And part of that prison population comprises migrants - who've been caught in Belize illegally.
In part, it's a consequence of the hemispheric migratory pressures posing desperate people north.
But when these refugees are caught and brought in from the border, where exactly are they taken? Belize does not have a detention facility to house them, so they end up at the Central Prison until they can be deported and taken back to their countries. But how severe is this issue? We learned today from the CEO at Kolbe that at present the facility gets up to 400 migrants brought in yearly, for immigration offenses.
Virgilio Murillo, CEO, Belize Central Prison
"Well, we do have quite a high number of migrants. Once we don't have a pandemic I want to make that clear, because the only time I saw lower numbers for migrants was when we had the COVID-19 pandemic, but to the best of my recollection, when there is not a pandemic, you're looking at almost 400 persons being sent to prison for Immigration, offenses, yearly."
"That's when we don't have a pandemic right now. We are definitely around 300 thus far and we still have a few more months to go."
"Please remember that Prison has no control over who is sent to it. We, all that is required by the Prison at registration is when these people come to Prison There is a warrant, accurately filled out and the information is precisely to the person on the warrant, and we have to accept them so if it is seen as a violation of human rights, then that needs to be taken up with other entities, but certainly not with the prison . Certainly not the prison we have no control over who comes here. They are in a building by themselves because we don't mix them up with the other inmates, yeah."
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