Richard Madeley was kicked out El Salvador’s mega jail ‘within 15 minutes’ in his new Channel 5 prison documentary after challenging prison bosses over conditions.
Inside The World’s Mega Prison, which aired on the channel last night, saw the Good Morning Britain star visit the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, known as Cecot, widely renowned as the toughest prison in the world.
Madeley has said since filming that Britain’s ‘broken’ prison system could learn a thing or two from the Salvadorans, who built the prison during a nationwide gang crackdown that cut homicides by half in just one year.
Inside, prisoners – mostly gangsters – are stacked in four-storey bunk beds that they share with several other cellmates, sleeping in permanently illuminated cells inside giant hangars. Almost all are never expected to be released.
Good Morning Britain host Richard has said the harsh regime inside the £85million facility in Tecoluca could help authorities in Britain fix what he described as the ‘broken’ prison system.
He said: ‘I think Cecot is probably a unique, brutally bespoke solution to the horrors that plagued ordinary El Salvadorians for so long. But I do believe there are lessons we can learn and apply to repair our own broken prison system.
‘Namely, that once you’ve agreed on the level of security and punishment and deterrence you want from it, you can achieve consistent results. You just need the application and determination to do it.’
Among the chilling encounters the presenter had was a face to face conversation with one of El Salvador’s killer gangsters – a serial murderer known as ‘Psycho’ who spoke to him from behind the bars of a secure holding cell.
The criminal grinned as he admitted to ’30 homicides’ and being a gang leader, after becoming embroiled in violence as a youth.
‘You killed 30 people?’ Madeley asks, as Psycho replies cooly: ‘Yeah, si.’
Richard Madeley was almost kicked out El Salvador’s mega jail ‘within 15 minutes’ in his new Channel 5 prison documentary
In the first episode of Inside The World’s Mega Prison, the presenter joined 3,000 shaven-headed inmates including gang members, rapists and terrorists at the jail
Inside the ultra-secure Cecot prison, Madeley met ‘Psycho’, a murderer who grinned as he admitted to killing 30 people
Asked how it felt to be locked up in one of the most secure jails in the world the killer said: ‘This is the end of everything.’
He added: ‘We’re not getting out because of the crimes we committed. So that’s it. You don’t think much in that life – you have to do what you have to do. You have to kill and you have to do everything to control.
‘I’ve always had this concept that once I go into that life I’m going to die in that life. From the moment I watched my rivals shoot my mum and kill my friends, I was going to get revenge.’
Since 2022, tens of thousands of people accused of having gang links have been arrested and held in pre-trial detention at prisons such as Cecot – where after mass ‘trials’ they are typically found guilty and told they will never be released.
The initiative has, according to the Salvadoran government, slashed homicide rates by more than 50 per cent.
The documentary saw Madeley experience the prison’s tough restrictions for himself – after being told he could not speak to Psycho in English despite the gangster’s grasp of the language.
‘I’m told he speaks good English,’ Madeley said to those watching on – as prison staff said: ‘No, not in English,’ and ‘It can’t be in English’, so they could understand every word.
Despite being locked up for life, Psycho said he and his cellmates would only ever talk about ‘the old days’ to pass the time. Inmates spend 23 and a half hours a day in their cells, with no recreational facilities.
And he admitted that he would return to his old life were he ever to be released.
‘Maybe we cry at night because we regret our decisions 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,’ he said.
And in a message to young people watching, he said they should ‘take advantage of what they have right now’.
‘How much I miss riding in cars, seeing my family, seeing my children, I’d like to see them one day, but sadly I’m in the game and a day like this isn’t possible. I will always be inside.’
It is unlikely that Psycho will ever be released, or see his family again. The El Salvador government has been explicit in its intention to hold suspected gangsters for life, and Cecot bans family visits.
Richard said: ‘Perhaps asking about conditions here is pushing too far. I think I may have overstepped the mark’
A guard shrugged and told the presenter: ‘I imagine the culture where you come from is different’
Madeley looked solemn in the moments after the interview as he reflected on Psycho’s situation. ‘There’s that old cliche, isn’t there, [of a] dead man walking? That’s how he came across to me – dead man walking.’
The start of the documentary saw Madeley searched as he entered the prison, where he asked if any mobile phones or drugs had ever been smuggled inside.
‘No, no-one,’ says prison director Belarmino Garcia, who breaks into a wide smile as Madeley asks of him: ‘Can he come to England, please?’
But his time in the prison was almost cut short after Garcia ejected Madeley and his crew, evidently unimpressed by his questions about living conditions.
The documentary nearly came to an abrupt end when an official stepped in to stop filming within minutes after Madeley asked whether the regime was too cruel.
At the prison, prisoners wear only boxer shorts with their heads shaved, lights are never switched off and there are no family visits, recreational spaces or rehabilitation programmes.
The presenter asked the prison director whether it was ‘remotely cruel’ that the men have ‘absolutely nothing whatsoever to do’ while sat in their cells, given they are not allowed books, magazines, newspapers or screens.
But Richard soon found himself being taken into a side room where he was told to stop. He said: ‘The pace suddenly quickens so perhaps asking about conditions here is pushing too far. I think I may have overstepped the mark.’
The guard shrugged and added: ‘It’s necessary to be in control. But I imagine the culture where you come from is different’, before Richard and the crew were swiftly asked to stop filming and ushered out of the compound.
They were able to return early the next morning – under much tighter security.
The jail has become the cornerstone of Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele’s war on drug cartels and key to deportations from the US under President Donald Trump.
Elsewhere Madeley tired the food prisoners have by eating the beans with his hands, before the governor says: ‘No, con la tortilla’
Madeley tells the director that ‘there’s no green vegetables’ in the meals served to inmates
Madeley watches the meals being distributed while visiting Cecot for a new documentary
Madeley joined prisoners eating rice, beans and tortillas for dinner at the jail – before pointing out the lack of cutlery and green vegetables.
The broadcaster watched inmates hurriedly take boxes of food through the bars of their concrete cells where they spend 23 and a half hours a day with nothing to do.
Some 3,000 inmates eat the same meals every day at the notorious prison. Madeley watched the meals being distributed, then tried one out himself – dipping his hand in the beans rather than using a tortilla.
He asked prison director Belarmino: ‘So they never eat outside the cell, they only ever have their meals in the cell. What’s the food, what’s dinner tonight?’
Mr Garcia said it is ‘beans and rice’, and a chef is seen wheeling in a trolley packed with boxes containing the meals. Madeley added: ‘That’s the same every night?’
The director told him: ‘That’s dinner and breakfast, it’s always repeated. Different at lunch which is rice and pasta.’ Madeley then says the meal is not a ‘balanced diet’.
The boxes were placed outside each cell before a command was given and the prisoners then hurriedly took them through the bars and handed them out to fellow inmates.
Mr Garcia then opened the box for Madeley and told him: ‘This is the food that is being served to them.’ The presenter replied: ‘But they have to eat with their fingers?’
He is told: ‘With your hands. Cutlery doesn’t exist here.’ Madeley then started eating the beans with his hands – before the governor said: ‘No, con la tortilla.’
The presenter replied: ‘Oh you dip it in with the tortilla. I’m not gonna lie, the beans are quite tasty, but this isn’t what you’d call a nutritious meal, is it? I mean, there’s no green vegetables.’ He is told: ‘You have the protein and you have the rice, but yes.’
Some viewers praised Madeley’s journalism but some said his attempt to be the ‘new Louis Theroux’ came across more as a ‘real life Alan Partridge’.
Join the discussion
Could a prison like Cecot ever work in the UK?
The boxes of food are placed outside each cell for the inmates before a command is given
Footage of the meals being delivered features in the new documentary airing on Channel 5
The inmates hurriedly take the boxes of food through the bars of their concrete cells
One of the prisoners takes the boxes into his cell before distributing them to other inmates
Madeley says the prisoners never eat outside the cell and only ever have their meals in there
There are no workshops, libraries, opportunities to learn kitchen skills and no visitors.
He added: ‘All meals must be taken in their cells, inside which they spend 23 and a half hours every day, with just 30 minutes outside for brief, heavily-guarded exercise.
‘They just sit on their bunks, day in, day out, and the prison lights stay on 24/7, never dimmed. All will die in this prison. It’s a living death.’
The 57-acre facility was built to hold up to 40,000 prisoners – equivalent to almost half the UK’s prison population – and currently houses an estimated 15,000 inmates.
Many are suspected members of rival gangs that terrorised the country for decades, alongside convicted murderers and rapists.
Cecot was built two years ago amid a huge crackdown on the gangs destroying the fabric of Salvadoran society.
For 23-and-a-half hours of the day, the men are obliged to squat on mattress-less metal bunks, stacked four-storeys high, like shelves in a B&Q store.
They are permitted to speak only in whispers and may only scuttle out of their cages, shackled hand and foot with heads bowed low, for a small number of reasons.
They are evacuated when the guards charge into the module brandishing machine guns to stage a ‘forced intervention’ and search their bunks.
While this clean sweep takes place they must crouch on the floor in perfect rows, with their legs wrapped tightly around the man in front of them and their head pressed against his bare back, forming a human jigsaw puzzle.
Anyone who spoils the pattern by fidgeting receives a sharp baton jab to the ribs.
They also sit cross-legged on the spotless module floor for a daily 30-minute Bible reading and calisthenics session.
And when their turn comes, they are removed to one of the small rooms used as courts, for remotely conducted ‘trials’ which, in almost every case, end with a guilty verdict.
Madeley said: ‘Nothing, absolutely nothing, can prepare you for the sight of 3,000 shaven-headed men crammed behind floor-to-ceiling bars. No doors. No screening.
‘They sit there in permanently open view through the bars, on tiers of metal bunks four-high – no mattresses, just thin cotton sheets – staring out. It’s one hell of a sight’
Mr Bukele ordered the mega-prison to be built in March 2022 as part of his campaign against El Salvador´s gangs, and it opened a year later.
There are no programmes preparing prisoners to return to society after their sentences and no workshops or educational programs – as it unlikely they will ever leave. They are never allowed outside.
Richard Madeley inside the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in Tecoluca, El Salvador
There are no family visits, no recreational spaces and no rehabilitation programmes at the jail
Suspected gang members sit in metal bunks stacked four beds high in concrete cells
Good Morning Britain host Madeley has received rare access to the maximum-security jail
Shaven-headed inmates are crammed behind floor-to-ceiling bars with nothing to do
The exceptions are occasional motivational talks from prisoners who have gained a level of trust from prison officials.
Prisoners sit in rows in the corridor outside their cells for the talks or are led through exercise regimens under the supervision of guards. The prison’s dining halls, break rooms, gym and board games are for guards.
Until recently, El Salvador had the highest murder rate in the world, with 106 homicides per 100,000 people.
The country was plagued by brutal gang violence which regularly featured extortion, kidnapping, murder, human trafficking and drug smuggling.
The government of El Salvador – where two per cent of the population is now in prison – says gang violence has been responsible for 200,000 deaths over the past three decades.
But following Mr Bukele’s election in 2019, a major security crackdown saw tens of thousands of suspected gang members detained – and a claimed huge reduction in the murder rate.
This has attracted praise from Mr Trump – whose government struck a deal with Mr Bukele to accept what they described as transfer and imprisonment of foreign criminals to El Salvador.
Last week, official figures revealed the number of people deported to El Salvador from the US nearly doubled in the first months of 2026.
The US deported 5,033 Salvadorans back to their country in the first three months of 2026 compared with 2,547 deportees in the same period in 2025.
Cecot’s apparent success has inspired other Central American countries such as Ecuador, Guatemala and Honduras to build similar prisons in order to combat their own issues with gang violence.
But human rights groups have accused the El Salvador government of deliberately putting the prisoners in cramped conditions and subjecting them to psychological torture – claims the prison’s governors have denied.
