Panama to build a maximum-security prison for gang leaders

PANAMA CITY

Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino has said he is ordering the construction of a maximum-security prison for gang leaders following a prisoner escape and a nationwide surge in violence.

Numerous Latin American countries have sought to replicate the prison-building model of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who is waging a nationwide campaign against street gangs in which some 92,000 people have been locked up since 2022.

Without mentioning Bukele’s policies, Mulino said he will toughen prison rules to prevent inmates from continuing to run gangs from behind bars. He blamed such gangs for drug trafficking and most killings in Panama.

“We are going to construct a maximum-security prison and toughen the penitentiary rules for those who commit crimes inside prison,” Mulino said in a speech to congress on July 1.

“We will implement a plan with greater effort, totally isolating the leaders of [criminal] gangs,” he added without giving details of the plan.

Mulino announced the measures amid outrage after a 10-year-old girl was killed when assailants attacked her father, and after almost 200 prisoners escaped from the La Joyita prison outside Panama City last month. Most were recaptured.

“I would rather they accuse me of overpopulating prisons if that means gangsters will not keep extorting, killing, robbing and pushing drugs in the streets of our country,” Mulino said.