Inside Honduras’ Island Prison Colony: Housing 2,000 Gangsters

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras plans to build the only island prison colony in the Western Hemisphere and send its most-feared gangsters there, tearing a page from neighboring El Salvador’s unforgiving approach to murder, robbery, rape and extortion. Honduras’s progressive president once promised to address gang violence through systemic reforms to governance and the criminal justice system. Now, President Xiomara Castro plans to build an isolated prison for 2,000 gang leaders on the Islas del Cisne archipelago 155 miles off the coast, part of a larger crackdown following the gang-related massacre of 46 women in one prison.