Costa Rica looks to El Salvador’s gang crackdown for path to stopping violence

TECOLUCA, El Salvador (AP) — Costa Rica’s security minister toured El Salvador’s maximum-security gang prison on Friday as part of his review of the measures that El Salvador has taken to reduce violence caused by powerful street gangs during a now three-year offensive under a state of emergency.

Costa Rica Justice and Peace Minister Gerald Campos Valverde said he was visiting on orders of President Rodrigo Chaves to “see the good practices of the Salvadoran people with the goal of combating crime and to returning rights to all citizens.”

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In November, Costa Rica bestowed its highest diplomatic honor on El Salvador President Nayib Bukele for his success in lowering levels of violence during his three-year campaign against powerful street gangs.

El Salvador has lived under a state of emergency that suspends fundamental rights like access to a lawyer. Some 84,000 people have been arrested, accused of gang ties.

Homicides have plummeted in El Salvador and the improved security has fueled Bukele’s popularity.

“El Salvador’s rescue from those nefarious claws is also helping the peace in our region,” Chaves said when he presented Bukele with the recognition last year. “The fight against organized crime in any part of Central America is welcome. The reach and influence and bad example of the gangs must be reduced.”

Campos came away impressed by the gang prison Bukele built at the start of the state of emergency where Campos said he saw fundamental rights being respected.

The prison’s director Belarmino García showed Campos one of the cells holding about 70 inmates. The prison director instructed the inmates to remove their shirts to show their tattooed torsos and asked some to identify their gang affiliation to show that members of rival gangs were sharing the same cell.

After his tour, Campos said that Costa Rica would not continue allowing criminals to be arrest by police only to see them quickly freed by the judicial system.

“We are going to take all of the good practices” back to Costa Rica “to give Costa Ricans a place of peace and tranquility,” he said.

El Salvador Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro said earlier Friday that El Salvador was pleased to share its experience with Costa Rica, a country that until recently had been a reference for peace, but now struggles with bloodshed like El Salvador once had.

“This is not a question of copy and paste, but rather of learning what we have done and implementing in each country what precisely can be done to rescue thousands of Costa Ricans, thousands of Salvadorans and imprisoning hundreds,” Villatoro said.

El Salvador’s new gang prison, where inmates are held in large cells and never allowed outside, has gained more attention in recent weeks after the U.S. government sent nearly 300 migrants, including more than 200 Venezuelans, it accused of having gang ties to be held there.

Costa Rica continues to struggle with historically high homicide numbers.

In 2023, Costa Rica set a homicide record with 907, down somewhat in 2024 to 880. So far this year, the country is on nearly the same homicide pace as last year, according to government data.

Unlike Bukele, Chaves does not hold a majority in Congress and has not remade Costa Rica’s courts to remove opposition.

Costa Rica — long applauded for a robust ecotourism industry, environmental conservation and relative peace — has been wracked by violence in recent years, largely attributed to drug trafficking. Costa Rica has become a key way station for cocaine exports to Europe and the United States.

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Associated Press writer Javier Cordoba in San Jose, Costa Rica contributed to this report.