CECOT and the Rehabilitation of Agency Neutralization

A Descriptive Analysis of Process and Intended Outcome

By Tim McGuinness, Ph.D., DFin, MCPO, MAnth – Senior Fellow, Emeritus Council

What follows is a descriptive analysis of a correctional model that differs fundamentally from most Western approaches to incarceration and rehabilitation. The purpose here is not evaluation, praise, or condemnation. The purpose is explanation. You are examining how a specific system is designed to function, what processes it uses, and what outcomes it appears intended to produce.

This article focuses on the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, commonly known as CECOT, in El Salvador. It explores the premise that this institution is not designed to rehabilitate by restoring agency, skills, or identity, but instead by neutralizing criminal agency itself. In this framework, rehabilitation is not understood as a return to a former or improved self, but as the systematic removal of the capacity to engage in organized, antisocial violence.

This approach has emerged in a context where conventional rehabilitative models have repeatedly failed to contain or reverse large scale organized criminal violence.

CECOT Basic information

The Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), or Terrorism Confinement Center, is a massive, high-security prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, designed to hold up to 40,000 inmates. Opened in early 2023 under President Nayib Bukele, it is the cornerstone of his “war on gangs” and crackdown on organized crime.

Key Aspects of CECOT:

Capacity and Structure: Located 70 km east of San Salvador, the 410-acre facility features eight sprawling, high-security pavilions. Cells are designed to hold roughly 65-70+ inmates, with minimal furniture (racks of metal bunks without mattresses) and 24-hour, 7-day-a-week light on. There are insufficient bunks for all inmates, therefore it has mandatory sharing or rotation, thus no proprietary space.

Conditions: Prisoners are allowed out of their cells for only 30 minutes; 23.5 hours a day are spent in confinement or their cell. There are no educational or workshop programs, no media or news, and contact with the outside world (legal counsel) is severely limited.

Inmate Profile: The prison houses suspected and convicted members of MS-13 and Barrio 18, as well as, more recently, hundreds of foreign nationals (including Venezuelans Tren de Aragua members) deported from the U.S. under deportation policies.

Security: The prison is surrounded by 7.5 miles of electric fencing, 19 watchtowers, and guarded by over 600 soldiers and police officers, with additional security via drones and thermal cameras.

Context: Limits of Western Rehabilitation Models

For decades, Western correctional systems have operated under a broadly shared assumption. Rehabilitation is understood as a process of personal change that restores or enhances an individual’s ability to function autonomously and lawfully in society. Educational programs, vocational training, therapy, and structured reentry planning are built around this assumption.

In practice, these models have produced limited success with highly violent and organized offenders. Recidivism rates among individuals involved in gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and chronic violent crime remain high. In many systems, prisons have functioned as environments where criminal networks are maintained, expanded, and professionalized. Skills learned inside often reinforce antisocial behavior rather than replace it.

This outcome has been especially pronounced with offenders whose identity, status, and survival have long been tied to organized violence. In these cases, agency itself, meaning the ability to plan, command, intimidate, recruit, and act strategically, is not incidental. It is central to the criminal role.

CECOT emerged in response to a sustained national crisis involving mass violence, territorial control by gangs, and the near collapse of public safety. Under President Nayib Bukele, El Salvador adopted an approach focused on large-scale incapacitation of organized criminal actors, primarily members of groups such as MS-13 and Barrio 18.

CECOT is the architectural and operational expression of that approach.

CECOT as a Purpose-Built System

CECOT is a high-security facility located in Tecoluca, El Salvador, with a reported capacity of approximately 40,000 inmates. Its physical scale and internal design immediately distinguish it from conventional prisons. The facility consists of multiple identical housing pavilions, each containing large communal cells holding dozens of inmates.

The design emphasizes uniformity, visibility, and control. Cells contain metal bunks without mattresses. Lighting remains on continuously. Surveillance is constant. Movement is tightly regulated. Inmates spend the vast majority of each day inside their cells, with brief periods allotted for basic activities under direct supervision.

There are no reported educational programs, vocational workshops, recreational opportunities, or group-based therapeutic interventions. Contact with the outside world, including family visitation, is absent. Legal interaction occurs in highly controlled, remote formats.

From a process perspective, these features are not incidental omissions. They appear to reflect an intentional narrowing of experience.

Defining Agency in this Framework

To understand the intended function of CECOT, it is necessary to define what is meant by agency.

In this context, agency refers to the capacity to initiate and sustain purposeful action. For organized criminal offenders, agency includes the ability to make strategic decisions, exert influence over others, manage risk, maintain hierarchy, and construct an identity around dominance and control.

This form of agency is not neutral. It is the mechanism through which violence is coordinated and sustained. Traditional rehabilitation models attempt to redirect agency toward lawful ends. CECOT operates on a different premise.

The implicit premise is that for certain offender populations, criminal agency is not separable from identity. Removing the criminal behavior while preserving the agency that enables it has repeatedly failed. The alternative approach is to dismantle the agency itself.

The Mechanics of Agency Neutralization

CECOT achieves agency neutralization through environmental and procedural means rather than through psychological reeducation or skill substitution.

First, choice is minimized. Inmates have no meaningful control over their daily schedule, physical environment, or social interactions. Meals, movement, and rest occur according to rigid external command.

Second, privacy is eliminated. Continuous surveillance and communal confinement prevent the development of private space where planning, negotiation, or covert hierarchy formation can occur.

Third, communication is restricted. The absence of contact with the outside world and the lack of informal internal communication channels disrupt the flow of information that sustains organized structures.

Fourth, identity differentiation is suppressed. Uniform clothing, shaved heads, and identical living conditions remove visible markers of status, rank, and affiliation. Individual narrative is replaced by institutional sameness.

Fifth, future orientation is constrained. With no programs designed to prepare for reintegration and with public messaging emphasizing permanence, inmates are discouraged from long-term planning or projection of self beyond confinement.

Taken together, these mechanisms progressively collapse the internal capacities that support organized criminal agency.

CECOT and the Concept of Rehabilitation

Within this model, rehabilitation does not mean improvement, growth, or personal fulfillment. It means functional neutralization.

A rehabilitated individual, in this framework, is one who no longer possesses the internal or external capacity to coordinate violence, dominate others, or participate effectively in criminal networks. Whether that individual experiences personal transformation is not the primary variable.

The expected outcome is passivity. The individual becomes a participant in society who is governed rather than governing, responsive rather than initiating, and incapable of resuming a predatory role.

This is a fundamentally different definition of rehabilitation, but it is internally consistent.

Psychological and Neurological Mechanisms of Agency Destruction under Rigid Control

This section examines how the rigid controls used in CECOT can systematically dismantle personal agency through well-documented psychological and neurological processes. The focus here is descriptive. It explains how specific environmental conditions predictably alter cognition, behavior, and brain function over time, particularly in individuals whose prior identity and functioning depended on sustained agency.

Agency, at its core, depends on three interlocking systems: perceived control, decision-making capacity, and the ability to link action with outcome. When these systems are repeatedly disrupted, agency does not merely weaken. It degrades.

From a psychological perspective, the continuous removal of choice is central. In environments where individuals cannot decide when to sleep, eat, move, speak, or withdraw, the brain gradually stops allocating effort toward decision-making. This is not a conscious surrender. It is an adaptive response. When choices no longer produce meaningful differences in outcome, the mind conserves energy by reducing initiative.

Over time, this process resembles what clinical psychology has long described as learned non-initiation. The individual does not merely comply. The individual stops generating internal prompts for action. In the context of CECOT, where routines are externally imposed with precision and consistency, this effect is amplified. There are no intermittent rewards for initiative, no opportunities for strategic adaptation, and no feedback loops that reinforce self-directed behavior.

The absence of social role differentiation further accelerates this process. Agency is reinforced when individuals occupy roles that require judgment, negotiation, leadership, or responsibility. In CECOT, uniformity replaces role. Visual markers of status are removed. Hierarchies are flattened by force rather than negotiation. Without role-based demands, the psychological scaffolding that supports agency collapses.

Neurologically, prolonged exposure to rigid control environments is associated with predictable changes in brain function. Decision-making, planning, and impulse regulation rely heavily on frontal and prefrontal cortical networks. These regions are metabolically expensive. They remain active when an individual must evaluate options, anticipate consequences, and regulate behavior in dynamic environments.

When environmental demands for these functions are removed, neural activity in these systems decreases. This is not damage in the acute sense. It is functional downregulation. Neural circuits that are not regularly engaged become less efficient over time. In contrast, brain systems associated with vigilance, threat detection, and compliance remain active, particularly in high-surveillance settings.

CECOT’s constant lighting, continuous observation, and dense confinement maintain a baseline state of external monitoring. In such environments, attention shifts away from internal planning and toward external cues. The nervous system prioritizes responsiveness over initiative. Over extended periods, this reshaping of attentional focus contributes to a narrowing of behavioral repertoire.

Another key factor is the disruption of temporal integration. Agency requires the ability to connect present actions with future outcomes. Planning depends on a sense of continuity between now and later. In CECOT, days are intentionally undifferentiated. There are no milestones, stages, or progression markers. Time becomes repetitive rather than directional.

Psychologically, this undermines future-oriented cognition. When the future cannot be meaningfully influenced, mental simulation of future scenarios declines. Neurologically, this corresponds with reduced engagement of networks involved in prospection and long-term planning. The individual becomes anchored to the immediate present, responsive rather than anticipatory.

Social deprivation compounds these effects. Human agency is reinforced through interaction. Negotiation, alliance formation, conflict resolution, and persuasion all exercise cognitive systems tied to agency. In CECOT, communication is constrained and stripped of consequence. Even when others are physically present, the inability to form functional social structures limits cognitive engagement.

Importantly, this does not require isolation in the traditional sense. Dense communal confinement without meaningful interaction can be equally effective in suppressing agency. The presence of others does not restore agency if social exchange is nonfunctional.

Physiologically, chronic control environments also influence stress regulation systems. When individuals are subjected to constant external regulation without opportunity for self-regulation, the stress response shifts. Over time, the nervous system may transition from hyperactivation to blunted responsiveness. This dampening reduces reactivity, initiative, and exploratory behavior. What emerges is behavioral passivity that is neurologically supported.

Taken together, these processes describe a coherent mechanism. Rigid control does not merely suppress behavior through force. It reshapes the internal systems that generate behavior in the first place. Agency diminishes because the psychological and neurological infrastructure that supports it is no longer exercised or rewarded.

Within the CECOT framework, this outcome aligns with the institution’s apparent objective. The individual who emerges from prolonged exposure to such conditions is less capable of initiating complex action, less inclined to assert dominance, and less able to coordinate with others for antisocial ends.

This is not a transformation toward a new identity. It is a contraction of functional capacity. The criminal agency that once enabled organized violence becomes neurologically and psychologically unsustainable. What remains is an individual whose behavior is governed primarily by external structure rather than internal initiative.

From a descriptive standpoint, this explains how agency destruction can occur systematically, without reliance on ideological reeducation or therapeutic intervention. The environment itself becomes the mechanism.

Expected Outcomes and System Logic

If the system functions as designed, several outcomes are expected.

Inside the facility, organized criminal behavior is suppressed. The conditions make it difficult to establish hierarchy, enforce loyalty, or coordinate action beyond immediate compliance.

Outside the facility, criminal organizations experience attrition. Leadership pipelines are disrupted. Experienced operatives are removed without replacement. The capacity for intimidation and territorial control diminishes.

For individuals who may eventually leave the facility, the anticipated outcome is not reintegration as autonomous actors, but reintegration as individuals with limited initiative, diminished confidence in self-directed action, and weakened ties to criminal identity.

From a systems perspective, this is not viewed as a deficit. It is viewed as the intended end state.

Why this Approach Emerged When it Did

CECOT did not emerge in a vacuum. It emerged after decades in which conventional incarceration failed to prevent gangs from controlling neighborhoods, extorting communities, and recruiting across generations.

Western rehabilitative processes, while effective for some populations, have largely failed to neutralize large-scale organized criminal violence. In many cases, they have inadvertently strengthened criminal networks by providing shared space, time, and opportunity for coordination.

In that context, a different approach was required. The scale of violence and the degree of organizational sophistication demanded a model that prioritized immediate and durable suppression of criminal capacity.

CECOT represents an attempt to solve a specific problem with a specific tool. It is not designed to be universal. It is designed to address a subset of offenders for whom other models have proven ineffective.

What this Model Does Not Attempt to Do

It is important to note what CECOT does not attempt.

It does not attempt to cultivate insight, empathy, or personal accountability. It does not attempt to prepare individuals for economic participation. It does not attempt to rebuild family systems or social trust.

Those goals presuppose a level of agency and willingness that this model does not rely upon. Instead, it removes the conditions under which agency can be exercised in antisocial ways.

In doing so, it accepts that what remains may be diminished, but stable.

Observability and Limitations

Because CECOT operates with limited transparency and restricted access, empirical data on long-term outcomes remain scarce. Information about releases, recidivism, and post-confinement functioning is limited.

This does not negate the logic of the model. It does, however, mean that analysis must remain focused on process and intent rather than measured outcomes.

From a descriptive standpoint, the internal consistency of the system is evident. The environment is aligned with the stated objective of permanent incapacitation of organized criminal actors.

Conclusion: Rehabilitation Redefined as Neutralization

CECOT represents a departure from dominant Western correctional philosophies. It reframes rehabilitation not as restoration, but as neutralization. It treats criminal agency as the primary risk factor and designs an environment that systematically dismantles it.

This approach has emerged at a time when existing models have struggled to address the scale and persistence of organized violence. Whether this model will remain limited to extreme contexts or influence broader correctional thinking remains to be seen.

What can be said with clarity is that CECOT is not an accident, nor is it a failure of rehabilitation in the conventional sense. It is a deliberate redefinition of what rehabilitation means when the objective is no longer personal reform, but the permanent suppression of organized criminal capacity.

In that sense, CECOT is best understood not as a prison that failed to rehabilitate, but as a prison built around a different answer to the question of what rehabilitation is meant to achieve.