Ecuador draws inspiration from the Bukele model for new prison projects

Quito.- The Government of Ecuador is advancing in the development of new penitentiary projects inspired by international models, in particular the one implemented in El Salvador by President Nayib Bukele, as revealed by the Minister of the Interior, John Reimberg. As the completion of the first of the two prisons planned by President Daniel Noboa approaches, Reimberg confirmed that additional initiatives with parameters similar to those of the Central American country are already being evaluated. "We are already seeing other more prison-like projects," said the minister, who in April visited El Salvador with the Minister of Defense, Gian Carlo Loffredo, to learn firsthand about Salvadoran security policies and prison management.

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During the visit, Ecuadorian officials toured several facilities, including the Center for Confinement against Terrorism (Cecot), a mega-prison with a capacity for 40,000 inmates, where gang members considered highly dangerous are concentrated. "They opened all the necessary information for us. That has helped us a lot," said Reimberg, who announced that several of those ideas will be applied in Ecuador.

One of the most advanced initiatives is the 'Encounter Prison', whose construction began in June 2024 in the province of Santa Elena. The project, executed by the Spanish consortium Puentes, a subsidiary of the state-owned company China Road and Bridge Corporation, has a budget of 52 million dollars and will house between 700 and 800 inmates. Its location was strategically chosen to guarantee the isolation of the inmates.

"It's a prison that meets all the security measures required to keep these criminals secure in Ecuador," remarked the minister. These initiatives are part of Noboa's offensive against organized crime, after declaring "war" on the gangs at the beginning of 2024 and classifying them as terrorist groups. The decision was made in a context of extreme violence, which placed Ecuador among the countries with the highest homicide rate in Latin America and left, since 2021, more than 500 dead inside prisons, as a result of clashes between criminal groups that until then controlled a large part of the prison system.