Q COSTA RICA — The President of Costa Rica, Laura Fernández, has suggested that elementary and high-school students visit the maximum-security prison being built by the government in Alajuela, in the La Reforma prison complex.
The proposal has met strong opposition, in particular from the president of the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) and legislator for the Coalición Agenda Ciudadana (CAC), Claudia Dobles.
Both voices coincide, saying, instead, that students should be exposed to ideas and environments that inspire them.
“The president’s medieval idea of taking students from poor areas on tours of the mega-prison is absurd and discriminatory. Take them to national parks, universities, and theaters. A child doesn’t need to see darkness, but rather what awakens their imagination,” Sancho said.
For her part, Dobles feels that instead of scaring schoolchildren and college students with prison tours, the government should create job opportunities and improve Costa Rican education to combat common crime and organized crime.
“Señora Presidenta, the best way to prevent organized crime from taking over our youth is to give them opportunities, to provide them with schools and decent educational infrastructure, so they can dream of going to university, of having a decent job, of a better future. That is how we will prevent our young people from continuing to be recruited by organized crime. Insecurity is not only combated with a heavy hand, it is also combated with opportunities and with prevention,” Dobles said.
Currently, Costa Rica is experiencing a war between drug trafficking gangs for control of drug-selling territory.
And although the number of homicides has decreased by 17% compared to the same period last year, insecurity remains a serious problem.
In this context, last Wednesday, President Laura Fernández suggested prison tours.
“Hopefully, we can tour some schools in dangerous neighborhoods around the country where kids are taking risks, where young people think that crime can be their way of life. Let’s make some visits, (Minister of Justice) Don Gabriel, so that the young people of Costa Rica, who are being tempted to get involved in what we already know will lead them to wear that uniform, think twice. We still have time,” Fernández said, referring to the new prison that is being built.
Fernández also announced last week that, when the new maximum-security prison, known as Centro de Atención Institucional de Contención (CACCO), opens, the inmates will be required to wear bright orange prison uniforms, which include security features such as shackles for the transfer of high-risk inmates.
In Costa Rica’s prison system today, most inmates continue to wear their everyday clothes.
The new prison is expected to open in the third quarter of this year and is modeled after a prison in El Salvador.