Costa Rica turns to El Salvador’s model to counter a surging murder rate

San José/Mexico City — Long a byword for laid-back environmental tourism, Costa Rica is now wrestling with a surge in violence so striking that its government is borrowing a page from nearby El Salvador, which took draconian steps to tackle its own crime problems.

In an effort to cut a murder rate that has soared 40% in the last year alone, Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves has introduced tough new legislation to combat crime, dubbing El Salvador a “reference” point.

“Chaves is planning a crackdown … He is a security hardliner pushing for a course correction,” said Chris Dalby, director of the World of Crime think-tank. “‘Mano dura’ [firm hand] talk plays well.”

Chaves’ ideas include increasing jail sentences for minors to the adult maximum of 50 years, allowing extraditions, and extending use of preventive detention, making it easier to hold suspects with limited evidence.

“Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures,” Chaves said as he presented his “national security plan” in November.

Costa Rica is one of a growing number of Latin American countries seeking to tackle the expansion of drug cartel activity by emulating Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s sweeping crackdown.

Bukele’s suspension of constitutional rights, which among other things allows police to indefinitely detain suspected gang members without the right to a lawyer, has elicited strong condemnation by human rights campaigners.

But it has had a significant effect on crime and is domestically popular, putting Bukele on the verge of an historic re-election in February. It has become a beacon for regional politicians battling gangs, from Chile to Ecuador.

While Chaves insists he does not want to exactly emulate Bukele, his plan is still a radical shift for Costa Rica, which has traditionally taken a gentler approach to crime prevention.

Many in the opposition-controlled Congress publicly still cleave to that approach, but even there, whispers of support for tougher policies are growing, fuelled by fears for the country’s $2bn tourism sector.

“[Bukele’s] work dismantling organised crime has been excellent and worth analysing to replicate in Costa Rica,” David Segura, a legislator in the opposition conservative New Republic party, said in a recent social media post.

The Costa Rica murder rate jumped to 17.2 per 100,000 people in 2023 from 11.7 in 2018. By contrast in El Salvador, the rate plunged to 2.4 after being the world’s highest less than a decade earlier.

Bukele was voted Costa Ricans’ favourite political leader in an October survey by research firm Indice. Chaves’ poll ratings have plummeted nearly 30 percentage points since his election in May 2022.

Analysts say Costa Rica’s spike in murders has been driven by gang warfare among cocaine traffickers. Gang recruitment was helped on by social discontent and unemployment during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Political friction with neighbouring Nicaragua and Honduras has hindered regional security co-operation, which analysts say has fed a sharp drop in cocaine seizures in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica’s traditionally light-touch handling of suspects — who are often simply given precautions in lieu of arrest — has also fuelled the problem, according to Jorge Torres, Chaves’ security chief.

“How can a strong 17-year-old boy who killed a citizen with an AK-47 be treated like an eight-year-old boy who stole some candy?” Chaves asked in October, arguing that criminal groups recruit minors because they often get off scot-free.

For now, Chaves’ “mano dura” bill is stuck in Congress, with opposition critics calling it anti-Costa Rican and authoritarian.

“We live in a democracy. We’re not El Salvador or any of those countries that violate individual rights,” said Gloria Navas, a New Republic legislator who heads the congressional committee on security and drug trafficking.

Abolished army

Chaves needs the backing of at least 29 of 57 legislators for most of the proposals, and his party now has only nine seats. But he has been able to previously pass legislation with support from other conservative factions.

Chaves’ other challenge is that Costa Rica is less used to pursuing narcos than its neighbours, having abolished its army more than 70 years ago to prioritise progressive welfare policies.

Proponents of the welfare-first approach say historically that helped to shield Costa Rica from violence long prevalent in much of Central America, and that more welfare spending could do so again.

Laura Chinchilla, president from 2010 to 2014, said she had successfully curbed violence by preventing the poor from falling into crime.

“I don’t think we have to resort to the militarised models of other countries,” she said. “If we have done it [the peaceful way] for a lifetime, we should be able to do it now.”

Others in Congress think Chaves’ plan doesn’t go far enough. Opposition conservative legislator Lesley Bojorges recently backed the idea of harsh El Salvador-style prisons, while judicial chief Randall Zuñiga has expounded the merits of more detentions.

Sergio Araya, a political scientist at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a conservative think-tank, said such tougher approaches are on track to become more popular with Costa Ricans weary of crime in the coming months and years.

“There is likely to be growing support for ideas in the so-called ‘Bukele model’,” he said.

Reuters