Prison Aims for Zero Jailbreaks in 2022

The last prisoner escape in Belize was in October of 2020, when twenty-eight inmates of the Belize Central Prison sought freedom. They overpowered and relieved a few prison officers of their weapons and uniforms, and then restrained them in prison cells. But since then, the Kolbe Foundation which manages the facility has been able to upgrade the security features. C.E.O. of Kolbe, Virgilio Murillo, told News Five that the new upgrade has resulted in zero jailbreaks in 2021.

Virgilio Murillo

Virgilio Murillo, CEO, Kolbe Foundation

“We managed to tighten up everything because from day one we were tight. It’s just that we need to understand that whenever things like these happen, it is normally human error and I had said at the time of the escape that when we examined the entire situation, because there were a lot of aspersions being cast that prison officers may have been bribed, but when I looked at it closely and I examined all the facts, what I came up with was that the personnel just simply did not follow procedures. When you run a prison facility, there are certain standard operating procedures that must be followed. Obviously there was a breakdown with that – somebody got lazy or fell asleep behind the wheel, so-to-speak and they didn’t do what they were to do and it revealed itself, and that was the consequence. All I can tell you is that we plan to keep the escapes down to zero from then onwards. That is our push right now. We will make the jail more secure.”