Q COSTARICA — Costa Rica President Laura Fernández announced that the government will present a bill on Monday requiring inmates to work.
The initiative is part of a package of proposals on citizen security that will be announced next Monday.
Previously, during a televised address, the government announced that Gerald Campos, Minister of Security, and other high-ranking officials traveled to El Salvador to learn about the work model in that country, where prisoners are responsible for making uniforms and boots for the police, as well as desks for schoolchildren.
There are multiple initiatives in the legislative process aimed at regulating and requiring work or educational activities in prisons, although they face significant legal challenges:
- Bill 24.612 (Social Adaptation Model): Proposes reforming the General Directorate of Social Adaptation so that the prison population must study, work, or combine both activities on a mandatory basis to access prison benefits.
- Bill 24.614 (Support and Maintenance): Proposes that inmates generate income to cover their debts, child support payments, personal expenses, and 40% of their own prison stay, thus reducing public spending financed by taxpayers.
- Authorized Work: Legislative committees have approved reforms that allow inmates to perform internal prison construction work and manufacture security equipment.
Despite the government’s political support, the bills have lost momentum and face likely shelving in the Legislative Assembly due to significant constitutional concerns, such as violation of international treaties and lack of a salary structure.
For example, the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 29 on forced labour, which dates from 1930, “states that it is an obligation to abolish the employment of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms,” which it defines as “all work or service exacted from any individual under the menace of any penalty and for which the said individual has not offered himself voluntarily.”
In addition, the Constitutional Court in 1996 determined that work in penitentiary centers “has a rehabilitative purpose” and that “it should tend to resemble as closely as possible the work that people do in freedom.”
Among the other proposals expected on Monday is a plan to bring owners of land with clandestine airstrips to justice, as well as harsher penalties for criminal networks.