily bad luck could one day find themselves in CECOT forever. ## CECOT's Legacy – Safety, Control, Abuse So, what comes of all this? What is the legacy of this super prison? Well, like so many other things in this world, its complicated. We'll run you through both sides of the argument and you can decide for yourself which is right. It is undoubted that there is a "bad" legacy that comes with CECOT: a legacy of missing people, a legacy of one form of extreme violence replacing another, a legacy of an increasingly undemocratic nation that solves its problems through human rights abuses and unreasonable force. Don't get me wrong, the vast majority of the prisoners in El Salvador's system, not just CECOT, are unequivocally violent gang members who had a hold on the country for far too long. But does this justify potentially throwing innocent people behind bars with no due process? Does it justify torture? Does it justify extra-judicial killing? What about someone like Marta? Is having her and others disappear into the system indefinitely seen by the governing regime as the price of freedom for the nation? The human rights organisation Humanitarian Legal Relief released a report in April of 2024 that stated 241 people are confirmed to have died in El Salvadoran prisons since the war on gangs began, though the actual figure is likely higher as this only accounted for confirmed cases. According to the NGO's report, of these deaths, 44% were due to "violent" or "serious torture" and 29% were due to a "lack of medical attention". Now we're not trying to say, "spare a thought for the poor MS-13 hitman", as these guys are the worst of the worst, but one could argue that the state has a responsibility to look after its citizens, even those who have committed the worst possible crimes. The state has to be better than those it convicts, it's not fair, but that's true law and order. With an innocent arrest rate according to the Salvadoran police of one in six, it is undoubtable that some of the people in the prison system and even some of those who have died or suffered abuse, may well have been completely innocent. Whether the Bukele regime like it or not, whether their cause is righteous enough or not, they have innocent blood on their hands for that, no matter how many criminals they lock away. Whether the ends justify the means, we'll leave that up to you. Critiques of CECOT are far from limited to one NGO though. The BBC has reported that opponents of President Bukele have described CECOT as a "black hole of human rights". Similarly, Miguel Sarre, a former member of the United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture, has described it as a "concrete and steel pit [used] to dispose of people without formally applying the death penalty". Amnesty International states that El Salvador is experiencing a systematic policy of torture towards all those detained under the state of emergency on suspicion of being gang members. Families who maintain their loved one's innocence have reported family members being taken from their homes without even being shown an arrest warrant. From there, they were transported directly to detention centres or jails, before being subjected to group online hearings along with dozens of other detainees. In those hearings the judge would order a pre-trial detention, while the prosecutor's office investigated whether there was evidence for a formal charge - a process that the BBC states can last for months, or even years. Their cause is just until it's your door they're kicking down in the middle of the night. CECOT is a hammer, which makes every criminal a nail. But we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about how much better El Salvador is for the state stepping in. You can never condone the humanitarian abuses in El Salvador, no matter whether a person is innocent or guilty. However, the state of exception and the territorial control plan does appear to be working. The fact of the matter is, Bukele's administration has taken dangerous criminals off the streets and they have lowered the murder rate in El Salvador from one of the highest in human history to one of the lowest on earth in a decidedly short period of time. No matter which way you slice it, despotic, undemocratic, unhumanitarian, that's results. That's why the legacy of a place like CECOT is so complicated so early in its life. From a societal perspective it is rational for the state to have taken such decisive action. The average Salvadoran citizen previously had to pay protection money through extortion so they didn't get killed. Now the streets are safer again. One citizen told the BBC, "Before, we lived in fear. Not anymore." For all the humanitarian discussion, El Salvador is already benefitting from this change. The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service stated that in August of 2023, El Salvador received 25% more foreign visitors than in 2019. The rise of tourism, in turn strengthens the nation's economy, givng the nationa route back to prosperity. El Salvador prior to 2019 was somewhat of a basket case, a society gripped by existential violence, extortion and fear. Another person was reported by the BBC as saying, "This place was not safe at all until the President did that" referring to the state of exception. The state, even if spectacularly heavy-handed, has upheld a moral principle that El Salvadoran citizens should not suffer for the gang's violence. And what did it cost? An expensive prison, a few constitutional rights and a signature. Ultimately, the people of El Salvador agree. A CID Gallup Poll of 1,200 Salvadoran citizens in January of 2024 showed a 92% favourability rate with President Bukele. The self-proclaimed "coolest dictator ever" has stood by his staunch approach, tweeting: "Let all the 'human rights' NGOs know that we are going to wipe out these bloody murderers and their collaborators, we will put them in prison and they will never get out." Salvadoran Justice and Public Security Minister, Gustavo Villatoro, stated "we are eliminating this cancer from society." This is the way the Salvadoran government is choosing to justify its actions. They are cutting out a tumour and when you cut out a tumour, you have to get it all, even if that means you lose some healthy tissue too, to save the rest of the body. The situation for El Salvador was untenable for decades, the violence could not go on. No matter what they did, El Salvador was not going to legislate or negotiate its way out of it. After all, it had tried and failed. When every other tool in your toolbox was taken by gang members, sometimes the hammer is all you have left. Where does that leave CECOT and El Salvador now? Well, the culture of the country is changing, the people are safer but the state is a force to be feared. There is a new status quo in El Salvador; one where the state sits at the head of the table, whilst the gang members are sent to bed with no supper. El Salvador will be pre-disposed to authoritarian rule even if the state of exception ever ends. But the Salvadoran people don't appear to mind this, as many feel they are safe for the first time in decades. The 2024 election in February saw Bukele re-elected in a landslide victory. As El Salvador forges a path on the world stage quite unlike any other, remember what was left behind. All the way in the middle of Tecoluca, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere, CECOT will still be there as an omnipotent monument to the state's security victory. The message is clear: best behave yourself, you don't want to end up here. ## Key Takeaways - CECOT, a supermax prison in El Salvador, holds the worst gang members in extreme conditions. - El Salvador's murder rate dropped significantly after President Bukele's crackdown on gangs. - CECOT's extreme security measures include constant surveillance and isolation for inmates. - Critics argue that Bukele's policies lead to human rights abuses and wrongful arrests. - Despite controversies, Bukele's approach has increased public safety and tourism in El Salvador. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is CECOT? CECOT stands for 'Centre of Confinement for Terrorism.' It is a highly secure prison in El Salvador designed to hold the worst of the worst criminals, particularly gang members. ### Where is CECOT located? CECOT is located in Tecoluca, 74 kilometres southeast of San Salvador, in the middle of a desert and far from any civilian settlements. ### How secure is CECOT? CECOT is one of the most secure prisons in the Americas. It features multiple layers of security, including electrified fences, barbed wire, guard towers, and extensive surveillance. ### What is the capacity of CECOT? CECOT is designed to hold up to 40,000 inmates, making it one of the largest prison facilities in the Americas. ### What kind of inmates are held in CECOT? CECOT is designed to house the most dangerous criminals in El Salvador, including key gang members, treasurers, communication heads, and leaders of criminal organizations. ### What are the conditions like inside CECOT? Inmates in CECOT are held in densely populated cells with minimal amenities. They spend most of their time in these cells, with limited opportunities for exercise or recreation. ### What is the impact of CECOT on El Salvador's crime rate? Since the implementation of the state of exception and the construction of CECOT, El Salvador has seen a significant reduction in its murder rate, making the streets safer for citizens. ### What are some of the criticisms of CECOT? Critics argue that CECOT represents a human rights violation, with reports of torture, lack of medical attention, and the imprisonment of innocent people. Human rights organizations have described it as a 'black hole of human rights.' ### What is the public opinion of CECOT in El Salvador? A significant majority of Salvadorans support the measures taken by President Bukele, including the construction of CECOT, as they feel safer and more secure with the reduction in gang violence. ### What is the legacy of CECOT? CECOT's legacy is complex. While it has significantly reduced crime and improved public safety, it has also been criticized for human rights abuses and the potential imprisonment of innocent people. ## Sources - [Original Places video: CECOT: The Alcatraz of Latin America](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDr-sud_oV4) - [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Nayib_Bukele_durante_una_visita_al_CECOT.jpg) by Casa Presidencial / openverse, cc0. ## Related Coverage