From 2021 to 2024, the homicide rate in El Salvador decreased by 10 times [1]. Sure, torture is terrible in El Salvador's prison, as it is in Guantánamo's "prison", but public safety is the number one priority for any government, without safety any other achievement for a country is impossible.
I am very skeptical. The state said that they have solved the gang problem by putting “gangsters” in prisons like this (frequently, without due process as we have seen).
I think it’s far more likely that the state in El Salvador is structured like a gang, and the level of violence is the same as it ever was.
As arrests go up, crime should go down; whose left to commit crimes?
It doesn't mean everybody being arrested is guilty but if you have a say 20% accurate arrest rate and you run it over the entire population you're going to remove a large amount of criminals. Not a great way to live in general, but would lower crime outside of a jail.
I don't think anyone is complaining about putting those gang members in prison. The problem is the torture, not the imprisonment. Torture is simply not acceptable, and creating a society where such sadism is considered acceptable, is not going to give you a peaceful society in the long run.
This could also be due to the agreements Bukele reached with the MS-13 gang in 2020 [0]. Keep in mind this story came out over 4 years before the prison's existence was politicized in the US.
Yep, a Government should never do what Criminals/Terrorist do, for example the death sentence, let prisoner being raped by others(unofficial-torture), official-torture in Guantanamo or targeted killings, the US that is.
This is lying with data, giving Bukele credit for sociological factors that predate his administration:
Year Rate Total
2015 106.3 6,656
2016 84.1 5,269
2017 83.0 3,962
2018 53.1 3,346
2019 38.0 2,398 [Bukele’s inauguration]
2020 21.2 1,341
2021 18.1 1,147
2022 7.8 495 [start of gang crackdown]
2023 2.4 154
2024 1.9 114
Genuinely infuriating that you crow about the “10x” drop of 1100->150 homicides, rooting for mass incarceration and excusing torture, when homicides were plummeting drastically for nearly a decade before the crackdown. He had nothing to do with the 6,600->3,300 drop, but I guess according to your math that’s merely halving.
I have to respectfully disagree. My behaviour and precautions are the same at 6k or 3k homicides a year because both are extremely terrible. Its also way easier to drop that large number because there will be glaringly obvious things to do that will have big effects. That last drop from 18 to 2 will be far harder, this is pretty much universally true for all changes like this. Its also the biggest life improvement for people there. at 18 you still need decent precautions. At 2 you dont really
You know that Trump administration is paying millions of dollars to imprison some hundred persons there without due process, right? And is looking into expanding this right now:
There is a reason he is the most popular politician. He has over a 90% approval rating. People don't care about the violation of rights of gang members when the alternative is having their family murdered and raped.
Who the fuck knows how popular an authoritarian politician actually is?
> While polling consistently shows that Bukele is quite popular in El Salvador, surveys also show a steady increase in fear of public criticism of the government — to degrees that sometimes match the president’s approval rating. 'There’s a sector of the population that feels better, because it’s true that we perceive more security, we’re no longer afraid of the gangs. Now we’re afraid of the regime,' says Ramirez. 'We see soldiers everywhere, police everywhere, patrol cars, and they’re arresting people.'"
>This is a deeply anti-American, authoritarian sentiment.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin
Are you talking about Guantanamo or El Salvador? Because in El Salvador civilians had neither Liberty (not wander the street without fear) nor Safety (been shot).
Also i don't know why El Salvador should use the US or Franklin as a template.
However the US still has the Patriot Act, attacked Iraq and gained no Liberty nor Safety out of it.
Pre-Bukele, El Salvador had a breakdown in civil society. Focusing just on homicide, it peaked at 106.3 homicides per 100k in 2015. For context, the "crime wave" America experienced in the 90s peaked at 9.82.
The April 24-27 2020 murder spree by gangs killed 77 people in a country of 6.3 million. Again, scaled to America's population, that's killing 4.1k people.
Can you explain this quote, because it feels to me like it’s the exact opposite of what standard government practice would dictate?
Everyone in a country with government gives up part of their natural liberties in order to form said government and create a civilized (safer) society. That’s the philosophy of government.
Perhaps there is something to be argued here about “essential” liberty, or “little temporary” safety, but the core idea seems nonsensical, especially in the context of a person not deserving essential properties of life because of a bad choice.
Completely destroying the local economy, severing ties with other countries, and irrational isolationism are, in fact, on the roadmap to complete dictatorship.
How can we even know ends or means if the government or whatever cult/cartel/corp/warlord can dictate what information is released and what you know? Those who try to tell the truth are labeled "violent gangsters" and dealt with by the "justified means", whatever that is.
Objectively "the ends justify the means" is BS. I'm not saying you don't have the right to believe in it, you do, but in order to prove your worth, I want to see you with a camera inside one of those prisons 24x7 for a couple of months at least.
I work with plenty of people covered in tattoos that aren't criminals nor gang members. Also most people I would rather the guilty go free than an innocent be punished. Thats why we have a justice system where you are guaranteed legal representation and are innocent untilled proven guilty in a court of law before a jury of your peers. As such none of these men are guilty and we have violated their rights sending them there. If you skip the trial you have just allowed whoever is in power to imprison anyone they want without cause on their accusations only.
>> Thousands of innocents are jailed in there.
> Maybe, maybe not.
If "Maybe guilty" is grounds for punishment, it can excuse any atrocity, including genocide.
> But definitely better than ~10000 killed in the meantime, the statistics speak for themselves.
Once "Maybe guilty" is a proof of guilt, no information coming from that place can be trusted, numbers mean nothing there, all claims ring hollow because loosely justified violence can silence the truth tellers.
It's weird to have to explain this on a US-hosted site, there is a reason the US Constitution is the way it is and the current efforts to circumvent it can lead to only one result - turning the US into another El Salvador...
How about the non-offenders we deported there this very month who received no process in this country and whom the government has now been forced to admit or accidentally sent there?
You mean just like the criminals didn't feel compassion for their victims? Oh, but these guys are guilty those victims of criminals were innocent i hear u say.
Not everyone in those prisons are guilty. Collateral damage i hear u say. The price of safety?
"The iron hand crush'd the Tyrant's head
And became a Tyrant in his stead."
-Willian Blake
Apparently, Blackstone's Formulation[0] doesn't resonate with some folks.
Nor does Niemoller's plaintive cry[1]. It kind of makes you wonder what sort of world those folks want to live in since they don't seem to be living in the real world.
And if the consequences for everyone weren't so dire, it might be instructive for those folks to end up with the pointy end of the stick for which they're advocating.
> Apparently, Blackstone's Formulation[0] doesn't resonate with some folks.
We have some truly Authoritarian, anti-American forces in American politics today. The "tough on crime" crowd doesn't agree with that formulation, especially if the right people suffer.
From 2021 to 2024, the homicide rate in El Salvador decreased by 10 times [1]. Sure, torture is terrible in El Salvador's prison, as it is in Guantánamo's "prison", but public safety is the number one priority for any government, without safety any other achievement for a country is impossible.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_El_Salvador
Why would you trust these statistics?
I am very skeptical. The state said that they have solved the gang problem by putting “gangsters” in prisons like this (frequently, without due process as we have seen).
I think it’s far more likely that the state in El Salvador is structured like a gang, and the level of violence is the same as it ever was.
>Why would you trust these statistics?
Because i would think the Associated press makes a more or less professional job:
https://apnews.com/article/el-salvador-homicides-gangs-bukel...
And the approval rating:
~91%
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1264586/approval-salvado...
But maybe you have better data to counter that?
As arrests go up, crime should go down; whose left to commit crimes?
It doesn't mean everybody being arrested is guilty but if you have a say 20% accurate arrest rate and you run it over the entire population you're going to remove a large amount of criminals. Not a great way to live in general, but would lower crime outside of a jail.
Sounds exactly like the lies Russia presents.
I don't think anyone is complaining about putting those gang members in prison. The problem is the torture, not the imprisonment. Torture is simply not acceptable, and creating a society where such sadism is considered acceptable, is not going to give you a peaceful society in the long run.
This could also be due to the agreements Bukele reached with the MS-13 gang in 2020 [0]. Keep in mind this story came out over 4 years before the prison's existence was politicized in the US.
[0] https://elfaro.net/en/202009/el_salvador/24785/Bukele-Has-Be...
Yep, a Government should never do what Criminals/Terrorist do, for example the death sentence, let prisoner being raped by others(unofficial-torture), official-torture in Guantanamo or targeted killings, the US that is.
This is lying with data, giving Bukele credit for sociological factors that predate his administration:
Genuinely infuriating that you crow about the “10x” drop of 1100->150 homicides, rooting for mass incarceration and excusing torture, when homicides were plummeting drastically for nearly a decade before the crackdown. He had nothing to do with the 6,600->3,300 drop, but I guess according to your math that’s merely halving.I have to respectfully disagree. My behaviour and precautions are the same at 6k or 3k homicides a year because both are extremely terrible. Its also way easier to drop that large number because there will be glaringly obvious things to do that will have big effects. That last drop from 18 to 2 will be far harder, this is pretty much universally true for all changes like this. Its also the biggest life improvement for people there. at 18 you still need decent precautions. At 2 you dont really
2021 18.1 1,147 2022 7.8 495 [start of gang crackdown] 2023 2.4 154 2024 1.9 114
18.1 to 1.9 ...that is a 10x drop.
You know that Trump administration is paying millions of dollars to imprison some hundred persons there without due process, right? And is looking into expanding this right now:
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trump-wants-deport-so...
>You know that Trump administration is paying millions of dollars
Billions would be better for El Salvador. But that's a "you" problem, I'm not you.
There is a reason he is the most popular politician. He has over a 90% approval rating. People don't care about the violation of rights of gang members when the alternative is having their family murdered and raped.
Who the fuck knows how popular an authoritarian politician actually is?
> While polling consistently shows that Bukele is quite popular in El Salvador, surveys also show a steady increase in fear of public criticism of the government — to degrees that sometimes match the president’s approval rating. 'There’s a sector of the population that feels better, because it’s true that we perceive more security, we’re no longer afraid of the gangs. Now we’re afraid of the regime,' says Ramirez. 'We see soldiers everywhere, police everywhere, patrol cars, and they’re arresting people.'"
Putin also boasts a very high approval rating.
Arresting every man in the country would plummet public safety issues in the US.
I propose we do this.
This is a deeply anti-American, authoritarian sentiment.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin
>This is a deeply anti-American, authoritarian sentiment. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin
Are you talking about Guantanamo or El Salvador? Because in El Salvador civilians had neither Liberty (not wander the street without fear) nor Safety (been shot).
Also i don't know why El Salvador should use the US or Franklin as a template.
However the US still has the Patriot Act, attacked Iraq and gained no Liberty nor Safety out of it.
Pre-Bukele, El Salvador had a breakdown in civil society. Focusing just on homicide, it peaked at 106.3 homicides per 100k in 2015. For context, the "crime wave" America experienced in the 90s peaked at 9.82.
The April 24-27 2020 murder spree by gangs killed 77 people in a country of 6.3 million. Again, scaled to America's population, that's killing 4.1k people.
El Salvador... is not America.
How would you compare torture to civil war AKA mass murder?
Can you explain this quote, because it feels to me like it’s the exact opposite of what standard government practice would dictate?
Everyone in a country with government gives up part of their natural liberties in order to form said government and create a civilized (safer) society. That’s the philosophy of government.
Perhaps there is something to be argued here about “essential” liberty, or “little temporary” safety, but the core idea seems nonsensical, especially in the context of a person not deserving essential properties of life because of a bad choice.
[dead]
Handy that's outside US and not their responsibility. Remember that Auschwitz was also outside Germany.
[flagged]
He also loved dogs and was a vegan, but it is completely off topic.
Dogs and dietary habits are not on the roadmap to complete dictatorship so they’re irrelevant.
Completely destroying the local economy, severing ties with other countries, and irrational isolationism are, in fact, on the roadmap to complete dictatorship.
Yes we’re saying the same thing.
I know. HN doesn’t do subtlety, hence I felt the need to spell it out. Even at that, we have the “how are tariffs related to authoritarianism” stuff.
How are tarrifs relevant?
It is a concentration camp, not a prison.
N.B: From 2023. Title was already too long to add the date.
Original title:
Inmates in El Salvador tortured and strangled: A report denounces hellish conditions in Bukele’s prisons
The cruelty is the point.
[flagged]
Without fair trial there is no proof they are associated with gangs and violence. Thousands of innocents are jailed in there.
https://www.rfi.fr/es/programas/noticias-de-am%C3%A9rica/202...
The ends justify the means?
How can we even know ends or means if the government or whatever cult/cartel/corp/warlord can dictate what information is released and what you know? Those who try to tell the truth are labeled "violent gangsters" and dealt with by the "justified means", whatever that is.
Objectively "the ends justify the means" is BS. I'm not saying you don't have the right to believe in it, you do, but in order to prove your worth, I want to see you with a camera inside one of those prisons 24x7 for a couple of months at least.
>no proof they are associated with gangs and violence
Look at the picture in your linked article, who are you trying to confuse?
>Thousands of innocents are jailed in there.
Maybe, maybe not. But definitely better than ~10000 killed in the meantime, the statistics speak for themselves.
I work with plenty of people covered in tattoos that aren't criminals nor gang members. Also most people I would rather the guilty go free than an innocent be punished. Thats why we have a justice system where you are guaranteed legal representation and are innocent untilled proven guilty in a court of law before a jury of your peers. As such none of these men are guilty and we have violated their rights sending them there. If you skip the trial you have just allowed whoever is in power to imprison anyone they want without cause on their accusations only.
>I work with plenty of people covered in tattoos that aren't criminals nor gang members.
And when they have MS13 tattoos like exactly in that picture? Still no connection to a Gang?
And yes i know Popeye was NOT a Criminal.
> And when they have MS13 tattoos like exactly in that picture? Still no connection to a Gang?
"Pledge your allegiance to our gang and get a tattoo or we'll murder your family."
Is that the connection you're looking for?
>>"Pledge your allegiance to our gang and get a tattoo or we'll murder your family."
>Is that the connection you're looking for?
That's what Hitler, Mao and Stalin said, and now you have three choices....
Do you work with people with generic tattoos or with gang tattoos?
>> Thousands of innocents are jailed in there. > Maybe, maybe not.
If "Maybe guilty" is grounds for punishment, it can excuse any atrocity, including genocide.
> But definitely better than ~10000 killed in the meantime, the statistics speak for themselves.
Once "Maybe guilty" is a proof of guilt, no information coming from that place can be trusted, numbers mean nothing there, all claims ring hollow because loosely justified violence can silence the truth tellers.
It's weird to have to explain this on a US-hosted site, there is a reason the US Constitution is the way it is and the current efforts to circumvent it can lead to only one result - turning the US into another El Salvador...
How about the non-offenders we deported there this very month who received no process in this country and whom the government has now been forced to admit or accidentally sent there?
You mean just like the criminals didn't feel compassion for their victims? Oh, but these guys are guilty those victims of criminals were innocent i hear u say.
Not everyone in those prisons are guilty. Collateral damage i hear u say. The price of safety?
"The iron hand crush'd the Tyrant's head And became a Tyrant in his stead." -Willian Blake
Apparently, Blackstone's Formulation[0] doesn't resonate with some folks.
Nor does Niemoller's plaintive cry[1]. It kind of makes you wonder what sort of world those folks want to live in since they don't seem to be living in the real world.
And if the consequences for everyone weren't so dire, it might be instructive for those folks to end up with the pointy end of the stick for which they're advocating.
And more's the pity.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone's_ratio
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came
> Apparently, Blackstone's Formulation[0] doesn't resonate with some folks.
We have some truly Authoritarian, anti-American forces in American politics today. The "tough on crime" crowd doesn't agree with that formulation, especially if the right people suffer.