Security for whom? Reflections on Operation Lock in Panama

Images released during Operation Lockdown at the La Joya and La Joyita prisons have been presented as a show of force and control by the State, following the escape of more than 150 inmates. Men sitting on the ground, half-naked, surrounded by armed agents, are part of a staged performance intended to project authority and send a message of a heavy-handed approach to society.

The scenes are reminiscent of the punitive exhibition strategies that have become popular in various countries in the region and that have found in the Salvadoran model of Nayib Bukele a widely reproduced visual and political reference.

However, behind these images lies another reality that is rarely discussed: that of the families who support the lives of those deprived of their liberty on a daily basis and who, once again, have been subjected to humiliation, mistreatment, and abuse by the authorities.

In Panama, as in much of Latin America, it is primarily women who bear the responsibility of accompanying their incarcerated relatives. Mothers, grandmothers, wives, sisters, and daughters rise early to prepare food, buy water, deliver medicine, travel long distances, and shoulder the economic and emotional burdens that the prison system places upon them. However, far from being recognized for this caregiving work, they are treated with constant suspicion, subjected to invasive searches, and exposed to treatment that violates their dignity.

It is troubling to hear the testimonies of women who report being pushed, mistreated, or prevented from delivering basic necessities to their families. Meanwhile, the public discussion seems to focus solely on the confiscated items and not on a fundamental question: if families are subjected to increasingly stringent controls, how do weapons, drugs, and other prohibited items continue to enter facilities under the State's responsibility?

This contradiction rarely makes headlines. It's easier to blame the women who arrive with a bag of food or a bottle of water than to question the networks of corruption and structural flaws operating within the prison system.

From a racial justice perspective, we must also ask ourselves who fills the prisons and who appears in these images as a symbol of punishment. The prison population is largely composed of people from impoverished sectors, historically marginalized neighborhoods, and, in many cases, Black and Indigenous communities. It is no coincidence that prisons also reflect the deep-seated exclusion and inequalities that permeate our society.

What we are witnessing today is not merely a security policy. We are seeing the consolidation of a model that prioritizes the spectacle of force over the guarantee of rights. A model that draws inspiration from regional experiences where the public display of tortured bodies becomes a tool for political legitimization. But a democracy cannot be measured by its capacity to humiliate those in state custody, nor by the violence inflicted upon their families.

Security is a public responsibility. So is combating crime. However, no security policy should be built at the expense of human dignity. Much less on the bodies of women who, amidst precariousness and institutional neglect, continue to sustain care networks that the State itself has been unable to guarantee.

When police abuse against families is normalized, when public humiliation is justified as a form of governance, and when caregivers are punished while the structural causes of violence are ignored, what is at risk is not only the situation of those deprived of their liberty. What is at stake is the kind of society we are building and our collective capacity to defend human rights, justice, and the dignity of all people.