In order to understand the current state of El Salvador, a brief look at the country’s history is required. El Salvador has historically been notorious for its extreme socio-economic inequality. In the late 19^th century, coffee became a cash crop for El Salvador, bringing in 95% of the country’s income. However this income was only distributed to the wealthiest 2% of its population, exacerbating economic inequality.  Much of modern Salvadoran history is defined by the 12-year civil war (1979-1992) between the military dictatorship government supported by the U.S. and leftist guerilla groups. The civil war was often characterized by the government’s suppression and indiscriminate killings of civilians. This background of war and instability resulted in many fleeing to the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s, some of whom formed gangs in Los Angeles.

MS-13 was originally created to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other preestablished, primarily Mexican gangs in the Los Angeles area. After the end of the civil war in El Salvador in 1992, the U.S. government deported around four-thousand MS-13 members back to El Salvador, moving the gang from a primarily U.S.-based gang to an El Salvador-based gang. The Salvadoran government, weak and instable from the 12-year war, did not have the capability to deal with this influx of organized crime. The four-thousand deportees eventually expanded and gained more than fifty thousand MS-13 members over the course of thirty years.

Since MS-13 was relocated to El Salvador in the 1990s, they began to control and exploit poor communities through extortion and violence. In efforts to rectify this violence, Salvadoran president Francisco Flores implemented La Mano Dura (iron fist) policies in the late 1990s. These policies jailed youth based on their appearance and association with criminal activities, which led to an overflowing of MS-13 population in prisons. These policies had the opposite effect as intended, as the already brittle prison systems were unprepared for the influx of thousands of gang members, leading to violence inside of the prison. Authorities attempted to separate the gangs, but this led to them reorganizing and rebuilding the gang structures from within prison.

In 2012, El Salvador had the highest murder rate in the world. From 2012-2014, the Salvadoran government, Catholic church, and the two most prolific gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18, established a truce. The goal of the truce was to lower the country’s homicide rate and extortion in exchange for improved prison conditions and visitation privileges for gang members already in prison from the previous La Mano Dura policies. The truce had initial success, seeing a 41% decrease in homicides in 2012, from 4,371 homicides in 2011 to 2,576 homicides in 2012. In 2014, the homicide number began to increase to pre-truce levels, and the truce ended.

From 2014 onward, violence and homicides continued, and the government began taking extraordinary measures to combat the country’s gangs. This resulted in the emergence of anti-gang death squads and a conflict that resembled a civil war between the gangs and security forces.

Nayib Bukele, the self-described “world’s coolest dictator”, has been president of El Salvador since 2019, and the country has seen record low homicide levels under his presidency. In March of 2022, the government approved a state of emergency after gangs went on a killing spree on March 26^th, resulting in the single bloodiest day since the country’s civil war.  The state of emergency suspended rights of association and legal counsel, and increased time spent in prison without charge. This led to El Salvador currently having the highest incarceration rate in the world, and as of January 11^th, over 75,000 people have been arrested, leading to overcrowding in prisons. One in every 45 adults is now in prison. According to the country’s security authorities, the homicide rate has dropped nearly 70% during 2023.

Bukele’s crackdown has been immensely popular with the Salvadoran population, earning him an extremely high domestic approval rate and a recent landslide election win. Despite this domestic success, Bukele’s presidency has been internationally criticized as autocratic, and his gang crackdowns have been criticized by human rights groups. Concerns of the country being ran as a police state are becoming common. Soldiers and police routinely imprison citizens off the streets, detaining them indefinitely without a reason or access to a lawyer. There are reports of torture occurring within the prisons, and government critics have claimed they have been threatened with prosecution.

According to an officer who spoke to AP news, “We received specific orders that we in the streets had to arrest a certain number of people, whether they were gangsters or not.” The country’s police union that tracks detentions estimates that one in every six people imprisoned are innocent. Figures from the Human Rights Watch estimate that more than 1,000 children as young as 12 have been detained. According to data from El Salvador’s social services entity, more than 45,100 children have at least one parent detained.

Despite these human rights concerns and outright admittance of his own dictator-style leadership, Bukele has been accepted with open arms by Republicans in the United States and was invited to the Conservative Political Action Conference.  Bukele is generally accepted as a tough on crime, respectable leader responsible for El Salvador’s lowered homicide rate.

From purely looking at the homicide rates, it is easy to assume that the country is in a better position than it was just a few years ago. But as the threat of indiscriminate, indefinite detention becomes a real threat for many Salvadorans, it is clear that the issue is not so easily resolved. The threat of gang violence has been replaced by the threat of indefinite detention by the state.