The Growing Carceral State in El Salvador: How did we get here?
The number of incarcerated persons in El Salvador triples to 1.6% of its total 6.3 million population in just two years.
President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele has become notorious for his mano dura or “iron fist” policies against crime and specifically his crackdown on illicit gang activity targeting two of the most prolific and active gangs in El Salvador: Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 (18th Street). In what used to be the murder capital of the world, Bukele has cut homicides by 92% in the last two years and earned himself a 90% approval rate from the Salvadoran population. In a state where crime rates have been endemic, Bukele obliterated them. The answer to how he did it: mass incarceration.
Between March 22-27, 2022, a record 92 people were reported to have been killed, allegedly by gangs. In response, Bukele instituted a “state of exception” which restricted civil liberties of citizens to permit for mass arrests and detention of those thought to be associated with gang activity. Some of these restrictions included the loss of due process, increased government surveillance, arrests without warrants, and not allowing detainees access to legal representation. The idea was to allow for this short-term reduction in civil liberties in order to allow for the Salvadoran government to combat the urgent state of violent gang activity. However, this “state of exception” was set to last for one month and now, almost two years later, the very same mandate remains.
The result has been more than 66,000 arrests and a total incarceration rate of nearly 1.6% of El Salvador’s 6.3 million population. This places El Salvador as having three times the incarceration rate of the United States and the highest incarceration rate in the world. These prisons have also been highly criticised by international organizations for their routine violation of human rights. They are known for torture and abuse towards inmates, and even cause the deaths of many of the incarcerated. In July of this year, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released the statistics of an estimated 174 deaths of inmates in custody, as well as nearly 74,000 documented human rights abuses.
Salvadoran officials are arresting and detaining anyone that is thought to be affiliated with clandestine gang activity in any way. Often these arrests are done so under dubious pretences with little to no concrete evidence. Something as simple as wearing colours representative of local gangs or having tattoos that might resemble gang symbols are cause for arrest under pretences of perceived gang affiliation. Many of those who are arrested are held in detention indefinitely with no set date for their trial. This has led to massive overcrowding in Salvadoran prisons that were never meant to carry such a robust capacity of inmates.
Bukele’s solution to this overcrowding has been the construction of a new maximum security mega-prison in the department of San Vicente in El Salvador. The Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or Center for Terrorism Confinement, has been designed to hold up to 40,000 inmates and Bukele has deemed it integral to his war against gangs.
In another effort to reduce this overcrowding, El Salvador passed a legal reform that allowed for mass trials of persons charged with involvement in gang activity in July 2023. Although mass trials occurred well before this official legal reform, the formalized provision allows for mass hearings of up to 900 inmates at once. The rhetoric behind such a decision from Salvadoran officials is that it will allow for the timely prosecution of criminal activity, but experts advise on the unethical nature of mass hearings and how it impedes the ability for fair trials. “The prolonged state of emergency, together with legislation allowing for greater surveillance, broader prosecution, and faster determination of guilt and sentencing, carries the risk of mass violations of the right to a fair trial,” the experts said in a UN press release. “Those caught up in the Government's dragnet in El Salvador must be given their rights.”
This push for the mass detention of anyone thought to be affiliated with gangs has also had an unforeseen impact on the victims of gang activity. Oftentimes those associated with marreros, or gang members, have done so through coercion or threat of harm. This is especially true with young women and girls who are often coerced into relationships with marreros and then become forever marked as property of that gang. Within the prevailing gang culture in El Salvador, this view, by extension, also applies to any offspring that woman may produce with a marrero.
As a result of this, often involuntary association, many women and children have also been victims to Bukele’s mass incarcerations practices and find themselves imprisoned alongside those who had originally victimised them. In this sense, Bukele’s mano dura policies are negatively impacting victims of gang violence and they are being punished by the very policies they are being told are meant to protect them.
Despite criticism from human rights groups and international counterparts, Bukele’s mano dura policies have been widely praised by Salvadorans as the solution to reduce gang activity in the area. His policies have been so popular that he has chosen to run for re-election in the Salvadoran elections that will occur in February and March of 2024.
Arrested gang members in custody during the Salvadoran gang crackdown (2022)
Image (top) courtesy of Casa Presidencial via Wikimedia, ©2023 (top) and La Prensa Gráfica via Wikimedia, ©2022 (bottom). Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
