El Salvador, led by its innovative young President Nayib Bukele continues to fill up its mega-prison. They have locked up roughly 65,000 suspected gang members since approving special emergency powers to President Bukele in March 2022. This initiative also included for the approval and building of a mega-prison.
The newly built “Terrorism Confinement Center” has a 40,000–person capacity and has already taken in over 4,000 prisoners as the government continues to crack down on an extensive gang problem. It is already at 10% of its maximum capacity just one month after opening.
The Salvadorian government has not been shy about it, they have publicized the prison, posting videos of prisoner transfers and providing an inside look at the huge facilities. The prison is one of Latin America’s largest, with 37 guard towers and eight cellblocks that will be “impossible to escape.”
“They are never going to return to the communities, the neighborhoods, the barrios, the cities of our beloved El Salvador,” Gustavo Villatoro, minister for justice and peace, said of the transport plans.
President Bukele asked Congress for an extension of the emergency powers, known as the State of Exception, this has allowed him to take such sweeping actions over the past year. He pushed through the new measure following three days of violence left 87 people dead, which Bukele blamed on the dangerous MS-13 gang.
Congress must still approve the extension of the anti-gang measures, but legislators are expected to do that, as they have done a dozen times before.
Under the special powers, the right to association is suspended, and police don’t have to tell someone being arrested the reason, or inform them of their rights. Someone who has been arrested does not have a right to a lawyer and can be held for 15 days without seeing a judge, rather than the previous 72 hours.
Around 2% of the country’s adult population has ended up behind bars as a result of El Salvador’s operations.
Human rights violations?
Various civil and human rights organizations have complained that there have been several thousand human rights violations and close to 100 in-custody deaths of people arrested during the state of exception have occurred Rights activists say young men are frequently arrested just based on their age or appearance, like full body tattoos or whether they live in a gang-dominated barrios.
The United Nations Committee against Torture expressed “deep concern” about what is happening in the country regarding the serious human rights consequences of the measures adopted by the authorities in the framework of the emergency regime. In a report presented that day, the committee lists at least six violations of fundamental rights committed during the emergency regime. President Bukele has paid little attention to these concerns of the international community and has chosen instead to deepen the militarization of security.
Has the gang crackdown reduced crime?
First, let’s take a look at Salvador’s crime stats regarding homicides. According to the Salvadorian government, in 2022 there were approximately 8 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
Since 2015, when it stood at a whopping 103 murders per 100K, the murder rate has been dropping annually in this Central American country. Currently, El Salvador has a lower homicide rate than countries like Honduras, Mexico and Colombia, so from 108 people killed to 8 per 100k inhabitants is a huge improvement.
Additionally, these measures have become widely popular among most Salvadorans. Officials say that since the crackdown began, there have been 200 days with no homicides at all.
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