PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The U.S. government plans to build two prisons in Haiti’s countryside in an effort to stem severe overcrowding, disease and violence in the poor Caribbean nation’s prison system, a U.S. official said Friday.

Carl Siebentritt, director of the Narcotics Affairs Section at the U.S. Embassy, wrote in an email to The Associated Press that a prison will be built in each of the coastal towns of Petit Goave and Cabaret.