Peru yesterday passed a decree militarizing prison security, part of a new wave of measures by President Keiko Fujimori to overhaul the country’s prison system as it grapples with rising crime and overcrowding.
The right-wing president, who assumed office in July, has also pledged to build new detention facilities, introduce stricter isolation protocols for high-risk inmates, and militarize prison security.
Fujimori first announced the plans during a state visit to El Salvador, where she met President Nayib Bukele, whose controversial security model has shaped regional anti-crime policy.
On November 8, Peru’s Legislative Decree 1742 authorized the Armed Forces to reinforce security around prison perimeters. The new framework aims to prevent the entry of weapons and illicit substances, neutralize unauthorized drones, and provide technical support to block clandestine telecommunications within high-security facilities.
The law followed Fujimori’s recent visit to El Salvador, where she met with strongman Bukele.
Speaking alongside Bukele on October 29, Peru’s president announced plans to build two mega-prisons: one designated for high-risk offenders and another for lower-risk inmates, which will incorporate productive workshops and the ‘Zero Downtime’ (‘Cero Ocio’) prison labor program.
Fujimori stated that El Salvador’s security initiatives should be analyzed for potential application in Peru. Since 2022, Bukele has overseen an authoritarian crackdown on gang violence in the country, arresting over 85,000 people. Though the measures have contributed to plummeting crime rates, rights groups say many innocent people have been arbitrarily detained under the policy.
But the effectiveness of the measures has shaped anti-crime policy in Latin America, where a new wave of right-wing leaders pledge similar crackdowns to contain criminals.
“Here in El Salvador, it has been demonstrated that peace is not improvised; peace is built,” said Fujimori during her visit.
Fujimori’s reforms come as Peru faces a sharp rise in homicide rates in recent years. According to data from the National Death Information System (SINADEF), annual killings increased from 678 in 2017 to a record of 2,253 in 2025, a roughly 230% increase. Between January and October 2026, 1,763 homicides were recorded nationwide, averaging nearly six per day.
The country’s prison network has also been dogged by organized crime.
“A survival system has taken root inside the prisons, fueled primarily by extortion,” Ricardo Valdés Cavassa, former Vice Minister of Internal Order at the Ministry of the Interior, told Peru Reports.
Among the security restrictions announced by the administration is a total blackout of telecommunications signals inside prisons, alongside tightened access controls. The measure aims to dismantle criminal networks operating from behind bars, where criminal activity extends beyond street-level offenses into coordinated operations managed via social media.
But Valdés argued that replicating El Salvador’s mega-prison (CECOT) model would not alter the underlying dynamics of organized crime.
“There is no systemic view of how to address different tiers of crime,” Valdés noted. “We face multiple schemes of criminality, yet there is still no comprehensive mapping of the actors involved or the structural complexity of their operations.”
He argued the lack of a comprehensive analysis regarding internal prison dynamics, combined with budget shortfalls and corruption, continues to delay effective reform across both the penitentiary system and the broader criminal justice chain.
“INPE [the National Penitentiary Institute] is simply the final door,” Valdés noted. “Before INPE comes the judiciary, before that the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the National Police, and before them are the criminals who committed offenses and were apprehended. It represents a far more complex funnel.”
He also cautioned that adapting El Salvador’s security approach to Peru presents structural limitations, citing the geographic dispersion of crime and the country’s far larger scale.
Constitutionally mandated rehabilitation
Despite Fujimori’s hardline push, Peru’s constitution also mandates that the country’s penal system serve to rehabilitate inmates.
“We will implement more productive workshops – not only with the idea that inmates must work, but also ensuring that what they produce yields tangible benefits for our society,” said the president during a recent visit to El Milagro prison in Trujillo following violent clashes between rival gangs inside the facility.
This constitutional mandate highlights a fundamental split with El Salvador’s penal model, which is designed for long-term confinement rather than social reintegration and eventual release.
“We are not operating under the U.S. extreme: our legislation explicitly mandates social reintegration,” emphasized Valdés.
He proposed restructuring the prison system around a new classification of offenses that truly warrant incarceration, alongside raising public awareness regarding the country’s broader anti-crime strategy.
“First, we must establish a clear differentiation among offenses; we need an honest evaluation of what is actually occurring within the penitentiary systems. Second, we must prioritize where to intervene first and which inmate population to target,” he said.
For repeat offenders with more than two convictions, Valdés advocates tailored programming to assess potential reintegration on a case-by-case basis through vocational workshops, employability schemes, and psychological support, measures that require a deeply analytical approach to truly understand the systemic crisis paralyzing Peru’s prisons.
Featured image description: Fujimori and Bukele at a press conference during her visit to El Salvador.
Featured image credit: @presidenciaperu via X.