Crime Prevention: The Case Of El Salvador (Part I and II)

Written by Anne HEATHER

Part I

 15/03/2024

Being in a state of civil war for 13 years, El Salvador saw its population divided into two opposing camps that used any method to spread their influence as the active fighting ceased. It would seem that the signing of a peace treaty between the armed opposition and the incumbent government at Chapultepec in 1992 would resolve the problems, at least partially. But in reality, the country was divided between El Salvador’s Nationalist Republican Alliance and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front.

Both parties actively recruited associates from the criminal world who provided them with solid support. As a result, according to the InSight Crime International Association, El Salvador had become the most dangerous state in Latin America by 2014. The number of homicides approached 4,000 per year, which, given the population of 6.2 million, is extremely high. How did the authorities in El Salvador manage to overcome crime and become one of the safest nations in Latin America?

El Salvador’s current President, Nayib Bukele, who is credited with freeing the country from crime, began his political career back in 2012 when he took office as mayor of the small municipality of Nuevo Cuscatlán in the department of La Libertad. His results were stunning: the municipality became one of the safest places in the country within a couple of years. Due to this, his career went skyrocketing. Just 3 years after his victory in Nuevo Cuscatlán, he was elected mayor of El Salvador’s capital from the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front.

Since 2015, he has initiated programs to expand the electrical grid in the capital, light the streets, found sponsors to build socially important infrastructure, and renewed the look of San Salvador’s historic downtown. Riding the wave of success, he was not afraid to declare his intention to run for President, and won the election in 2019, at the age of 37, emerging as the youngest president in his country’s history.

Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador

Claiming the fight against crime as the crucial task of his first presidential term, he proposed the “Territorial Control Plan.” This plan included 7 different phases that, if implemented, could, in theory, reduce crime in the country. First and foremost, the plan placed increased emphasis on toughening the criminal code, increasing the number of police and military personnel, and re-equipping the armed forces. However, it also addressed social issues: schools were opened, and various employment programs for young people were introduced. Bukele assumed that the spread of education and the opportunity for the younger generation to find employment could be factors that would significantly reduce the number of people joining criminal gangs. And the plan worked!

Nayib Bukele left the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, which opposed his initiatives, and formed his own party, New Ideas so that he could implement his vision in the shortest possible time, which was essential in the fight against criminal clans. Party candidates for the Parliament received the support of the people, and the President got himself a loyal legislature. Nayib Bukele finally consolidated his power after he appointed his proxies to the country’s Supreme Court to replace those who opposed his policies.

By early 2022, Nayib Bukele essentially held all three branches of government in the country in his hands. This gave him the opportunity to adopt tougher policies against criminal gangs when it appeared that flexible measures to suppress criminal gangs required too many resources and were not always respected. Which flexibilities are we talking about? The fact is that, while consolidating his own power, the President has not forgotten the campaign promises he made to the Salvadoran people.

With limited options at the time of his election, he repeatedly negotiated with the leaders of El Salvador’s most powerful criminal organizations, Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio-18. The meetings took place inside tightly guarded prisons, and, at first, the agreements reached were respected. Gang members serving time in maximum security prisons were guaranteed improved conditions and the possibility of legal employment upon release. However, the situation took a turn after members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang broke the agreements and massacred major cities in El Salvador. There were 87 dead, many more were injured, and worst of all, there were almost no security officers among the victims. They were mostly civilians, including children and women.

The terrorists’ actions finally gave a free hand to the President, who, over the past few years, had significantly consolidated his power in the country and had the opportunity to proceed to an active phase of the fight against crime. Immediately after the attack by the Mara Salvatrucha group, Nayib Bukele declared a state of emergency across the country and declared that “the elimination of gangs is the mission of his Presidency.” The introduction of the state of emergency suspended some constitutional guarantees, greatly expanding the authority of law enforcement agencies: from now on, representatives of the country’s law enforcement agencies could detain a person without a warrant, and the administrative detention was increased to 15 days.

Restrictions have also affected freedom of the press and movement. Meanwhile, the President initiated the adoption of a law, which was smoothly approved by the Parliament loyal to him. The law introduced significant changes to El Salvador’s penal code, increasing prison sentences for gang members to 45 years, deploying armed forces in the country’s largest cities, and initiating mass detentions of people to check their affinity with criminal groups. The state of emergency regime imposed in the country was extended monthly by the Parliament, which by that time had long been in the hands of people loyal to the President. This extreme monopolization of power allowed him to use the state of emergency regime as an institutional framework to fight against El Salvador’s criminal underworld

Source: https://orientalreview.su/2024/03/15/crime-prevention-the-case-of-el-salvador-i/

Crime Prevention: The Case of El Salvador (II)

Part II

20/03/2024

After the President’s war with El Salvador’s criminal gangs began, the need arose for prisons that could house tens of thousands of people. As early as in February 2023, Nayib Bukele launched his pride and joy, the largest prison in the region, the “Terrorism Confinement Center,” where up to 40000 inmates could be detained. The prison is surrounded by a two-kilometer long and 11-meter high wall equipped with every advanced development to control the prisoners. The authorities claimed that more than 61,000 people were detained during the state of emergency, of whom only 3,000 were acquitted by the court.

As a result of these actions, El Salvador has become the country with the highest prison population in the world. There is one prisoner for every 50 people in the country. It would seem that maintaining such a large number of prisoners should have imposed the heaviest burden on the country’s budget system. But the President found a way out of this: he made the families of prisoners buy necessities and food for the detainees. Smart, isn’t it? Though it goes against all basic notions of democracy and law. The payment to the state from the families of prisoners is $170 a month. According to reports, the country’s budget receives an additional 17 million dollars a month from these payments.

As a result, El Salvador has gone from having the highest crime rate in the world to a model police state. After the 17 months of state of emergency in the country, crime rates dropped tenfold. The murder rate dropped to 2.2 per 100,000 people, a record for this country. However, this model of a police state has its downside: abuse of power by law enforcement agencies, which have acquired virtually unlimited powers; mass detentions; overcrowded prisons; and harsh conditions in penal institutions. Western media regularly publish stories that directly or indirectly allude to regular human rights violations by the Salvadoran authorities.

Despite regular human rights violations, the President of El Salvador enjoys incredible public support. In the summer of 2023, six months after the opening of the above mentioned prison, his popularity rating peaked with 93% of the country’s population approving of Nayib Bukele. It is understandable: the inhabitants of the country, subjected to terror by bandit groups for decades, have felt a breath of fresh air in the form of the policy pursued by the current President. Human rights violations do not bother them.

It is a point of discussion in the West, where the problems are much less than in El Salvador, but when you cannot walk the street without running the risk of being murdered by the first person you meet, you begin to perceive Western institutions in a completely different way, because safety and preservation of life are more important than anyone’s rights. Nayib Bukele has taken advantage of the status quo in the country to unite with the community and thereby convert public confidence into a political course that is consolidating as the influence of the underworld on the lives of ordinary citizens wanes.

The President’s popularity can also be attributed to the fact that he is a young, energetic, and charismatic leader who is not afraid of the mafia, that oppressed El Salvador for decades. He is not afraid to use unconventional solutions in his domestic politics. For example, it was under his direct leadership that bitcoin became a legal tender in the country. It was he who followed Donald Trump’s example and began using social network X as his primary means of communicating directly with the Salvadoran voters. He has positioned himself as a politician who is far removed from the former elites, so he is able to claim that he is far removed from the underworld. These are not just words: when he came to power, it was his New Ideas party that destroyed the traditional two-party system that had flourished for the past 25 years and was closely linked to the criminal world.

Western media often criticize the young politician and claim that he has concentrated too much power in his hands in a very short period. The term “punitive populism” is often used about Bukele, which fits very organically with the measures his government has taken. On the one hand, he uses punitive measures so harsh that they are something out of the ordinary even by the standards of Latin America, which is widely known for its harsh, if not brutal, approach to combating the criminal world. On the other hand, he uses modern methods of communication with the voter, who, thanks to this, has a feeling of “direct contact” with the highest echelons of power in his country. Unique, isn’t it?

The strategy and tactics chosen by President Bukele have seen people of other Latin American countries also expressing their support for him as a benchmark in the fight against crime. People even began to demand similar methods of fighting the underworld from their heads of state. In Honduras, for example, the President had declared a state of emergency to combat rampant gang violence, following the example of El Salvador, which had an extremely positive impact. However, it went no further than that.

What makes the “Bukele model” unique is that it is not replicable and is a confluence of several factors. Attempts to fully replicate it in other Latin American countries will not succeed. Several factors came together here: the personality of the President, public dissatisfaction with the ruling class, the dominance of the criminal underworld in El Salvador, and, finally, the strategy, which has been extremely effective.

Source: https://orientalreview.su/2024/03/20/crime-prevention-the-case-of-el-salvador-ii/