Salvadoran gang crackdown

The gang crackdown is officially known in El Salvador as the "State of Exception" (). Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele and his government have described the crackdown itself as a "war" () and also refer to it as the "War Against the Gangs" (). == Background ==

Crime in El Salvador For decades, most crime in El Salvador was committed by the country's two largest criminal gangs (also known as ): Mara Salvatrucha (more commonly known as MS-13) and 18th Street gang (Barrio 18). MS-13 was created in Los Angeles by refugees who fled El Salvador in the 1980s due to the civil war that was ongoing at the time; Barrio 18 was created by Mexican immigrants in the 1960s who were not accepted into other Hispanic gangs, and it accepted Hispanics of all nationalities unlike other gangs at the time. These gangs arrived in El Salvador in the 1990s after the United States began deporting refugees back to the country after the civil war's conclusion in 1992. Poverty, a lack of economic opportunities, high urbanization rates, and a lack of government counter-gang measures led to many young Salvadorans joining gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18 engage in several types of crime such as murder, rape, kidnapping, arms trafficking, drug trafficking, intimidation, robbery, vehicular theft, and extortion. Both gangs divided El Salvador into territories, and by 2016, they had a presence in 247 of El Salvador's 262 municipalities. That year, the Supreme Court of Justice designated both MS-13 and Barrio 18 as terrorist organizations. According to the Salvadoran government, there were around 80,000 gang members by April 2022. According to the Police Information System (SIP), a database utilized by the National Civil Police (PNC) to monitor gang activity, there were an estimated 120,000 gang members in El Salvador by August 2023. The SIP divides gang members into three categories: "homeboys" (full members), "" (aspiring members), and collaborators, with most members being homeboys or collaborators. and announced his "Territorial Control Plan" which sought to crack down on gang violence and improve security within the country. Actions taken by the country's security forces included the increase of military and police presence in specific municipalities where gang influence was significant, instituting lockdowns in prisons by confining prisoners to their cells and severing cell phone service in prisons, and improving the equipment and technology used by the National Civil Police (PNC) and the Salvadoran Army. In 2021, the homicide rate reached the lowest it has been since the Salvadoran Civil War ended in 1992, with 18 homicides per 100,000 people. Bukele attributed this decline to his policies, Bukele enjoys an extremely high approval rating of approximately 85%, In December 2021, the United States government accused Bukele of negotiating a secret agreement with the gangs, reducing violence in return for financial and prison benefits. Additionally, the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned two Salvadoran officials it claimed conducted the talks. Bukele called the accusations of making a deal a "lie" His government published photographs of inmates being rounded up on the prison floor in cramped conditions. Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized the government's actions as a violation of human rights and that it gave no consideration to the COVID-19 pandemic. including 62 people on Saturday alone, The government blamed the violence on Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). William Eulises Soriano Herrera, a member of Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party, suggested the spike in violence was retaliation for the government's seizing control of two bus routes in the capital, which gangs often extort for revenue; according to José Miguel Cruz, a research director at Florida International University, the gangs may have been sending a message to the government to try to obtain better terms. == Government crackdown ==

during the crackdown during the crackdown During an extraordinary session early on 27 March 2022, the Legislative Assembly approved a "state of exception". The order, which was initially set to last thirty days but has been extended 50 times, Members of Nuevas Ideas passed new rules that increase prison sentences for convicted gang lords to forty to forty-five years (previously six to nine) and twenty to thirty years for other members (previously three to five) They also passed a law that threatens anyone who reproduces or disseminates messages from gangs, including news media, with ten to fifteen years in prison. The government deployed additional police and military forces, raiding houses and creating checkpoints surrounding neighborhoods with known gang presences. The prison, known as the Terrorism Confinement Center and located in Tecoluca, opened on 31 January 2023. Bukele compared the removal of the tombstones of gang members to denazification in Allied-occupied Germany and also compared the gangs to the Nazis themselves. He also stated that the government policy is only aimed at gravestones that mention gang affiliation. The government initiated a siege of the city of Soyapango on 3 December 2022 when 10,000 soldiers were sent to surround the city and arrest gang members. The government erased gang graffiti from the city during the siege. , the state of exception has been extended 50 times by the Legislative Assembly. == Reactions ==

Domestic response Domestically, the crackdown is popular. Many Salvadorans explained that they were weary of violence, and many Salvadorans living in the United States supported the crackdown. Archbishop of San Salvador José Luis Escobar Alas voiced his open support for the crackdown in July 2022. In general, the people living in El Salvador consider the atmosphere in the neighborhoods to be much safer, with citizens and observers saying they feel far more free to do what would have been previously considered unthinkable, with journalist Ioan Grillo writing "I have interviewed dozens of gang members in visits over the years; you could often find them openly hanging out in the centre of neighbourhoods. But since the state of emergency, their presence has been greatly reduced: Maras are largely in prison, have fled, or are underground". Similarly, Mary Speck has observed that the criminal gangs have "largely disappeared" from San Salvador because of which vendors, shop owners, drivers and pedestrians no longer have to pay gang members and that residents of a particular block dominated by a gang "no longer fear violent reprisals if they cross into another gang’s territory". However, the incidents of innocent people getting caught up in the crackdown have remained a significant concern about the war against the gangs, with the families of some of those arrested in the crackdown saying that their family members were arrested on the basis of poor evidence and an advocacy group for such people called "Victims of the Regime Movement" being founded. United States response The United States Institute of Peace observed that while the control asserted by the gangs in El Salvador had indeed been greatly diminished, if not destroyed, the government would still need to formulate a plan for transitioning out of the state of exception and figure out what to do with those arrested. It also mentioned the need for the government to step in and use the newly regained control over the gangs to prevent more people from becoming gang members and replacing the present gang members who have been sent to jail. Veronica Reyna, a researcher from El Salvador, was quoted as saying, “The gangs exercised control because no one else would. If the state doesn’t fill this vacuum, not just with police but education and other services, other criminal groups will step in." The state of exception is expected to continue until the March 2024 general elections, after which anti-crime measures addressing causes like education and underdevelopment are expected. An unnamed security expert was quoted as saying, “They know they can’t simply fill up the jails. After the elections, they can start looking at rehabilitation and community engagement." So far, the government has promised to deal with these issues with initiatives such as Mi Nueva Escuela (My New School), which aims to improve the educational situation through curriculum reform, teacher training, arrangement of quality didactic, technological, health, and nutritional facilities, as well as the remodeling of more than 5,000 schools over the next five years. Additionally, CUBOs (Urban Centers) aims to provide impoverished youths with safe spaces and has already been launched. One thousand schools are expected to be rebuilt by September 2023 under Mi Nueva Escuela, while 11 transparent, cube-shaped urban centers in poor communities, offering young people academic support, athletic activities, and art or language classes with access to computers, a library with cozy cushions for reading, and adult supervision have already been built as of May 2023. While these initiatives have been appreciated, activists feel that more work is required as children in some areas still lack access to schools. Conservatives, including those belonging to U.S. Republican Party circles have also talked about the crackdown in a positive manner. In a tweet on 10 April 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken "condemn[ed]" the increase in gang violence in El Salvador and "urge[d]" the government to respect due process and civil liberties. The same day, State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted affirming that the United States "continues to support El Salvador" against gangs while urging it to protect its citizens and their civil liberties. The next day, Bukele responded that United States' support against Salvadoran gangs had come under the Trump administration, citing the withdrawal of American aid from the National Civil Police and Institute for Access to Public Information four months into the Biden administration, and saying that the United States now only supported the civil liberties of gangs. Honduras later temporarily intensified its crackdown in June 2023 with a prison sweep after a gang massacre inside a prison. Former Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso have also expressed their views about the crackdown. 2023 Ecuadorian general election candidate Jan Topíc has also styled himself as a Bukele-like political figure in his campaign aiming to fight crime with a hard hand, earning him the nickname "Ecuadorian Bukele". Although the other Ecuadorian candidates have also talked about dealing with crime with ruthless measures as a key priority, he and former Vice President Otto Sonnenholzner are the only candidates who have tried to imitate Bukele's image to varying degrees. Ecuador has seen a major increase in organized crime in the past two years. Daniel Quintero, the mayor of Medellín in Colombia, has also announced that he would be opening a prison in a similar style to the mega­prisons run in El Salvador. Other Colombian politicians have also demanded similar security policies. On the other hand, Colombian President Gustavo Petro criticized the crackdown, drawing rebuke from Bukele. The crackdown has been extremely popular in neighboring Honduras and Guatemala, where some groups have even organized parades demanding similar policies. It has also been a point of debate and curiosity in Mexico and in Chile, where crime rates have recently surged. Allegations of serious human rights abuses Human rights advocates have criticized the arrests as often arbitrary, based on a person's appearance or residence, and expressed concern that innocent people are being caught in the sweeps. and Salvadoran Defense Minister René Merino Monroy stated that arrested persons found to have no links to gangs would be freed, saying that "the people need to know that if they're not involved in anything bad, nothing bad will happen to them." Human Rights Watch criticized the government's policy as "first arrest, then tweet, and investigate later", referencing Salvadoran police's tweets depicting people's arrests. Human rights groups have also expressed concern that the arrests have little to do with gang violence, suggesting Bukele will use them to consolidate power and target critics. In May 2025, Cristosal lawyer Ruth López was arrested. By July 2025, Cristosal was reporting 427 deaths in Salvadoran prisons. The organization had to evacuate its staff from El Salvador amid increasing threats of repression by the government. == See also ==