By Sam Huntington
From the foreign press, we learn that Honduras is struggling to reduce rampant crime. A week or so ago, Honduran leaders outlined a series of measures intended to “crackdown” on gang crimes. A state of emergency has existed in Honduras since 2022 — it’s time to build a mega-prison.
![](https://theobserver63.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/honduran-criminals.png?w=408)
How Mega, you ask. Large enough for 20,000 prisoners. Honduras is following the example of neighboring El Salvador. Honduras President Xiomara Castro has directed security forces to implement urgent intervention nationwide. What is the extent of the problem? Gang-related crimes, murder for hire, drug and firearm trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, and money laundering. Castro said the new prison would double the capacity of the country’s current prison system. The government currently has some 21,000 inmates spread across 30 detention facilities.
Castro also said the penal code must be reformed to allow drug traffickers and members of criminal gangs who commit crimes like those listed by Castro to be designated as “terrorists.” This would mean they could face collective trials.
Security forces will also carry out operations targeting plantations where coca leaf — used in producing cocaine — and marijuana are grown, along with hubs where illegal drugs are processed. Currently, Honduras has a homicide rate almost six times the global average, with 34 people per 100,000 being killed in 2023.
Ninety percent of the Honduran people are Mestizo (mixed-race European/Indian). With a population of 9.5 million, the annual murder rate is 332,500 people. It’s almost as bad as Chicago, Illinois.
Our question should be, given the murder rate and current national prison population, what will a mega-prison do for Honduras? If the government intends to increase the national population above its current 21,000 inmates, how will an additional capacity of 20,000 help? Maybe I misread the report, but in case I haven’t, what is the cost of feeding and housing 41,000 criminals who have nothing to lose by creating a gangster land inside the prison – you know, like in every state prison in the United States?
It is a fantastic proposition. A murder rate of 332,500 people annually, even when 21,000 are already locked up — wow. Yet, according to Señor German McNeil of the National Penitentiary Institute, as published by the International Development Law Organization, “It is now obligatory for the penitentiary system to have doctors, legal counselors, social workers, and psychologists who directly contribute to the treatment of people deprived of their liberty.”
Let me translate the preceding information: Honduras’s crime problem is about to worsen. Suppose gang-related crimes, such as murder for hire, drug and firearm trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, and money laundering, are to be classified as domestic terrorism. What will doctors, lawyers, social workers, and psychologists do to remedy this problem? Over how many years? How able are the people of Honduras to pay in taxes what it will take to build and run this mega-prison?