The Terrorism Confinement Center (Spanish: Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, abbreviated CECOT) is a maximum security prison located in Tecoluca, El Salvador.

It was built in late 2022 amidst a large-scale gang crackdown in El Salvador and opened by the Salvadoran government in January 2023.

CECOT — as well as the gang crackdown as a whole — have been the subject of international media attention, receiving praise for the Salvadoran government as well as criticism of alleged human rights violations.

In the following seven months, Bukele's government arrested over 55,000 people in a swift roundup of gang members that may not have been possible without the state of exception curtailing certain constitutional rights.

[8] Both Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the 18th Street gang (Barrio 18) have their origins in California and were started by immigrants from Central America in the 1980s.

In exchange, MS-13 was expected to quell the violence with their rival gang, Barrio 18, to assist the government in lowering the national homicide rate.

[11]: 61–62  The truce between the government and the gang sparked wide debate in El Salvador over its legality before ultimately falling apart in 2014.

Additionally, MS-13 has also taken a more militaristic approach, attacking cocaine traffickers for control over key passageways in the drug trade, which has led to increased violence.

[11]: 63 Like MS-13, Barrio 18 has had a major presence in El Salvador following the Salvadoran Civil War and has been the source of much violence in the country.

CECOT was purposefully built in an isolated area, away from public institutions, urban centers, or any contact with the outside world.

[16] For inmates being transferred to CECOT, this security scan is immediately followed by a registration process to record their personal information and details on their criminal history.

Additional security measures include constant video surveillance of the entire compound, a fully-stocked armory with firearms and riot gear, and a 15,000-volt capacity fence surrounding the facility.

[17] The prison is further surrounded by gravel flooring to make footsteps audible, four 9.8-foot-tall (3.0 m) and 23.6-inch-thick (60 cm) walls topped with barbed wire, and 19 guard towers.

[18] According to the Financial Times, each prisoner is given an average of 0.6 square meters (6.5 sq ft) of space in their shared cell.

In a recorded tour of the facility posted to YouTube by Bukele himself, he claims such accommodations for guards are meant to correct missteps in previous approaches to incarceration in El Salvador: "Before, the gang members had prostitutes and PlayStations, televisions, drugs, cellphones, and computers.

Human Rights Watch accuses the Salvadoran government of "arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, and significant due process violations".

Notably, the report claims that as part of the recent crackdown on gangs, the government has made tens of thousands of arrests without sufficient evidence.

It is alleged that some of these arrests were made based solely on the physical appearances or social backgrounds of individuals believed to have gang affiliations.

This report alleges that the state of exception in El Salvador has put more pressure on the judicial system than it can handle and, as a result, has created conditions not conducive to due process.

[28] On 1 February 2023, Bukele published a video on Twitter of him, General Director of Penal Centers Osiris Luna Meza, Director of the National Civil Police Mauricio Arriaza Chicas, Minister of Defense René Merino Monroy, and Minister of Public Works Romeo Herrera touring the prison before its opening.

[41] On 1 June 2023, Bukele announced that he would build a prison similar to CECOT but for white-collar criminals as a part of a "war against corruption".

[44][45] Before the 2023 Guatemalan presidential election, National Unity of Hope candidate Sandra Torres stated that she would build two mega-prisons to "end the scourge of homicides, murders and extortions in our country", while Valor candidate Zury Ríos promised to set up at least three new prisons, stating that she "admire[s] the public security policies [Bukele] has done".

Citizen Prosperity candidate Carlos Pineda declared that he had the goal of "doing in Guatemala exactly what [Bukele is] doing in El Salvador".

[46] In January 2024, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa announced that he would build two prisons with a capacity for 12,000 inmates each and that they would be modeled on CECOT.

[47] In June 2024, Honduran President Xiomara Castro announced that she would build a prison capable of holding 20,000 inmates based on CECOT.