The setting makes the interview even more unsettling. El Salvador was once widely described as the ‘murder capital of the world’, but it is now also known for CECOT, a vast high-security prison built during President Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on gangs. The facility has been described as the world’s largest prison and is said to cover an area around the size of 32 soccer fields.
Belarmino García runs the facility and has become one of the main faces of its strict daily regime. His approach is built around control, silence, and constant monitoring, which has made CECOT one of the most talked-about prison systems in the world.
Access to the prison is rare, which is why Channel 5’s visit drew so much attention. Richard Madeley and a film crew were recently allowed inside for the documentary Richard Madeley on Murder Row, giving viewers a look at a place most outsiders never get to enter.
The question at the center of the documentary is not only what CECOT looks like from the inside, but how García keeps so many convicted criminals under control in a prison where freedom, privacy, and normal routines appear to be almost completely stripped away.
Why CECOT has become so controversial
CECOT, short for the Terrorism Confinement Center, opened in Tecoluca in 2023 as part of El Salvador’s state of emergency against gangs. Human Rights Watch has said the prison was first announced with space for 20,000 detainees, before the government’s reported capacity later doubled to 40,000 Human Rights Watch.
Supporters of the crackdown argue that the prison helped change daily life in a country long affected by gang violence. Critics, however, say the wider security policy has come with serious concerns over mass arrests, due process, and conditions inside detention centers.
Amnesty International has reported that El Salvador’s prolonged state of emergency has been linked to mass and arbitrary detentions, along with allegations of torture, deaths in custody, and enforced disappearances Amnesty International. That wider debate is part of what makes Madeley’s access to CECOT so notable.
The idea is simple and severe: make the cost of disobedience clear enough that others do not follow. In a prison holding thousands of people convicted of serious crimes, that punishment is presented by officials as a way to stop small acts of defiance from becoming something much harder to control.
The inmate said: “Maybe we cry at night, but in truth, there is no change in us.”
“All of us know that one day, even if this did stop we will return to do the same things outside.”
That is one reason the prison has become such a sharp dividing line. Human rights critics have described the conditions as a breach of basic standards, while many people inside El Salvador see the facility as part of a security policy that has made the country feel safer.
The tension between those two views runs through the whole story. CECOT is promoted by supporters as proof that the state has taken control from violent gangs, but opponents argue that harsh prison conditions and mass detention policies still need public scrutiny.
“It’s simply part of the protocol, I need to be able to see what they are doing,” he added.
Inside the cells, prisoners are allowed only a Bible. Screens, books, and newspapers are banned, while conversation is kept to a minimum. The result is a system where inmates have almost nothing to occupy their time beyond sitting, waiting, and following orders.
Even with heavy security already in place, prisoners are counted every day and remain in their cells for 23 and a half hours. That routine shows how little of CECOT’s control system is left to trust, even after inmates have already been locked inside one of the most secure prisons in the world.
Richard Madeley on Murder Row is now available to stream on Channel 5.
