The two new prisons that the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboaplans to build in the country under a model similar to that of its counterpart Nayib Bukele in El Salvador they will cost approximately 125 million dollars.
This was announced this Wednesday by the Vice Minister of Finance, Daniel Falconí, in a workshop on the draft state budget presented on Tuesday by the Government for its corresponding debate and approval in the National Assembly (Parliament).
This item of 125 million dollars is part of the Executive’s annual investment plan, which amounts to more than 1.7 billion dollars.
Falconí explained that this is the initial budget for the two prisons, which could rise to around 140 million dollars depending on certain variables in its construction.
The location of the two prisons is contemplated on the coast province of Santa Elena and in the Amazon of Pastazawhere indigenous organizations have expressed their opposition to having this prison in their province.
Bukele Prison
The designs of these two prisons were presented in January by Noboa, who at the end of last year anticipated that the designs of the two penitentiary centers would be the responsibility of the companies that have already designed the latest prisons that have been built in Mexico and El Salvador, as well as in Thailand and Singapore.
While these two prisons have been compared to the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) built in El Salvador under Bukele, Their capacity will be much smaller, since each one will be designed to house 736 inmates, instead of the 40,000 inmates that the Salvadoran Government assures that enter its famous penitentiary for gang members..
The two prisons will have a high security module with 160 cells, each for four inmates; a second maximum security module, with 32 cells and two prisoners per cell, and a “super maximum” security module for 32 prisoners “with a high level of danger, one per cell.”
Noboa’s approach is isolate in these prisons the leaders of the criminal gangs that have put the security of Ecuador in check with an unprecedented wave of violence and that they internally control the Ecuadorian prisons, where due to rivalries between these organizations there have been a series of prison massacres since 2020 where more than 450 prisoners have died.
Escalation of murders
This violence also took to the streets with an escalation of murders that has made Ecuador one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America, with a homicide rate of about 45 per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest since records have been recorded.
Currently in Ecuador there are 35 prisons operating where some 31,000 people are held, including a considerable percentage in preventive regime, without a sentence issued.
At the beginning of January, Noboa elevated the fight against organized crime to the category of “internal armed conflict” and declared 22 criminal gangs operating in the country, mainly dedicated to drug trafficking, as terrorist groups to be neutralized by the Police and Armed Forces. .
He did so after a spike in violence that saw the seizure of a television channel by an armed group during a live broadcast and simultaneous riots in several prisons in the country with 200 hostages who managed to be released.
During those riots, nearly 90 prisoners escaped, including Fabricio Colon Picoconsidered the alleged leader of the criminal gang Los Lobos, while days before José Adolfo Macías Villamar had done the same (‘Issue‘), the leader of Los Choneros, who was serving a 34-year prison sentence for homicide, drug trafficking and organized crime. EFE
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