SIGN UP FOR OUR According to a report by the Costa Rican Drug Institute (ICD) on the impact of the consumption of drugs in Costa Rican jails, this business moves between $1.7 and $7 million dollars a year.
Just last year, authorities in the country seized close to $2 million in drugs in the penitentiary centers, 79.8% were seized from inmates, while 19.7% from visitors and 0.4% from personnel.
176 kilograms of marijuana, 44,989 crack rocks and 36 kilograms of cocaine were confiscated between the 15 penitentiary centers in the country.
“The access and analysis of information allows the generation of efficient public policies and will enable authorities to make decisions”, expressed Guillermo Araya, director of ICD.
The Minister of Justice, Marcia Gonzalez, expressed her concern over the high levels of consumption and dependency on drugs, since it has a direct impact in the possibilities of reintegration of incarcerated population into society and it also affects the levels of violence within the penitentiary centers as well as in the community when these inmates leave jail.
“Thanks to this study we have identified the centers that have a higher problematic of consumption, to create an experimental trial that will begin operating January 2019 and will allow the attention of a population of between 500-1000 inmates and in this way attack head-on the topic of drug consumption”, stated Gonzalez.
