In the last decade, the prison population in Costa Rica grew by 60%. This important increase is due to three factors: the application of pre-trial arrest, flagrante delicto courts and increased convictions in ordinary trials.
This is revealed by the Second Report of the State of Justice, released on Wednesday morning. The number of people admitted to a penitentiary center went from 2,371 in 2005 to 5,433 in 2015.
This has, in turn, caused an increase in overcrowding, also influenced by prison infrastructure,
which was not extended correlatively in that period… The creation of the flagrancy courts generated a new source of arrests,”
says the report.
A case of flagrance starts when the perpetrator of a crime is caught committing the crime or immediately after doing so. The processing of these crimes went from 2% in 2008 to 34% in 2015.
According to the same report, the majority of people (39%) who are sentenced to prison committed an offense against property.