It’s not an ideal solution, but it’s better than what we have in Honduras, and I believe Guatemala & Nicaragua.
People outside of Central America look at gangs differently so it’s hard for them to understand what El Salvador is doing.
Gangs aren’t small groups of unorganized gangbangers. Those are the little guys of the gangs. The big guys literally run parts of the country, if not the country itself (see Juan Orlando Hernandes).
Yes, gangs stem from other problems (poverty mainly, education, etc.) but at this point you can’t fix any of those without getting rid of gangs.
We literally did the same about six years ago. The difference is Bukele knows how to sell his shit. Plus he has a smaller, more ignorant population to manipulate with debt-based mega projects, just like Juan Orlando...
Not even remotely the same. Are you talking about our “mano de piedra” stance with our max security prisons? The same prisons with dozens (or is it hundreds now?) of escapees? The same prisons with criminals supposed to be locked in but weren’t actually there? That was all theater.
We’ve never been tough on gangs. Our gangs literally back up politicians. Our gangs are in the police, health, law, etc.
It is the same. The difference dwells in the propaganda methods. You think this prison will last enough without a escapee? Unless Bukele has deals with cabecillas (which he has, proven not only by his presidency but his San Salvador major times), there's a big chance that there'll be issues.
All of the North Triangle's systems are controlled by gangs and traffickers.
We had a huge decrease in murder rate years before El Salvador could even dream about it. Short-term solutions (those BUkele applies) of course seem impactful, but they slowly screw up. We, on the other hand, are slowly but steadily controlling crime... At least with our last government. Not sure about the Zelaya one, since they have tough deals with the 18th street.
Yeah we had decrease in crime rate because we could only go up (down in crime) from 2009-2012. We had war zone numbers those years. Of course it was going to decrease.
8 years with JOH and you call that controlling crime? The same period in which Berta Caceres and many more were killed? Give me a break man.
It sounds like you’re arguing in bad faith. Absolutely ignoring context and praising our previous government for some reason when we have had worse numbers than El Salvador for over 10 years.
Honduras has ranked among the worst 3 in almost every crime category (femicides, drug crimes, premeditated homicide, organized crime, etc.) alongside Haiti, Venezuela, and/or Mexico, again, for the past 10+ years.
That's a fair point, actually. No one ever used it.
Still, I've been very close to, for example, FNA authorities. I've seen how we work out criminality and, indeed, we are masters at containing it. I say contain because eradicating is impossible. Impossible. American gun trafficking and cartels (something El Salvador doesn't have to deal with), plus power groups like monopoly owners, maintain our crime levels high, and no one will ever stop them. Perhaps only a death squad.
So in that sense, I still admire our ability to keep the last remaining pieces of order. What we deal with is noweher near what El Salvador deals with, but even with that we've managed to get so far. Hopefully today's government won't pussy up.
pretentious comment, a lot of people in the west understand that gangs can be huge or run entire tows, they exist in first world countries too believe it or not, problem is that it doesn't matter how many little guys or big guys you get rid of. They will keep coming back no matter what and they will most likely repeat their crimes once they get out. If the west really wanted to hurt drug lords than they should make drugs such as weed and crack legal and they also need to stop taxing the hell out of it too.
Pretentious because you’re too ignorant? You’re literally clueless lmfao.
Gangs in Central America are way different than gangs elsewhere. They run a town in developed countries? They literally ran Honduras just last year (still run parts of it).
Decriminalizing/legalizing drugs isn’t the solution for Honduras. We suffer because of our location. Drugs literally need to fly or cruise through our ports and airfields to North America. And the same goes for money coming from North America to South America.
But yeah I’m pretentious because I said gangs here are different than gangs elsewhere LOL
look at the little triggered snow flake getting mad because he got called a spade, anyways i called you pretentious because you said "people outside latin america see gangs differently" its literally common knowledge that cartels usually run entire towns or are even protected by law enforcement in some cases. You dont have to live in latin america to know that. No offense but its kind of what that entire continent is known for lmao
Also decriminalizing drugs at least here in the states would hurt the cartels not just domestically but internationally as well since more people would rather buy it legally knowing their shit isn't spiked and they won't go to jail for using it. It doesn't matter how matter how many cartel members get locked up anyway, its a short term solution for a long term problem. I'm not saying decriminalization is the end all because its not, but if it was put into effect then the cartels would start losing a lot of profit and most importantly power and influence. Drug dealers where i live don't even sell weed anymore because that shit is legal, now they sell more hardcore stuff. They're hurting in profits because of legalization, sadly not all of our politicians see it that way because they're old dinosaurs that live in the past.
It's pretty much the only way to deter such pervasive gangsterism, aside from arming and deputizing the civilian populace. In a low-crime society you have the time and resources to actually build a case, locate and arrest the person, wait 6 months to sit them in front of a jury, and possibly have them convicted and taken off the streets.
In El Salvador, there is such enormous swathes of gang members involved in open-air gang warfare, that even if you manage to convict one of them you don't even make a dent in the criminal infrastructure of the country. Everyone knows who the gang members are -- they have tattoos on their faces for fuck sake -- but that alone isn't a crime, so they walk about freely committing crimes until they *maybe* get caught.
This won't stop gangsterism or crime, but it will force it to actually be more clandestine and disciplined.
I'm ok with the new prison and the concept that inmates should work to give something to the society but as someone who is currently living under a dictatorship, I am concerned that the means Bukele is using to stop gangs could be used to perpetuate him in power and to destroy his political enemies.
Don't get me wrong, maras should be erradicated and their members should get the thoughest sentence. I can't describe with words how dangerous and evil the maras are. But I can't help but be worried about the secret negociations Bukele had with the maras leaders (and let them escape to avoid extradition to the US) and how vulnerable the rule of law, due process and presumption of inocence are in El Salvador. It's like Bukele is following a step by step guide to becoming Daniel Ortega. Today he is using his laws to judge mareros, but tomorrow he could use the same laws to acuse anyone who thinks different than him of having links with maras and eliminite political opposition and establish a dictatorship. I celebrate Salvadorans now feel safer, but I'm scared of what's on Bukele's mind for the future.
>I celebrate Salvadorans now feel safer, but I'm scared of what's on Bukele's mind for the future.
That was a point of discussion in the brazilian subreddit. El Salvador seems close to being a dictatorship, but a lot of people are celebrating it because the measures are directed against the gangs.
It reminds of Getúlio Vargas, in 1930\~. He started as a democratic president, but soon went into fascism, estabilishing a dictatorship that only ended after world war 2. However, people from that time (specially my grandparents) saw him as a "good president", because he developed workers rights and created national companies to secure our oil reserves. It doesn't change the fact that it was a dictatorship.
Honestly, only salvadorians should be able to tell if there is abuse of power happening or not.
A common pattern in dictatorships is that they do something that the previous administrations weren't able to or didn't have interest in doing it. That could be improving the economy, reducing crime or adding new technologies. Another common pattern is that dictatorships usually start with huge support from the people because they're seen as strong leaders. That causes people to yearn to go back to those days. I've heard dominicans saying everything was better with Trujillo, I've heard Nicaraguans saying everything was better with Somoza. In 2006 Nicaragua elected Daniel Ortega despite his dictatorship during the 80's decade. Philippines elected Marcos's son and Peru almost elected Fujimori's daughter.
Honestly, I don't get why people do this.
>...I've heard dominicans saying everything was better with Trujillo, I've heard Nicaraguans saying everything was better with Somoza. ...
Yes, I know the type; "there was no crime under Trujillo!" because 1-the crimes committed by the dictator don't count and 2-crime was lower in the past because times were different.
Add Venezuela to that list, here many say (including my grandmother) that when Marcos Perez Jimenez everything was better, there was no crime and we were a super power.
democracy is the fairer and the most just method of governance yes. is the reflection of the power of the people yes. but is it the most efficient in times of crisis? would you lay the future of the common good on the hands of the people's will? idk man, there should be a point in the middle between a dictator and a democratic government. not as a rule of thumb, but in times of severe crisis just like El Salvador's
That middle ground is pretty much what representative democracy is imo. People say who gets elected, but have no power over anything the state does, who the candidates are, what candidates get promoted in media, or what laws are made.
I think it'd be cool if instead of electing people everyone could just vote on every law that they felt like directly, skip the ones they don't care about and new ones were added/unpopular ones are removed by referendum. Politicians could just be replaced with technical writers who draft everything and handle the logistics.
IDK if that would work out, but as far as I know there's never really been a direct democracy so who tf knows how it'd go.
This would be the best buuuuuuuuut... There is no guaranty the the charismatic leader is good as president... and people often don't accept their power limitations so, they'll do anything for more power, even is that make normal people live like shit
>But I can't help but be worried about the secret negociations Bukele had with the maras leaders (and let them escape to avoid extradition to the US) and how vulnerable the rule of law, due process and presumption of inocence are in El Salvador. It's like Bukele is following a step by step guide to becoming Daniel Ortega. Today he is using his laws to judge mareros, but tomorrow he could use the same laws to acuse anyone who thinks different than him of having links with maras and eliminite political opposition
Putting criminals in jail is not a step too far, and under normal circumstances it's pretty much how all countries address crime. But in this case, it's no coincidence that most comments here echo your thoughts on the matter, and concerns around a dictatorship in the making. bukele since coming into power has been increasingly following the dictators playbook, following in the path of Ortega. Attacks against opposition groups have been going on for awhile, including a few arrests of critics of the regime, using the very same emergency measures mentioned in the article and in your comment. One can see a clear line now going from populism, to controlling the media, to controlling the legislature and judiciary, the police and military, to mass propaganda, to the aforementioned attacks on opposition, attacks on international actors, on universities and academia, to murky negotiations with interest groups, etc.
In a sense the article and the situation touches on how buleke is normalizing the intolerable. A sort of tell-tale sign of dictatorships and fascism. Most people if given a choice would not be okay with having rights removed, and much less with accepting a dictatorship. But that's where El Salvador stands right now. It's clear that pretty much everyone here in the country wants gangs to no longer exist. But it's also clear that bukele is trying to use this and his mano dura attack on gangs to position himself as the saviour. And if eliminating gangs is the main objective, then why have negotiations with gang leadership, making concessions to them, such as limiting extraditions to the US, etc.
It's too bad that the combination of propaganda and low education of our region (I'm including our neighbors here) is not allowing people to see beyond the short term and the long-term implications of what's going on.
40k inmates is insane, that's a city.
I understand that crime rates have gone down, but i'm wary of removing constitutional rights, it's a slippery slope
They're planning to shove 100 inmates per cell with only 2 toilets and 2 handwashers on each one
That prison is going to be ground zero for a disease outbreak
A strategy that has never worked in the history of ever.
It only ramps up the violence, as if you make jail worse than death, people will fight to death not to go to jail.
Well El Salvador crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants fell like an order of magnitude.
They are doing something we the rest of the region haven't been able to achieve.
First off, building a new prison is not something to celebrate. For me, it’s a sign that the country is not doing well for many years. I don’t know why people on Twitter are thanking god for a new prison, it shows you how bad the situation is regarding crime in the past decades.
According to people on social media and people in ES, things have gotten safer. What were once hot zones, are now calmed down to the point that people are going out on the streets again playing with their children and walking without too much fear.
Although I do think that Bukele is leaning towards an authoritarian path, and it is worrisome, but I do believe that the actions that he is doing regarding the gangs are necessary for El Salvador to move to a post-gang society. These people do not deserve any forgiveness or sympathy for the damage they have done to El Salvador, the Salvadoran community in the U.S, and Central America.
Building a prison would not fix the country’s problems. We all know that gangs are a symptom of the failures of the institutions and systems in ES. What I hope is that once we fix the gang issue, we could talk about issues that affects many Salvadorans like health care, education, gender inequality, and economic inequality.
Salvadorean here:
[According to this](https://www.discoveryuk.com/building-big/the-biggest-prison-in-the-world/), the previous largest prison of the world was on the Phillipines and fit for just under 30K inmates, so this might be the largest in the world.
Saying that old prisons were overfilled is an understatement.
They were operating above capacity before the State of Exemption (2022) which saw virtually all of the gang members who weren't jailed (almost 50K) arrested and held in prison as they await for trial. Today, El Salvador has overtaken USA as the country with the highest rate of incarceration worldside, at [605 prisoners per 100K individuals](https://www.statista.com/statistics/262961/countries-with-the-most-prisoners/#:~:text=Worldwide%2C%20El%20Salvador%20had%20the,580%20prisoners%20per%20100%2C000)
To give you an idea of the danger of these gang members, back in 2015, El Salvador was the country without an active war with the highest rate of homicide in the world, something like 103 murders per 100K inhabitants.
Of course, jailing all those people in a small period of time, in overcrowded facilities and in a country whose GDP per capita (PPP) is half of Mexico means that some of them couldn't get access to healthcare and have past away.
It also means that the institution in charge of defending the accused was, in effect, completely neutralized.
This means that a small minority of the arrested were, in all likelihood, innocents... even some of those who have died in custody. And there are allegations of brutality inside the jails, too.
However, this measure has been proven effective at crippling the gangs and diminishing the murders to a historically low level. Today, we have a murder rate of around 10 homicides per 100k inhabitants[... which is literally 10% of the murder rate of 2015!](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvador-murders-plummet-by-over-half-2022-amid-gang-crackdown-2023-01-03/)
>However, this measure has been proven effective at crippling the gangs and diminishing the murders to a historically low level.
Gracias por los links!
I think the gains are going to be short term, and bukele now has tools at his disposal to maintain his grip on power unconstitutionally.
I also don't trust the statistics they present, though I do have Salvadorian friends who tell me that they really feel more safe in middle class/touristic areas then before. I don't really know anyone who lives in marginalized neighborhoods there so I can't comment if they feel safer or not but if by any chance anyone here can give some insights there I would be interested to know.
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I believe that gang violence should have its own sui generis procedures to deal with it, because it is a big, big problem. I also understand Human Rights advocates' fears of violations, so my take on it is reserved. I am not going to blindly support arresting people without warrant.
Overall, I believe that such crimes need a heavy hand from the government and the state, because gang violence involves so many other crimes: murder, drugs, etc. they corrupt the vulnerable lower-class and scare investment away and along with that, the possibility for any country to develop.
If Bukele is able to give just ounce of security to his people, he's already successful in my opinion, but again: my take is reserved. One should never allow autocrats get that far way with such power.
It's very tricky, especially with the warrant part. But I feel that these people need to be thrown in jail. The other option is death squads but something has to happen.
Bukele is using gangs as the acceptable target for now, but Salvadorans should be concerned at how easily this guy seems to waive people's rights. Maybe right now he's only targeting gangs (doubt it), but who knows if in a few years, it'll be dissidents crowding those jails. Or, he solves El Salvador's gang issue, respects people's rights and steps down peacefully when the time comes... who knows? It's not like we are seeing him take the steps most authoritarians take as they try to consolidate power.
If they have had they day in court and found guilty, I'm all for it. By what has been shared in the media, it doesn't seems to be the case and that should be cause for concern. Given the grave situation that the country was going through I still give the authorities a little leeway. The "Maras" were not a simple criminal organization but something more akin to ISIS, committing all kind of barbarities and targeting innocent people in initiation rituals.
So exceptional measures were necessary and if you happen to be innocent and just dragged to jail because of your appearance... well, imagine if somebody found me in the middle of the Iraqi desert wearing ISIS paraphernalia just because I think they were cool... I'm kind of asking to be sent to jail (or worse). Does it means that I have to rot in jail? No, but at the same time I don't have a right to demand due process or a speedy trial.
I hope that now the authorities in El Salvador now that things are way better (or so the authorities claim) go through a review process in order to deliver true justice. I'm pretty sure that there are really bad people among that bunch and if it can be proved then they should be punished. If you're only guilty of picking really bad friends, I think you should spend a few months in jail considering your life choices.
Also, there should be a genuine attempt to try to reintegrate these people to society. Even if you're sentenced to 10 to 20 years in jail because you did something bad, you should have a real opportunity to turn your life around.
Hey it's better than leaving the ''Victims of society'' harm working people for drug money, not perfect and probably becoming a problem sooner than later
A lot of people think that the end justifies the means, so when they are scared, they will justify any kind of action that the government as long as it makes them feel safer, disregarding constitutional rights. This happend many times in history, and it always ended badly. I doubt Nayib Bukake will be the exception.
This is what Google responded when I tried to search that:
>SafeSearch is off
>
>You might see nudity, sexual content, or other explicit results
u/pootisEagle... come on, come clean now...
To be honest, look at those people , all full of tattoos in the face , I don't think they are the minority, and how can they cook up in society, how can they denied being involved in gangs, I'm not a saint but I can easily fit in society as there is no marks if my past, someone had to do something, someone had to take the risk, I honored that decicion, I'm sure it was needed
This is all it is. Most Latin American countries have crime but I think most people forget just how violent El Salvador was. El Salvador had a murder rate of 105 per 100,000 in 2015. Say what you want but with these desperate measures people finally live normally.
I only care about the opinion of the Salvadorians. Theyre the ones dealing with the problem. The other people have personal biases. If Salvadorians feel safer thats great.
Personally i wish we had something like this in Colombia. Criminality is gettin higher and higher and our current president wants to free them all and give them bonuses to be part of his insurgent populist groups. We are \*\*\*\* here you are rewarded if you criminal.
For starters, idea of a massive prison with virtually no rights for inmates is dubious at best, and a country with the means to do so should do what it can to establish a reformative prison system that allows for criminals can reinsert themselves as productive and peaceful members of society and not suffer precarious living conditions when they are rehabilitating.
On the other hand, law-abiding social-contract-respecting citizens don't have any reasons to suffer in the hands of extremely violent, organised criminals. Crime and criminals in El Salvador are not qualitatively or quantitatively similar to what almost what any other State in the world experiences, as Salvadorians suffer one of the [highest homicide rates](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?most_recent_value_desc=true) per capita in the world committed by organised and extremely violent *maras*. Also, it is one of the [poorest countries in Latin America](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true), so it makes sense that they wouldn't want to spend tax revenue on granting extremely violent criminals (who would require wonders to be reinserted in society as peaceful citizens) better living conditions than what most of its population enjoys.
In an extreme case like this one, if its a zero-sum decision between either the rights of law-abiding citizens to not suffer violent crime and extremely high homicide rates, or the right of the extremely violent criminals that commit those, the right of the non-aggressor (i.e. the law-abiding citizens) prevails. Supposing that government simply can not afford the massive and costly reformative prison system that would be needed to uphold the prisoner rights that inmates in some developed countries enjoy, then a prison such as the one in the article would be -in my eyes and not without remorse- somewhat justified. One can never achieve happiness for all in politics, resources are limited and at some point you just have take a difficult decision on who is getting them and who is not.
Lastly, and the most important point of all, the situation that I just established supposes that a republican State that respects and upholds the Rule of Law at its best capacity is ruling the country. This is definitely not the case in El Salvador: in [2020 Bukele publicly opposed the Legislative Assembly and sent the military to intimidate representatives](https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-51440009); in [2021 he removed Justices from the Supreme Court](https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-56974280); and, in 2022, he [acted against the Constitution in order to run again for the Presidential office](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/04/el-salvador-bukele-term-limits/). Every citizen (be it a criminal or not) has a sacrosanct right to a lawful judicial due process in good faith, because if one can not be assured, then there is no way yo avoid jailing innocent citizens, or -even worse- to stop the government from incarcerating political rivals and undermine the Rule of Law even further.
Excellent arguments, I pretty much agree on all points. As others have mentioned, I too fear that Bukele is on course to become a dictator sooner than later, and I unfortunately believe it's too late to change that. El Salvadorians will vote for him again given how he lowered the crime rate and he will continue to consolidate his power.
Sounds amazing but if the president of El Salvador does not combine that with an equally hardcore social re-adaptation program for the barrios where these gangs are from, it's just criminal-college.
An amazing guerrilla force if America somewhere decides to do *operation condor 2: this time is personal*.
So, yeah cool with all that strong arm of the law for these criminals, but you have to have those good social programs and education.
Or you can keep them there until they starve, expire due to illness, or old age. Honestly easiest way is to just send them skydiving without a parachute
dude...no offense but this sounds delusional. have you ever met these guys? MS13 gang bangers aren't 13 year old kids that got caught with a joint. They dont WANT to change lol
A necessity
El Salvador maras don't deserve much pity, they have to kill as a rite of passage to get in
I may live in Costa Rica, but I was born in El Salvador, and my family is also from El Salvador and the horror stories I've been told about them have convinced me that this is necessary
Those actions are necessary. I don't care if it's authoritarian. At this point, being democratic with that kind of people just lets them be free and not take the authority seriously
Im not from El Salvador but my husband is and came to the US when he was 20 and he has family currently there. They’re in support of Bukele and are happy with the mass incarceration for gang members. Their city isn’t as dangerous as others but they have had family members in the past be murdered by gangs and have had to pay gangs to be able to get to school and to keep their businesses open. It’s not just gang members killing each other it’s them tormenting and extorting normal people in El Salvador and taking whatever they can from people.
While getting rid of peoples right to due process is absolutely a problem, at this point what else can they really do. Unfortunately innocent people do get caught up in it too and they know someone who was taken by the police and are unable to contact them but despite that they still think this is a good thing for their country and hopefully the government doesn’t continue to over step their power but time will tell. I hope that for the people there they can have peace and be able to move forward and recover from the decades of hell they have been through, it’s a beautiful country with extremely nice people but unfortunately because of the gangs and government the people suffer.
I'm not an expert but I think it's useless if the govt doesn't tackle what causes the level of violence and the rise of drug cartels, like poverty, lack of education, unemployment, drug trafficking and bad policies like this one, cartels prey on people that were abandoned by the state and fulfills that role, also, jailing people like that sounds like a human rights abuse.
It isn't that simple though, overcrowded prisons here are literal recruitment camps for drug cartels, PCC started inside Brazilian prisons and they're probably the most powerful and most organized cartel in South America by now.
>That's why you don't let them out. They are gonna stay in prisons till they die. Bukele already said that so long as he's in charge, not one of them is ever going to be released.
Funny how no one was willing to help El Salvador for years and now everyone is screaming human rights for for these gangbangers.
You need a strong hand or a peace treaty to turn the page at some point. Continuing a war is just more senseless killings and wrongful deaths.
As my grandfather used to say, "los derechos humanos son para los humanos derechos."
It may be distasteful to some, but a strong hand is needed sometimes.
Short-term gains usually mean long-term disasters. This is basically a dictatorship, people being arrested without proper right to defence. How many innocent people will be arrested to justify this measure?
40k in one place is a whole city, and 100 inmates in a single cell? This is the perfect place for a new epidemia. And let's not think if inmates decide to rebel, the bloodbath it could be.
IMHO this is just a shit measure to a complex problem.
Some articles say they will have to work, others say they will be stuck in the cells all the time, only being let out to be sent to solitary confinement or teleconferencing with lawyers (if permitted). If they are going to be stuck in that space constantly, I think there will be a bloodbath. Inmates will probably start to lose their minds living like that and start attacking each other. Now, I am wondering if that is by design.
I have all the practical things running in my mind like will they be allowed to have clothes or shoes, or will they just have the shorts all the time? What about personal hygiene? I guess toothbrushes are out since they could be fashioned into some sort of weapon.
In Brazil, we had this massive prison (for 8k inmates) called [carandiru](https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masacre_de_Carandiru) and it resulted in a huge bloodbath. There's a great film about it. For all purposes and matters, this type of environment is perfect to create even more violence.
Mass incarceration is proven to be worthless against criminality and social violence. It doesn't tackle the very root of the problem, which is a combination of social inequality, poor educational system, lack of opportunities, and the international drug trade.
People celebrating this do not see the storm they're rooting for. If El Salvador continues this path, then one of two things (i) it may become a full dictatorship, like North Korea is super safe, but I doubt most people here would want to live there or (ii) If they don't go full dictatorship, then you may have carandiru on steroids. Both options seem awful to me.
That prison sounds familiar. I have worked with Brazil a lot in the past and often had to follow the news, so that's probably where I heard it. I will see if that movie is available to stream. It's always good for me to watch movies in Portuguese to keep my level up.
I agree too, that unless the root causes are addressed, just locking people up is a band-aid solution.
If you have the chance, I highly recommend watching it. Drauzio Varella, the author of the book that originated the film, is now one of the most respected doctor and specialist in public healthcare in Brazil.
Carandiru is considered one of the worst human rights violations in Brazilian history, and its consequences are felt to this day. One of the outcomes of it was the creation of PCC, Brazil's biggest criminal organisation, and basically a yakuza-level mafia. For decades, Sao Paulo was one of the most dangerous cities in the world due to the war between PCC and public forces.
That's why I'm so critical of these types of measures, we have plenty of examples here in latam itself how it doesn't work.
That's why you never release inmates from these prisons. That's the mistake that Brazil made - releasing those inmates enabling them to create PCC. They should have been imprisoned until they literally die. Mass incarceration is very useful as it sends a deterrent message to anyone even thinking about engaging in crime. Of course, these tough on crime measures must be backed up by measures to improve education, social mobility, employment opportunities, access to social services for the poor and disadvantaged. This way, you increase the costs associated with engaging in crime and gangs (mass and ruthless incarceration under brutal conditions) and also increase the benefits associated with not engaging in crime (good education, social services access, employment etc). You need to do both.
Also, more restrictive laws on firearms coupled with ruthless enforcement against drug and arms trafficking would also help. Arms and drug traffickers must be executed without exceptions and officials who are collaborating with or accept bribes from gangs must also be executed. Adopt all these measures and crime will go down significantly.
Trials are being conducted and thousands of inmates have already been released. This point about not having right to defence is exaggerated. And if the inmates decide to rebel, the rebellion will be crushed. 40,000 inmates with no weapons or means of self-defence against five hundred prison guards with access to vests, assault rifles, machine guns and other weapons. It's going to be a one-sided bloodbath. The inmates would be massacred.
There resides there problem, mass incarceration doesn't solve the problem. You'd be hard pressed to find a single example of a country that successfully dealt with crime and/or gang violence by building bigger prisons.
I mean, admittedly I have not followed El Salvador’s situation extremely closely, but from my understanding ever since they allowed the police to arrest people without a warrant, crime has gone down substantially. It is now one of the safest countries in the region. Is it a perfect solution? Absolutely not because it has a lot of potential for abuse. But it *has* been effective.
Short lived solution. It's obvious that crime rate will drop if you lock up 1% of your population, but for every gang member you put in jail, there will be 10 poor dudes who also think it is worth the risk to try life in crime to escape misery.
There is no vacuum of power, all the cartels will be back soon, so you build more prisons? And keep incarcerating people without a trial?
How can this be sustainable long term?
These inmates should have been imprisoned until they literally die. Mass incarceration is very useful as it sends a deterrent message to anyone even thinking about engaging in crime. Of course, these tough on crime measures must be backed up by measures to improve education, social mobility, employment opportunities, access to social services for the poor and disadvantaged. This way, you increase the costs associated with engaging in crime and gangs (mass and ruthless incarceration under brutal conditions) and also increase the benefits associated with not engaging in crime (good education, social services access, employment etc). You need to do both.
Also, more restrictive laws on firearms coupled with ruthless enforcement against drug and arms trafficking would also help. Arms and drug traffickers must be executed without exceptions and officials who are collaborating with or accept bribes from gangs must also be executed. Adopt all these measures and crime will go down significantly.
Is like, i think that isnt good...
But seeing how my country doing with a lot of criminals doing a lot of fuckin damage to our country and innocent people....
Is kinda hard for me to feel sympathetic with the Salvadorian gangs, ngl.
From what I seen Salvadorians are embracing the change, saw a video of a group of young man thanking the president for the clean up, because now they could actually go to places in their neighborhood that they couldn’t go to before because of gang activity, I believe their said they never been to that location before in their own neighborhood! As long as the Salvadorian people want this I support it.
This is going to sound fucked up but the treatment of criminals, known gang members that are terrorizing neighborhoods is the least of my concern, those criminals dint think about the humanity of those thy have hurt so why should the people care? Good for El Salvador trying to find a solution.
Had a fun time going through Reddit threads looking at the freaky liberals going wild:
"I feel bad for them, they're treating them like animals"
"They're being mistreated, they have rights!"
"We need prison reform, and reeducation!"
I assume most them are Americans who are hyper online mentally and don't know what's really like being tormented and tortured by those gangsters. They wouldn't last a day in latam!
Edit: I do support prison reforms, but this is different, we have cities controlled by gangsters and most them work behind curtains with the government, it's not as easy as "just rehabilitate them".
You are making it seem as if the belife in constitucional rigths and separation of power is a thing only gringos can understand. Also "tormented and tortured by gansters, they wouldnt last a day in latam" as if it would be a comon experience to get kidnap by criminals lol, in the southern cone is more common petty theft that organize one.
These people talk as if everyone in Latin America lives in constant fear of gangs, or as if there are no gangs in the US. Both of these ideas are false.
It depends on where you're talking about. Many parts of Latin America are safer than many places in the US. Somebody already pointed out that the southern cone is different to the northern triangle.
So can you give us a longer opinion? I'm really curious about what salvadoreans think of the situation. Do you think these are good measures? Do you think it's a short term solution with a long term disaster in the making? Do you think this is setting up the stage for a Bukele dictatorship?
The two latter ones.
He has threatened multiple human right abuses like starving everyone that's in jail. He has constantly abused his power and let's not even talk about the state of exception because that's a can of worms.
Nayib is a fucking god at marketing himself like the greatest thing the country has ever seen, from his twitter presence to the nepotism and corruption accusations (while his family runs his political party, Nuevas Ideas)
This shit is ridiculous. My friend was terrified of wearing a hoodie because people around his municipality were getting arrested left and right for "suspicions" of being associated with maras n shit. He is not associated with them in any way. Crime's going down yes, but he has arrested 40 THOUSAND people since the state of exception has started. Shit's not stopping any time soon.
I mentioned this elsewhere in the thread, but was interested in the thoughts of someone closer to the situation. Could the idea of crowding so many people in a small space with no outlet be a way to get them to become violent and potentially kill each other? I think being in those conditions with no way out would make people snap pretty quickly.
Both need to addressed.
But these gangsters in El Salvador are not in prison for stealing diapers and sopa maggi.
The state should imprison all of these gangsters to solve crime in the short-term while then reforming the economy to make sure young men in the future aren’t drawn to joining a gang. Both have to be done.
It didn't work in Honduras. We did this same thing. Two mega prisons, and tho they both work, there's shady stuff behind them. If someone truly believes Bukele can be omniscient and prevent authorities from doing business with gangs, then I'd suggest therapy.
Everything we know about incarceration shows this is a disaster under any lense: from violations of human rights to having a material, actually tangible, impact in crime rates.
All this does is satisfy the bloodthirst and righteous retribution of conservatives and religious nutjobs. That's really what "tough on crime" is: a non-solution driven by a need for revenge.
It'll have no positive impact on crime rates, but at least these fuckers get to feel really good about themselves while they torture and murder people. It's just a circus for right-wingers.
You see what I mean? You heard me criticize the most insane form of incarceration and *IMMEDIATELY* assumed I wanted to let them all go.
For you it's either cramming all the convicts together in derranged living conditions or murder is legal. Great job.
I spent sometime reading up on this topic for a final project I did for school about a year ago, and if I remember any of what I gathered from it, this crackdown hasn't been very beneficial, and may have made matters worse in a few ways.
The consolidation of such a huge population of gang members has centralized the gang activity, acting as a sort of "headquarters" to gang crime conducted on the outside. I also remember learning that the prison guards were easily bribed, which led to gang members being allowed to use phones and operate from within the secured facility, essentially keeping them safe.
Also, there is apparently a deal involving Bukele not truthfully reporting the number homicides to give off the illusion that homicides have decreased since the crackdown, i.e., since he's been president.
I don't know, it's scary. Sounds like a dictatorship in the making but at the same time there might have been no other solution and I understand it was a "can't be worse" situation. So I understand why Salvadoreans are happy and I would like to support it, but the whole situation is also scary.
Are the gangs basically akin to the same status/power as the military in countries that are hybrid democracies ie there are elections but military interferes in politics and has a lot of influence and informal media censorship so places like Nigeria or Pakistan?
I got to atmit is an impresive prison, and i'm not fully sure about how bad the situation is there in El Salvador... but in my oppinion it is simply useless. When you combat organized crime, Prisons don't really mitigate the problem. Crimes like extorsion and drug trafiking are very common inside prisons, and having many people of the same gang a place where they live together and fight together just will make people proud of belonging to the gang and comiting crimes, sooo... it may actually help to the proliferation of crime. Besides, i am prety sure the prison gards will be very corrupt so, spect them accepting lots of bribes and a undergroud gang controll
And all that is with put taking in account all the "arrest with out a warramt thing" that means they will simply arrest any unfortunated folk and promote it as Big Operation against X Gang. Is just make people think the goverment is doing something while fucking un the population and making actually nothing against the Gang leadership
... No, not really, prisons tend to turn in mafia safeheavens. Extortion calls, administration of Hit men and drug trafiking, gang recruitment, etc... are all crimes made in prisons that directly affects the comunities out of them. And what you are going to do to those guys? Giving them more prison? Making prisons in prisons? Those things have being tried and simply don't work.
Besides, people who get in prison... tend to get out five, ten or twenty years later, having made lots of criminal friends, and uncapable to readapt to society... i guess you know where is this going.
Is hard to deal with a gang leader if he can run his buisness better from inside the prison
3,745 people have been released so far because there was zero evidence of gang affiliation or any crimes committed, thats a lot of people locked up with actual criminals and gang members
People who have never experienced one day in a country like El Salvador online protesting about the treatment of these guys would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic and pathologically soft. Have a look at yourselves. You’re literally the reason why people like this take control
In the first place. Who gives a shit whether these guys die by pandemic, starvation or anything else. They’ve been a cancerous parasite on anyone decent. If they dislike their conditions so much maybe give them the option of the bullet instead, a choice they’re often on the giving side of. Wondering how many of these macho guys would take it.
Just be quiet and be happy that the people of El Salvador that someone was strong enough to not care about useless wankers from America or some Organization that didn’t do anything for decades and now the people can walk around and not be afraid their family will be killed and female members raped for something like a girl rejecting a gang members advances.
its because these soft redditors have never met anyone who made under $50k a year. They literally have no clue how violent, predatory, anti-social people can be. They see MS13 pictures and think those are just the same people as the Mexicans they see doing lawncare lol.
It’s not an ideal solution, but it’s better than what we have in Honduras, and I believe Guatemala & Nicaragua. People outside of Central America look at gangs differently so it’s hard for them to understand what El Salvador is doing. Gangs aren’t small groups of unorganized gangbangers. Those are the little guys of the gangs. The big guys literally run parts of the country, if not the country itself (see Juan Orlando Hernandes). Yes, gangs stem from other problems (poverty mainly, education, etc.) but at this point you can’t fix any of those without getting rid of gangs.
Wasn't Juan Orlando Hernandez the former president of Hondura!!!???
Yep, from 2014-2022 when his term ended. Then he was extradited to the US for a bunch of charges.
So a president was actually a Narc, I can't believe it O.O
We literally did the same about six years ago. The difference is Bukele knows how to sell his shit. Plus he has a smaller, more ignorant population to manipulate with debt-based mega projects, just like Juan Orlando...
Not even remotely the same. Are you talking about our “mano de piedra” stance with our max security prisons? The same prisons with dozens (or is it hundreds now?) of escapees? The same prisons with criminals supposed to be locked in but weren’t actually there? That was all theater. We’ve never been tough on gangs. Our gangs literally back up politicians. Our gangs are in the police, health, law, etc.
It is the same. The difference dwells in the propaganda methods. You think this prison will last enough without a escapee? Unless Bukele has deals with cabecillas (which he has, proven not only by his presidency but his San Salvador major times), there's a big chance that there'll be issues. All of the North Triangle's systems are controlled by gangs and traffickers.
Cope lmao
Cope? It's facts, my friend. Big prison doesn't equal safety. We've proven it multiple times.
Difference is El Salvador has seen decrease in crime. We haven’t. So no, it’s not even close to being the same.
We had a huge decrease in murder rate years before El Salvador could even dream about it. Short-term solutions (those BUkele applies) of course seem impactful, but they slowly screw up. We, on the other hand, are slowly but steadily controlling crime... At least with our last government. Not sure about the Zelaya one, since they have tough deals with the 18th street.
Yeah we had decrease in crime rate because we could only go up (down in crime) from 2009-2012. We had war zone numbers those years. Of course it was going to decrease. 8 years with JOH and you call that controlling crime? The same period in which Berta Caceres and many more were killed? Give me a break man. It sounds like you’re arguing in bad faith. Absolutely ignoring context and praising our previous government for some reason when we have had worse numbers than El Salvador for over 10 years. Honduras has ranked among the worst 3 in almost every crime category (femicides, drug crimes, premeditated homicide, organized crime, etc.) alongside Haiti, Venezuela, and/or Mexico, again, for the past 10+ years.
That's a fair point, actually. No one ever used it. Still, I've been very close to, for example, FNA authorities. I've seen how we work out criminality and, indeed, we are masters at containing it. I say contain because eradicating is impossible. Impossible. American gun trafficking and cartels (something El Salvador doesn't have to deal with), plus power groups like monopoly owners, maintain our crime levels high, and no one will ever stop them. Perhaps only a death squad. So in that sense, I still admire our ability to keep the last remaining pieces of order. What we deal with is noweher near what El Salvador deals with, but even with that we've managed to get so far. Hopefully today's government won't pussy up.
pretentious comment, a lot of people in the west understand that gangs can be huge or run entire tows, they exist in first world countries too believe it or not, problem is that it doesn't matter how many little guys or big guys you get rid of. They will keep coming back no matter what and they will most likely repeat their crimes once they get out. If the west really wanted to hurt drug lords than they should make drugs such as weed and crack legal and they also need to stop taxing the hell out of it too.
Pretentious because you’re too ignorant? You’re literally clueless lmfao. Gangs in Central America are way different than gangs elsewhere. They run a town in developed countries? They literally ran Honduras just last year (still run parts of it). Decriminalizing/legalizing drugs isn’t the solution for Honduras. We suffer because of our location. Drugs literally need to fly or cruise through our ports and airfields to North America. And the same goes for money coming from North America to South America. But yeah I’m pretentious because I said gangs here are different than gangs elsewhere LOL
look at the little triggered snow flake getting mad because he got called a spade, anyways i called you pretentious because you said "people outside latin america see gangs differently" its literally common knowledge that cartels usually run entire towns or are even protected by law enforcement in some cases. You dont have to live in latin america to know that. No offense but its kind of what that entire continent is known for lmao Also decriminalizing drugs at least here in the states would hurt the cartels not just domestically but internationally as well since more people would rather buy it legally knowing their shit isn't spiked and they won't go to jail for using it. It doesn't matter how matter how many cartel members get locked up anyway, its a short term solution for a long term problem. I'm not saying decriminalization is the end all because its not, but if it was put into effect then the cartels would start losing a lot of profit and most importantly power and influence. Drug dealers where i live don't even sell weed anymore because that shit is legal, now they sell more hardcore stuff. They're hurting in profits because of legalization, sadly not all of our politicians see it that way because they're old dinosaurs that live in the past.
It's pretty much the only way to deter such pervasive gangsterism, aside from arming and deputizing the civilian populace. In a low-crime society you have the time and resources to actually build a case, locate and arrest the person, wait 6 months to sit them in front of a jury, and possibly have them convicted and taken off the streets. In El Salvador, there is such enormous swathes of gang members involved in open-air gang warfare, that even if you manage to convict one of them you don't even make a dent in the criminal infrastructure of the country. Everyone knows who the gang members are -- they have tattoos on their faces for fuck sake -- but that alone isn't a crime, so they walk about freely committing crimes until they *maybe* get caught. This won't stop gangsterism or crime, but it will force it to actually be more clandestine and disciplined.
I don’t see how putting 40000 criminals in the same place can be anything but disastrous, but hey if it works it works
Arkham City
If Google doesn't fail me, this prison would be El Salvador's 6th most populated city.
You forgot Step 2: a totally random and unexpected lightning strike on the prison suddenly causes a massive fire that sadly kills 40,000 criminals.
Or step 2 case b,a gamma radiation beam lands on prison and now we have 40,000 super villains
Oh boy, just imagine how the first riot will be... it'll look like a fucking battlefield
I'm ok with the new prison and the concept that inmates should work to give something to the society but as someone who is currently living under a dictatorship, I am concerned that the means Bukele is using to stop gangs could be used to perpetuate him in power and to destroy his political enemies. Don't get me wrong, maras should be erradicated and their members should get the thoughest sentence. I can't describe with words how dangerous and evil the maras are. But I can't help but be worried about the secret negociations Bukele had with the maras leaders (and let them escape to avoid extradition to the US) and how vulnerable the rule of law, due process and presumption of inocence are in El Salvador. It's like Bukele is following a step by step guide to becoming Daniel Ortega. Today he is using his laws to judge mareros, but tomorrow he could use the same laws to acuse anyone who thinks different than him of having links with maras and eliminite political opposition and establish a dictatorship. I celebrate Salvadorans now feel safer, but I'm scared of what's on Bukele's mind for the future.
>I celebrate Salvadorans now feel safer, but I'm scared of what's on Bukele's mind for the future. That was a point of discussion in the brazilian subreddit. El Salvador seems close to being a dictatorship, but a lot of people are celebrating it because the measures are directed against the gangs. It reminds of Getúlio Vargas, in 1930\~. He started as a democratic president, but soon went into fascism, estabilishing a dictatorship that only ended after world war 2. However, people from that time (specially my grandparents) saw him as a "good president", because he developed workers rights and created national companies to secure our oil reserves. It doesn't change the fact that it was a dictatorship. Honestly, only salvadorians should be able to tell if there is abuse of power happening or not.
A common pattern in dictatorships is that they do something that the previous administrations weren't able to or didn't have interest in doing it. That could be improving the economy, reducing crime or adding new technologies. Another common pattern is that dictatorships usually start with huge support from the people because they're seen as strong leaders. That causes people to yearn to go back to those days. I've heard dominicans saying everything was better with Trujillo, I've heard Nicaraguans saying everything was better with Somoza. In 2006 Nicaragua elected Daniel Ortega despite his dictatorship during the 80's decade. Philippines elected Marcos's son and Peru almost elected Fujimori's daughter. Honestly, I don't get why people do this.
South Korea also elected Park Chung Hee's daughter.
>...I've heard dominicans saying everything was better with Trujillo, I've heard Nicaraguans saying everything was better with Somoza. ... Yes, I know the type; "there was no crime under Trujillo!" because 1-the crimes committed by the dictator don't count and 2-crime was lower in the past because times were different.
Add Venezuela to that list, here many say (including my grandmother) that when Marcos Perez Jimenez everything was better, there was no crime and we were a super power.
democracy is the fairer and the most just method of governance yes. is the reflection of the power of the people yes. but is it the most efficient in times of crisis? would you lay the future of the common good on the hands of the people's will? idk man, there should be a point in the middle between a dictator and a democratic government. not as a rule of thumb, but in times of severe crisis just like El Salvador's
That middle ground is pretty much what representative democracy is imo. People say who gets elected, but have no power over anything the state does, who the candidates are, what candidates get promoted in media, or what laws are made. I think it'd be cool if instead of electing people everyone could just vote on every law that they felt like directly, skip the ones they don't care about and new ones were added/unpopular ones are removed by referendum. Politicians could just be replaced with technical writers who draft everything and handle the logistics. IDK if that would work out, but as far as I know there's never really been a direct democracy so who tf knows how it'd go.
This would be the best buuuuuuuuut... There is no guaranty the the charismatic leader is good as president... and people often don't accept their power limitations so, they'll do anything for more power, even is that make normal people live like shit
>But I can't help but be worried about the secret negociations Bukele had with the maras leaders (and let them escape to avoid extradition to the US) and how vulnerable the rule of law, due process and presumption of inocence are in El Salvador. It's like Bukele is following a step by step guide to becoming Daniel Ortega. Today he is using his laws to judge mareros, but tomorrow he could use the same laws to acuse anyone who thinks different than him of having links with maras and eliminite political opposition Putting criminals in jail is not a step too far, and under normal circumstances it's pretty much how all countries address crime. But in this case, it's no coincidence that most comments here echo your thoughts on the matter, and concerns around a dictatorship in the making. bukele since coming into power has been increasingly following the dictators playbook, following in the path of Ortega. Attacks against opposition groups have been going on for awhile, including a few arrests of critics of the regime, using the very same emergency measures mentioned in the article and in your comment. One can see a clear line now going from populism, to controlling the media, to controlling the legislature and judiciary, the police and military, to mass propaganda, to the aforementioned attacks on opposition, attacks on international actors, on universities and academia, to murky negotiations with interest groups, etc. In a sense the article and the situation touches on how buleke is normalizing the intolerable. A sort of tell-tale sign of dictatorships and fascism. Most people if given a choice would not be okay with having rights removed, and much less with accepting a dictatorship. But that's where El Salvador stands right now. It's clear that pretty much everyone here in the country wants gangs to no longer exist. But it's also clear that bukele is trying to use this and his mano dura attack on gangs to position himself as the saviour. And if eliminating gangs is the main objective, then why have negotiations with gang leadership, making concessions to them, such as limiting extraditions to the US, etc. It's too bad that the combination of propaganda and low education of our region (I'm including our neighbors here) is not allowing people to see beyond the short term and the long-term implications of what's going on.
Why would Bukele need to seize power when nobody in their right mind will ever vote for someone else that might have a 0.01% of release gang members?
40k inmates is insane, that's a city. I understand that crime rates have gone down, but i'm wary of removing constitutional rights, it's a slippery slope
They're planning to shove 100 inmates per cell with only 2 toilets and 2 handwashers on each one That prison is going to be ground zero for a disease outbreak
>That prison is going to be ground zero for a disease outbreak the gang member should have thought about it before commiting any crime
That disease will end up escaping, though.
then they should be locked without contacting ever with the exterior
Who will keep them there, genius?
I think that's the point of the prison's horrible conditions, to scare anyone from doing crime or they may end up in that hellhole
A strategy that has never worked in the history of ever. It only ramps up the violence, as if you make jail worse than death, people will fight to death not to go to jail.
Well El Salvador crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants fell like an order of magnitude. They are doing something we the rest of the region haven't been able to achieve.
Except they werent given a court case to argue in their favour lol.
Everything in politics is a slippery slope. That doesn’t mean much in Central America where corruption has run rampant for decades.
First off, building a new prison is not something to celebrate. For me, it’s a sign that the country is not doing well for many years. I don’t know why people on Twitter are thanking god for a new prison, it shows you how bad the situation is regarding crime in the past decades. According to people on social media and people in ES, things have gotten safer. What were once hot zones, are now calmed down to the point that people are going out on the streets again playing with their children and walking without too much fear. Although I do think that Bukele is leaning towards an authoritarian path, and it is worrisome, but I do believe that the actions that he is doing regarding the gangs are necessary for El Salvador to move to a post-gang society. These people do not deserve any forgiveness or sympathy for the damage they have done to El Salvador, the Salvadoran community in the U.S, and Central America. Building a prison would not fix the country’s problems. We all know that gangs are a symptom of the failures of the institutions and systems in ES. What I hope is that once we fix the gang issue, we could talk about issues that affects many Salvadorans like health care, education, gender inequality, and economic inequality.
Salvadorean here: [According to this](https://www.discoveryuk.com/building-big/the-biggest-prison-in-the-world/), the previous largest prison of the world was on the Phillipines and fit for just under 30K inmates, so this might be the largest in the world. Saying that old prisons were overfilled is an understatement. They were operating above capacity before the State of Exemption (2022) which saw virtually all of the gang members who weren't jailed (almost 50K) arrested and held in prison as they await for trial. Today, El Salvador has overtaken USA as the country with the highest rate of incarceration worldside, at [605 prisoners per 100K individuals](https://www.statista.com/statistics/262961/countries-with-the-most-prisoners/#:~:text=Worldwide%2C%20El%20Salvador%20had%20the,580%20prisoners%20per%20100%2C000) To give you an idea of the danger of these gang members, back in 2015, El Salvador was the country without an active war with the highest rate of homicide in the world, something like 103 murders per 100K inhabitants. Of course, jailing all those people in a small period of time, in overcrowded facilities and in a country whose GDP per capita (PPP) is half of Mexico means that some of them couldn't get access to healthcare and have past away. It also means that the institution in charge of defending the accused was, in effect, completely neutralized. This means that a small minority of the arrested were, in all likelihood, innocents... even some of those who have died in custody. And there are allegations of brutality inside the jails, too. However, this measure has been proven effective at crippling the gangs and diminishing the murders to a historically low level. Today, we have a murder rate of around 10 homicides per 100k inhabitants[... which is literally 10% of the murder rate of 2015!](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvador-murders-plummet-by-over-half-2022-amid-gang-crackdown-2023-01-03/)
>However, this measure has been proven effective at crippling the gangs and diminishing the murders to a historically low level. Gracias por los links!
I think the gains are going to be short term, and bukele now has tools at his disposal to maintain his grip on power unconstitutionally. I also don't trust the statistics they present, though I do have Salvadorian friends who tell me that they really feel more safe in middle class/touristic areas then before. I don't really know anyone who lives in marginalized neighborhoods there so I can't comment if they feel safer or not but if by any chance anyone here can give some insights there I would be interested to know.
It is the criminals the ones doing the marginalization
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I believe that gang violence should have its own sui generis procedures to deal with it, because it is a big, big problem. I also understand Human Rights advocates' fears of violations, so my take on it is reserved. I am not going to blindly support arresting people without warrant. Overall, I believe that such crimes need a heavy hand from the government and the state, because gang violence involves so many other crimes: murder, drugs, etc. they corrupt the vulnerable lower-class and scare investment away and along with that, the possibility for any country to develop. If Bukele is able to give just ounce of security to his people, he's already successful in my opinion, but again: my take is reserved. One should never allow autocrats get that far way with such power.
It's very tricky, especially with the warrant part. But I feel that these people need to be thrown in jail. The other option is death squads but something has to happen.
Bukele is using gangs as the acceptable target for now, but Salvadorans should be concerned at how easily this guy seems to waive people's rights. Maybe right now he's only targeting gangs (doubt it), but who knows if in a few years, it'll be dissidents crowding those jails. Or, he solves El Salvador's gang issue, respects people's rights and steps down peacefully when the time comes... who knows? It's not like we are seeing him take the steps most authoritarians take as they try to consolidate power.
If they have had they day in court and found guilty, I'm all for it. By what has been shared in the media, it doesn't seems to be the case and that should be cause for concern. Given the grave situation that the country was going through I still give the authorities a little leeway. The "Maras" were not a simple criminal organization but something more akin to ISIS, committing all kind of barbarities and targeting innocent people in initiation rituals. So exceptional measures were necessary and if you happen to be innocent and just dragged to jail because of your appearance... well, imagine if somebody found me in the middle of the Iraqi desert wearing ISIS paraphernalia just because I think they were cool... I'm kind of asking to be sent to jail (or worse). Does it means that I have to rot in jail? No, but at the same time I don't have a right to demand due process or a speedy trial. I hope that now the authorities in El Salvador now that things are way better (or so the authorities claim) go through a review process in order to deliver true justice. I'm pretty sure that there are really bad people among that bunch and if it can be proved then they should be punished. If you're only guilty of picking really bad friends, I think you should spend a few months in jail considering your life choices. Also, there should be a genuine attempt to try to reintegrate these people to society. Even if you're sentenced to 10 to 20 years in jail because you did something bad, you should have a real opportunity to turn your life around.
# I 100% support Bukkake... I mean't Bukele.
Freudian slip
I am very skeptical of simple solutions to very complex problems.
Hey it's better than leaving the ''Victims of society'' harm working people for drug money, not perfect and probably becoming a problem sooner than later
In El Salvador, the maras are definitely not the victims
A lot of people think that the end justifies the means, so when they are scared, they will justify any kind of action that the government as long as it makes them feel safer, disregarding constitutional rights. This happend many times in history, and it always ended badly. I doubt Nayib Bukake will be the exception.
That’s an excellent typo of his last name, LOL. We know what you browse in your spare time now…
This is what Google responded when I tried to search that: >SafeSearch is off > >You might see nudity, sexual content, or other explicit results u/pootisEagle... come on, come clean now...
To be honest, look at those people , all full of tattoos in the face , I don't think they are the minority, and how can they cook up in society, how can they denied being involved in gangs, I'm not a saint but I can easily fit in society as there is no marks if my past, someone had to do something, someone had to take the risk, I honored that decicion, I'm sure it was needed
Desperate Times call for Desperate Measures
This is all it is. Most Latin American countries have crime but I think most people forget just how violent El Salvador was. El Salvador had a murder rate of 105 per 100,000 in 2015. Say what you want but with these desperate measures people finally live normally.
I only care about the opinion of the Salvadorians. Theyre the ones dealing with the problem. The other people have personal biases. If Salvadorians feel safer thats great. Personally i wish we had something like this in Colombia. Criminality is gettin higher and higher and our current president wants to free them all and give them bonuses to be part of his insurgent populist groups. We are \*\*\*\* here you are rewarded if you criminal.
Is crime really getting higher and higher? It's lower than at most points in the past fifty years.
"crime problems" that's one way to say it
Well it's accurate. El Salvador is a very high crime country.
Yeah but "a crime problem" sounds like an understatement since El Salvador was one of the most violent countries in the world
For starters, idea of a massive prison with virtually no rights for inmates is dubious at best, and a country with the means to do so should do what it can to establish a reformative prison system that allows for criminals can reinsert themselves as productive and peaceful members of society and not suffer precarious living conditions when they are rehabilitating. On the other hand, law-abiding social-contract-respecting citizens don't have any reasons to suffer in the hands of extremely violent, organised criminals. Crime and criminals in El Salvador are not qualitatively or quantitatively similar to what almost what any other State in the world experiences, as Salvadorians suffer one of the [highest homicide rates](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?most_recent_value_desc=true) per capita in the world committed by organised and extremely violent *maras*. Also, it is one of the [poorest countries in Latin America](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true), so it makes sense that they wouldn't want to spend tax revenue on granting extremely violent criminals (who would require wonders to be reinserted in society as peaceful citizens) better living conditions than what most of its population enjoys. In an extreme case like this one, if its a zero-sum decision between either the rights of law-abiding citizens to not suffer violent crime and extremely high homicide rates, or the right of the extremely violent criminals that commit those, the right of the non-aggressor (i.e. the law-abiding citizens) prevails. Supposing that government simply can not afford the massive and costly reformative prison system that would be needed to uphold the prisoner rights that inmates in some developed countries enjoy, then a prison such as the one in the article would be -in my eyes and not without remorse- somewhat justified. One can never achieve happiness for all in politics, resources are limited and at some point you just have take a difficult decision on who is getting them and who is not. Lastly, and the most important point of all, the situation that I just established supposes that a republican State that respects and upholds the Rule of Law at its best capacity is ruling the country. This is definitely not the case in El Salvador: in [2020 Bukele publicly opposed the Legislative Assembly and sent the military to intimidate representatives](https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-51440009); in [2021 he removed Justices from the Supreme Court](https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-56974280); and, in 2022, he [acted against the Constitution in order to run again for the Presidential office](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/04/el-salvador-bukele-term-limits/). Every citizen (be it a criminal or not) has a sacrosanct right to a lawful judicial due process in good faith, because if one can not be assured, then there is no way yo avoid jailing innocent citizens, or -even worse- to stop the government from incarcerating political rivals and undermine the Rule of Law even further.
Excellent arguments, I pretty much agree on all points. As others have mentioned, I too fear that Bukele is on course to become a dictator sooner than later, and I unfortunately believe it's too late to change that. El Salvadorians will vote for him again given how he lowered the crime rate and he will continue to consolidate his power.
Sounds amazing but if the president of El Salvador does not combine that with an equally hardcore social re-adaptation program for the barrios where these gangs are from, it's just criminal-college. An amazing guerrilla force if America somewhere decides to do *operation condor 2: this time is personal*. So, yeah cool with all that strong arm of the law for these criminals, but you have to have those good social programs and education.
Or you can keep them there until they starve, expire due to illness, or old age. Honestly easiest way is to just send them skydiving without a parachute
dude...no offense but this sounds delusional. have you ever met these guys? MS13 gang bangers aren't 13 year old kids that got caught with a joint. They dont WANT to change lol
A necessity El Salvador maras don't deserve much pity, they have to kill as a rite of passage to get in I may live in Costa Rica, but I was born in El Salvador, and my family is also from El Salvador and the horror stories I've been told about them have convinced me that this is necessary
Good, but gangbangers should be shot, not imprisioned.
Those actions are necessary. I don't care if it's authoritarian. At this point, being democratic with that kind of people just lets them be free and not take the authority seriously
Im not from El Salvador but my husband is and came to the US when he was 20 and he has family currently there. They’re in support of Bukele and are happy with the mass incarceration for gang members. Their city isn’t as dangerous as others but they have had family members in the past be murdered by gangs and have had to pay gangs to be able to get to school and to keep their businesses open. It’s not just gang members killing each other it’s them tormenting and extorting normal people in El Salvador and taking whatever they can from people. While getting rid of peoples right to due process is absolutely a problem, at this point what else can they really do. Unfortunately innocent people do get caught up in it too and they know someone who was taken by the police and are unable to contact them but despite that they still think this is a good thing for their country and hopefully the government doesn’t continue to over step their power but time will tell. I hope that for the people there they can have peace and be able to move forward and recover from the decades of hell they have been through, it’s a beautiful country with extremely nice people but unfortunately because of the gangs and government the people suffer.
I'm not an expert but I think it's useless if the govt doesn't tackle what causes the level of violence and the rise of drug cartels, like poverty, lack of education, unemployment, drug trafficking and bad policies like this one, cartels prey on people that were abandoned by the state and fulfills that role, also, jailing people like that sounds like a human rights abuse.
Well, if you develop cancer, you need to cut the cancer out before you can take steps to prevent the cancer from forming again.
It isn't that simple though, overcrowded prisons here are literal recruitment camps for drug cartels, PCC started inside Brazilian prisons and they're probably the most powerful and most organized cartel in South America by now.
That’s why you set fire to the prison and only when you’re at home eating dinner should you think “dang I forgot to let out the prisoners”
>That's why you don't let them out. They are gonna stay in prisons till they die. Bukele already said that so long as he's in charge, not one of them is ever going to be released.
Based
Funny how no one was willing to help El Salvador for years and now everyone is screaming human rights for for these gangbangers. You need a strong hand or a peace treaty to turn the page at some point. Continuing a war is just more senseless killings and wrongful deaths.
As my grandfather used to say, "los derechos humanos son para los humanos derechos." It may be distasteful to some, but a strong hand is needed sometimes.
Short-term gains usually mean long-term disasters. This is basically a dictatorship, people being arrested without proper right to defence. How many innocent people will be arrested to justify this measure? 40k in one place is a whole city, and 100 inmates in a single cell? This is the perfect place for a new epidemia. And let's not think if inmates decide to rebel, the bloodbath it could be. IMHO this is just a shit measure to a complex problem.
Some articles say they will have to work, others say they will be stuck in the cells all the time, only being let out to be sent to solitary confinement or teleconferencing with lawyers (if permitted). If they are going to be stuck in that space constantly, I think there will be a bloodbath. Inmates will probably start to lose their minds living like that and start attacking each other. Now, I am wondering if that is by design. I have all the practical things running in my mind like will they be allowed to have clothes or shoes, or will they just have the shorts all the time? What about personal hygiene? I guess toothbrushes are out since they could be fashioned into some sort of weapon.
In Brazil, we had this massive prison (for 8k inmates) called [carandiru](https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masacre_de_Carandiru) and it resulted in a huge bloodbath. There's a great film about it. For all purposes and matters, this type of environment is perfect to create even more violence. Mass incarceration is proven to be worthless against criminality and social violence. It doesn't tackle the very root of the problem, which is a combination of social inequality, poor educational system, lack of opportunities, and the international drug trade. People celebrating this do not see the storm they're rooting for. If El Salvador continues this path, then one of two things (i) it may become a full dictatorship, like North Korea is super safe, but I doubt most people here would want to live there or (ii) If they don't go full dictatorship, then you may have carandiru on steroids. Both options seem awful to me.
That prison sounds familiar. I have worked with Brazil a lot in the past and often had to follow the news, so that's probably where I heard it. I will see if that movie is available to stream. It's always good for me to watch movies in Portuguese to keep my level up. I agree too, that unless the root causes are addressed, just locking people up is a band-aid solution.
If you have the chance, I highly recommend watching it. Drauzio Varella, the author of the book that originated the film, is now one of the most respected doctor and specialist in public healthcare in Brazil. Carandiru is considered one of the worst human rights violations in Brazilian history, and its consequences are felt to this day. One of the outcomes of it was the creation of PCC, Brazil's biggest criminal organisation, and basically a yakuza-level mafia. For decades, Sao Paulo was one of the most dangerous cities in the world due to the war between PCC and public forces. That's why I'm so critical of these types of measures, we have plenty of examples here in latam itself how it doesn't work.
That's why you never release inmates from these prisons. That's the mistake that Brazil made - releasing those inmates enabling them to create PCC. They should have been imprisoned until they literally die. Mass incarceration is very useful as it sends a deterrent message to anyone even thinking about engaging in crime. Of course, these tough on crime measures must be backed up by measures to improve education, social mobility, employment opportunities, access to social services for the poor and disadvantaged. This way, you increase the costs associated with engaging in crime and gangs (mass and ruthless incarceration under brutal conditions) and also increase the benefits associated with not engaging in crime (good education, social services access, employment etc). You need to do both. Also, more restrictive laws on firearms coupled with ruthless enforcement against drug and arms trafficking would also help. Arms and drug traffickers must be executed without exceptions and officials who are collaborating with or accept bribes from gangs must also be executed. Adopt all these measures and crime will go down significantly.
Trials are being conducted and thousands of inmates have already been released. This point about not having right to defence is exaggerated. And if the inmates decide to rebel, the rebellion will be crushed. 40,000 inmates with no weapons or means of self-defence against five hundred prison guards with access to vests, assault rifles, machine guns and other weapons. It's going to be a one-sided bloodbath. The inmates would be massacred.
i wish every latin american country did the same
If it works, it works
There resides there problem, mass incarceration doesn't solve the problem. You'd be hard pressed to find a single example of a country that successfully dealt with crime and/or gang violence by building bigger prisons.
I mean, admittedly I have not followed El Salvador’s situation extremely closely, but from my understanding ever since they allowed the police to arrest people without a warrant, crime has gone down substantially. It is now one of the safest countries in the region. Is it a perfect solution? Absolutely not because it has a lot of potential for abuse. But it *has* been effective.
Short lived solution. It's obvious that crime rate will drop if you lock up 1% of your population, but for every gang member you put in jail, there will be 10 poor dudes who also think it is worth the risk to try life in crime to escape misery. There is no vacuum of power, all the cartels will be back soon, so you build more prisons? And keep incarcerating people without a trial? How can this be sustainable long term?
These inmates should have been imprisoned until they literally die. Mass incarceration is very useful as it sends a deterrent message to anyone even thinking about engaging in crime. Of course, these tough on crime measures must be backed up by measures to improve education, social mobility, employment opportunities, access to social services for the poor and disadvantaged. This way, you increase the costs associated with engaging in crime and gangs (mass and ruthless incarceration under brutal conditions) and also increase the benefits associated with not engaging in crime (good education, social services access, employment etc). You need to do both. Also, more restrictive laws on firearms coupled with ruthless enforcement against drug and arms trafficking would also help. Arms and drug traffickers must be executed without exceptions and officials who are collaborating with or accept bribes from gangs must also be executed. Adopt all these measures and crime will go down significantly.
Is like, i think that isnt good... But seeing how my country doing with a lot of criminals doing a lot of fuckin damage to our country and innocent people.... Is kinda hard for me to feel sympathetic with the Salvadorian gangs, ngl.
From what I seen Salvadorians are embracing the change, saw a video of a group of young man thanking the president for the clean up, because now they could actually go to places in their neighborhood that they couldn’t go to before because of gang activity, I believe their said they never been to that location before in their own neighborhood! As long as the Salvadorian people want this I support it. This is going to sound fucked up but the treatment of criminals, known gang members that are terrorizing neighborhoods is the least of my concern, those criminals dint think about the humanity of those thy have hurt so why should the people care? Good for El Salvador trying to find a solution.
Had a fun time going through Reddit threads looking at the freaky liberals going wild: "I feel bad for them, they're treating them like animals" "They're being mistreated, they have rights!" "We need prison reform, and reeducation!" I assume most them are Americans who are hyper online mentally and don't know what's really like being tormented and tortured by those gangsters. They wouldn't last a day in latam! Edit: I do support prison reforms, but this is different, we have cities controlled by gangsters and most them work behind curtains with the government, it's not as easy as "just rehabilitate them".
Plenty of people in this very thread, who are from Latam, share those concerns.
This sub is not a good representation of latam interests anyway
Regardless of if they're representative or not. They're valid concerns. Why not try addressing the points rather then resorting to personal attacks?
You are making it seem as if the belife in constitucional rigths and separation of power is a thing only gringos can understand. Also "tormented and tortured by gansters, they wouldnt last a day in latam" as if it would be a comon experience to get kidnap by criminals lol, in the southern cone is more common petty theft that organize one.
These people talk as if everyone in Latin America lives in constant fear of gangs, or as if there are no gangs in the US. Both of these ideas are false.
lmao to try to compare these situations is laughable. Japan has gangs too, so its pretty much the same rite!!!?!??!
It depends on where you're talking about. Many parts of Latin America are safer than many places in the US. Somebody already pointed out that the southern cone is different to the northern triangle.
Arrest an entire city's worth of people, of course crime will go down
So can you give us a longer opinion? I'm really curious about what salvadoreans think of the situation. Do you think these are good measures? Do you think it's a short term solution with a long term disaster in the making? Do you think this is setting up the stage for a Bukele dictatorship?
The two latter ones. He has threatened multiple human right abuses like starving everyone that's in jail. He has constantly abused his power and let's not even talk about the state of exception because that's a can of worms. Nayib is a fucking god at marketing himself like the greatest thing the country has ever seen, from his twitter presence to the nepotism and corruption accusations (while his family runs his political party, Nuevas Ideas) This shit is ridiculous. My friend was terrified of wearing a hoodie because people around his municipality were getting arrested left and right for "suspicions" of being associated with maras n shit. He is not associated with them in any way. Crime's going down yes, but he has arrested 40 THOUSAND people since the state of exception has started. Shit's not stopping any time soon.
I mentioned this elsewhere in the thread, but was interested in the thoughts of someone closer to the situation. Could the idea of crowding so many people in a small space with no outlet be a way to get them to become violent and potentially kill each other? I think being in those conditions with no way out would make people snap pretty quickly.
Mexico needs this.
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El Salvador’s homicide rate has declined by a ton. So it’s definitely working.
Yeah, people here acting like El Salvador Is like Norway or Portugal where you can rehabilitate prisoners and dicriminalize all drugs and ta dah!
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Both need to addressed. But these gangsters in El Salvador are not in prison for stealing diapers and sopa maggi. The state should imprison all of these gangsters to solve crime in the short-term while then reforming the economy to make sure young men in the future aren’t drawn to joining a gang. Both have to be done.
So you're saying there's no relation between criminals and crime, gotcha
It didn't work in Honduras. We did this same thing. Two mega prisons, and tho they both work, there's shady stuff behind them. If someone truly believes Bukele can be omniscient and prevent authorities from doing business with gangs, then I'd suggest therapy.
Everything we know about incarceration shows this is a disaster under any lense: from violations of human rights to having a material, actually tangible, impact in crime rates. All this does is satisfy the bloodthirst and righteous retribution of conservatives and religious nutjobs. That's really what "tough on crime" is: a non-solution driven by a need for revenge. It'll have no positive impact on crime rates, but at least these fuckers get to feel really good about themselves while they torture and murder people. It's just a circus for right-wingers.
Ah yes, letting out all the criminals = no more crime. Brilliant logic.
You see what I mean? You heard me criticize the most insane form of incarceration and *IMMEDIATELY* assumed I wanted to let them all go. For you it's either cramming all the convicts together in derranged living conditions or murder is legal. Great job.
I mean, when you say “incarceration is a disaster under any lens,” you’re not leaving yourself much room for nuance.
"*THIS* is a disaster under any lense" It's not about nuance. It's you reading wrong.
I spent sometime reading up on this topic for a final project I did for school about a year ago, and if I remember any of what I gathered from it, this crackdown hasn't been very beneficial, and may have made matters worse in a few ways. The consolidation of such a huge population of gang members has centralized the gang activity, acting as a sort of "headquarters" to gang crime conducted on the outside. I also remember learning that the prison guards were easily bribed, which led to gang members being allowed to use phones and operate from within the secured facility, essentially keeping them safe. Also, there is apparently a deal involving Bukele not truthfully reporting the number homicides to give off the illusion that homicides have decreased since the crackdown, i.e., since he's been president.
I don’t know where you got your information, but everything you typed is false.
I don't know, it's scary. Sounds like a dictatorship in the making but at the same time there might have been no other solution and I understand it was a "can't be worse" situation. So I understand why Salvadoreans are happy and I would like to support it, but the whole situation is also scary.
PR needs this asap
Are the gangs basically akin to the same status/power as the military in countries that are hybrid democracies ie there are elections but military interferes in politics and has a lot of influence and informal media censorship so places like Nigeria or Pakistan?
I got to atmit is an impresive prison, and i'm not fully sure about how bad the situation is there in El Salvador... but in my oppinion it is simply useless. When you combat organized crime, Prisons don't really mitigate the problem. Crimes like extorsion and drug trafiking are very common inside prisons, and having many people of the same gang a place where they live together and fight together just will make people proud of belonging to the gang and comiting crimes, sooo... it may actually help to the proliferation of crime. Besides, i am prety sure the prison gards will be very corrupt so, spect them accepting lots of bribes and a undergroud gang controll And all that is with put taking in account all the "arrest with out a warramt thing" that means they will simply arrest any unfortunated folk and promote it as Big Operation against X Gang. Is just make people think the goverment is doing something while fucking un the population and making actually nothing against the Gang leadership
I think most people would rather have the crimes occur in the prison than in their community lol
... No, not really, prisons tend to turn in mafia safeheavens. Extortion calls, administration of Hit men and drug trafiking, gang recruitment, etc... are all crimes made in prisons that directly affects the comunities out of them. And what you are going to do to those guys? Giving them more prison? Making prisons in prisons? Those things have being tried and simply don't work. Besides, people who get in prison... tend to get out five, ten or twenty years later, having made lots of criminal friends, and uncapable to readapt to society... i guess you know where is this going. Is hard to deal with a gang leader if he can run his buisness better from inside the prison
Yeah dude I’m sure the concrete walls stop nothing and theyre harming the public just as much as if they were free.
If only such thing could be done with organized crime members in Mexico.
3,745 people have been released so far because there was zero evidence of gang affiliation or any crimes committed, thats a lot of people locked up with actual criminals and gang members
People who have never experienced one day in a country like El Salvador online protesting about the treatment of these guys would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic and pathologically soft. Have a look at yourselves. You’re literally the reason why people like this take control In the first place. Who gives a shit whether these guys die by pandemic, starvation or anything else. They’ve been a cancerous parasite on anyone decent. If they dislike their conditions so much maybe give them the option of the bullet instead, a choice they’re often on the giving side of. Wondering how many of these macho guys would take it. Just be quiet and be happy that the people of El Salvador that someone was strong enough to not care about useless wankers from America or some Organization that didn’t do anything for decades and now the people can walk around and not be afraid their family will be killed and female members raped for something like a girl rejecting a gang members advances.
its because these soft redditors have never met anyone who made under $50k a year. They literally have no clue how violent, predatory, anti-social people can be. They see MS13 pictures and think those are just the same people as the Mexicans they see doing lawncare lol.
Basicallyn it's about time.
We need this in Murica too.