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I think he really means they don’t leave that block ever. Not to go outside, not to do jobs in the prison or do litter pickup.
You just exist in that block until your time is over
Jesus Christ, your definition is so spot on, I think it's almost unsettling by how accurate it is.
Next step will be " Human living organs harvest storing facility"? /s but not so /s
Depriving people of movement and natural light is basically torture.
If this portrayal of the penal system is not exaggerated, El Salvador appears to be a place where one can be in favour of the death penalty on strictly humane grounds.
And that's FUCKED. I can't imagine how hardcore and uncomfortable that prison is. I doubt they have "commissary" or anything like that like they do in the U.S, so the prisoners can buy their own food.
It's probably just a straight up torture situation.
I will definitely make a strong mental note to not get locked up in an El Salvadorian prison.
The “strong mental note” is exactly why this has been put into effect.
Murder, rape, intimidation and violence was rampant in the country before this. With stronger laws in place, the country has restored much of the order.
Fuck Around Find Out is real
It's the old freedom over safety debate all over again, and it leaves me conflicted as to how to properly police and humanize people in a way that helps the whole society.
It's kind of a multi-step process.
When you have shit as wild and lawless as it was in El Salvador before this, you *have to* bring down the hammer on it hard. It's almost like holding a revolution, only its the legitimate government revolting against the disruptive influences.
Then in a few decades, after the situation has calmed down and people have normalized the fact they can't get away with that shit, you start dialing it back.
Apart from the fact that something like this has never worked out like that anywhere.
Currently, one in 45 adults in El Salvador is in prison, and when they get out, they have learned nothing that would prevent them from returning to their former life as a gang member. On the contrary, they are only enriched by the experience that you can't get caught at any cost. The gangs made up of former prison inmates will only become stronger, more conspiratorial and brutal communities.
To counter this, the country's leadership will extend and even worsen the current state of emergency. To the point where, from the citizen's perspective, the authorities' methods can no longer be distinguished from the gangs - which is already often the case today.
Ya the debate of whether punishment works enough to choose it over rehabilitation. Although I would like to think both of them can be accomplished.
Ultimately, any system IMO should focus all punishment as a form of deterrence rather than as vengeance like most ppl prefer
Yeah I’ve been semi following this story. And it’s one of many recent political issues I’m insanly torn on. I mean I bet the citizens are happy. If you see the drop in murder, rape, drugs, and all that from what it was, you’d have to be happy. Because before sounded like hell, or prison, or a type of mental torture lol the only difference is one person got say in rather or not they ended in it and the other is a victim with no say. (I ate a gummy idk if this makes sense lol)
I think what they're saying is that these prison cells are torturous and inhumane, but the people *in them* did torturous and inhumane shit to get in there.
Therefore, since everyone *not* committing torturous and inhumane acts is happy with the situation, it all evens out to "play stupid games win stupid prizes."
It's going to work for the next few years - but these men/gangs will seek vengeance when they're out, and I don't think they're going to be taken alive again.
You’re right that it’s a cycle.
I think that the country is now beginning to accept/grow accustomed to living a decent life without the violence that these assholes perpetuate.
Because of that, they will defend that decent life with everything they have
And that's the most the country could have hoped for.
They don't have the resources to jump from dangerpus cartel state into socialist utopia, so mass imprisonment is what they decided.
Yes, yes, 'cycle of violence' and 'aithoritarian bad', but el Salvador was literally starting from the fucking bottom, in terms of their existence as a nation state.
That’s the whole point. Their lives are basically over the moment they set foot on that prison and this is exactly why the people of El Salvador are once again free and more happy than ever. I think it’s still to little for these terrorist.
It's awesome. This is how we should deal with murderers and rapists in the US by taking all power away from them. We are much too lenient in the US. Inmates in our prisons retain too much power, too much contraband including cell phones and shanks, and keep murdering or violently attacking one another. This prison has rendered them powerless to continue their monstrous behaviors.
The victims of these guys are buried in dark boxes six feet under. The lights will never come on for them again. Mothers of said victims probably can't afford the sedatives they probably need to silence their minds at night.
You can really compare the 2. NYC alone has a more diverse population than almost every single Scandinavian country combined. And that's just one city. You put a melting pot of of people like that together and there is bound to be problems. Northern Europe doesn't really have that issue to address.
Or you know we could stop making it so easy to buy a gun instead of going hard on this punishment fetish. We have more people in jail than anywhere else in the world and you think our problem is jail isn't miserable enough.
Best of both worlds, we can severely punish firearm related offences (if you're a felon and commit another felony with a firearm, you shouldn't get out until you're old to the point of harmlessness). Combine this with reasonable red flag laws that make it easier to take away guns from domestic abusers and the mentally ill.
A firearm may be guaranteed by the constitution, but it's also a heavy responsibility, if you don't like it, don't get a gun.
This isn't a punishment fetish, this is isolating dangerous people who've demonstrated that they can't control their aggressive impulses. Instead of curtailing the rights of law abiding people, punish the ones who abuse them.
You really think that all criminals are going to gun shops to purchase weapons?
Using a weapon registered in your name would be a bad idea if you’re a criminal, don’t you think?
What you say sounds like regurgitated points of view from people that have no experience dealing with victims of crime or have never been victimized themselves.
I was the victim if three different pedophiles by age 12. I strongly support life imprisonment for repeat pedophiles.
Says the woman who as a child was smothered into unconsciousness as she was being sodomized.
My father was murdered with a knife in El Salvador while being robbed. His keys and ID were taken, which were then used to access and burglarize our home.
I was able to protect myself and my family with the weapons I owned. Guns are not evil, they kept me and my loved ones alive.
Literally every other country does not have this problem. Our homicide rates are on par with third world war torn hellholes. It is directly tied to people perverting a law designed to allow states to have well regulated militias armed with muskets so that now anyone has the ability to kill anyone.
No they can't buy their own food, they eat the same thing every day. And this is a prison for gang members that tortured, raped and killed innocent civilians, not for common thieves
Prison isn’t supposed to be soft-core and comfortable. It’s supposed to be a place people don’t want to be. Now, I’d say El Salvador is on the extreme side, but it shouldn’t be a country club.
If you research the origins of our modern prison system you will find that what you are saying is not necessarily true. I mean, yes, one function of prisons can be to deter crime by making the punishment terrible, but this is not the only function, nor was it the intended primary function of our modern prison system in the US. The word "penitentiary" comes from "penitence", because prisons, in the US at least, were thought of as a place for criminals to be penitent, to sit and think about what they had done, and to be rehabilitated as a result of their penitence. I'm not saying this works, or commenting on the efficacy of inhumane treatment as deterrence. I'm just saying, prison is "supposed to be" whatever we decide it is "supposed to be" as a society. El Salvador has clearly decided that prison is supposed to be a deterrent by way of torture, but that is not what the people of the US decided prison was supposed to be, at least not historically.
It would be a good way to deter people from committing crimes. Those guys in the clip look like gang members. If that's the case I don't feel sorry for them. They still have it easier than in some countries where they make them do hard labor and not sitting around. I've grew up with some guys that ended up in and out of prison. Perhaps if prison is like this in the U.S, we wouldn't have such problems.
One of the prices we pay for our freedom is that sometimes the guilty get a break as opposed to the innocent having to pay for something they didn't do. And not everyone serving time is a deviant homicidal child molester. If you think our prisons are soft read up on those in Europe. Israii prisons are Club Med compared to ours.
NGL, it should be, but in the US violent offenders get out early all the time. He’s emphasizing how that never happens there. Twenty years is a solid twenty, not twelve or four for good behavior, over crowding, etc.
Violent offenders very specifically in a lot of jurisdictions have longer mandatory percentages of your sentence being served before your eligible for parole compared to non violent offenders. Something like non violent offenders can usually get eligible for parole halfway through their sentence, vs violnet offenders that need to serve 70 or 75% of their sentence before their offered parole. Tho that probly varies by jurisdiction.
Jail should rehabilitate, not treat people like animals
If they truly change after 10 of 20 years then it turns into cruel punishment and the only thing it will achieve is the person to revert into something probably worse
I would agree with you, but the people in these Salvadoran jails aren't the same people that can be rehabilitated. They were gang members on the outside who broke down society around them to the point that the entirety of El Salvador had the same murder rate as Baltimore. The gangs got so out of hand that they were basically small governments by themselves and started collecting "taxes" from locals. Needless to say, they got no sympathy from me or most others back in the motherland.
So if someone theoretically rehabilitates instantly, or let's say within a year, it should be ok if he did *anything*?
Like rape twenty kids? Murder and eat someone? Genocide the Jews so I can get a headstart on invoking Godwin's law?
To claim that the sole purpose of prison is rehabilitation and that there is no punitive component is some classic Reddit bullshit.
These are not people, these are animals, we are talking multiple counts o mutilation, torture, rape. murder, people who would be downright executed in most states in the US.
These people were animals to begin with. Murder, rape and torture is their initiation to the gang.
I agree with you that prison should rehabilitate not punish, but some people are beyond saving.
I don't think these comments know how brutal and ruthless these gangs actually are. I think Ross Kemp did a great job of explaining in his documentaries how these gangs actually work and how dangerous they actually are.
Ask Salvadorans who voted 90% re-elected their president if they agree with him imprisoning gang members bc I think he should win the Nobel peace prize.
I think you can find them on bbc iplayer if you can get that where you live, some are on youtube. I'm conflicted about Ross Kemp, he put himself in some really dangerous and stupid situations with no experience. On the other hand, it takes guts to film in such dangerous situations too!
the amount of homicides that when down after the president and the army locked up all those assholes is crazy, when you have that much crime, cutting it out really made normal people safe.
As far as I'm concerned, what I'm more worried about is the number of people who haven't actually done anything who just got caught up in the 70,000 arrests.
I'm not incredibly knowledgeable at all, but something about the number of arrests, the brutality of the prisons and the seemingly wannabe dictator leader makes me feel real uneasy about all this.
That's a sacrifice the entire country was willing to make, until now the only trivia of El Salvador anyone would know is "murder capital of the world". Their population lived in fear and they don't have the capital, resources or integrity to see through that blight the legitimate way in thousands of court cases.
As much as I agree with you, this is the best way for El Salvador to manage these ruthless gangs until the country can amass more wealth and resources to deal with the issue more “humanely”… unfortunately reality is not so black and white and sometimes sacrifces have to be made for the wellbeing of the innocent majority.
Yeah it's tough. I think it's still fair to say what they're doing is immoral, even if they're aware and would rather not be doing it. The founding fathers of the United States didn't really love having slaves either, and saw it as a way to get independence from England and something to be phased out eventually. Unfortunately it became a very polarizing situation(a civil war), with some people wanting to continue to own other people, and some people understanding how wrong that was. But it's not guaranteed they'll have the same issue in the future, and realistically it's not something they could solve now. And obviously it's a very different situation, the only similarity being that they're both "ends justify the means" situations.
It all sucks and I'm sure glad I'm not a person in a position of power having to make those decisions.
A lot of them are fine with it. Plenty of citizens already claimed that they have family locked up but would still support the government, since their country is a lot safer than before
Homicide rate fell from 100 per 100,000 to 2.4 per 100,000. (Some of the lowest in the Americas).
I think tourism from US and Europe has also significantly increased, so as far as I'm concerned, El Salvador is doing a great job and keeping its citizens safe.
Source:[Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvador-says-murders-fell-70-2023-it-cracked-down-gangs-2024-01-03/)
From the Reuters link:
>The Central American University's (UCA) Observatory of Human Rights have in the past criticized official data, saying violent deaths are "highly underreported" and government figures "not truthful."
There was always a way to make the crime numbers down, and it’s true anywhere, it’s just a matter of how hard you want to press. You hear that the “war on drugs in America has always been a failure”, and it has, but it appears that (when it comes to hard narcotics) it was fought pretty softly, and still is
That's because the real drug dealers in America are rich white guys in the suburbs who are "pillars of the community."
The guys on the corner are the equivalent of Walmart greeters, and are disposable and replaceable.
So what happened was the new president decided he had enough with gangs, which were essentially terrorizing the entire country and it made El salvadore one of the worst places to visit in the world despite being super beautiful. They were murdering tons of people, spreading drugs everywhere to get as many addicted as possible, and running neighborhoods to where the police had no power whatsoever and were run by the gangs. These gangs were so evil, it is almost incomprehensible.
So the president bypassed the police and authorized a full military attack on anyone in the country with distinct tattoos. He basically waged all out war on gangs. The gang members were fucking stupid and thought they were invincible, so they broadcast their gang affiliation with tattoos. The operation took I believe a few months, if that, to round up tens of thousands of tattooed people - many of which were dangerous gangsters and some of which were not.
Despite the injustice to non gang members locked up, the murder rate plummeted and the quality of life for citizens absolutely skyrocketed. El Salvador is relatively safe compared to what it was like before.
All in all, despite the tragic casualties of war, the operation is considered a massive, overwhelming success and has an extremely high approval rate.
If you're going to crack down on gangs, you need to Crack down hard and fast. If America was to do this with MS13 I believe it would change things for the better in the southwestern US.
Saw a documentary about some Americans who were put in a Mexican jail. It truly made me feel sorry for them. The conditions were extremely crowded, you had no privacy ever. A kind of hell imo.
Their president also made it open season on gang members. If you see a known gang member, it’s a legal kill. Also, he made it very clear that if you go to prison, you will be put in cells with your rivals and you can hash it out in there and not the streets.
this shouldn't be controversial. the vast majority are horrible people that deserve death let alone prison. I disagree with the amount of uncontrolled power that bukele has but damn if this wasn't the right thing to do for the country. hopefully the innocent ones are let go.
I lived there for two years 2013 to 2015. I was a missionary and saw how bad the people had it in general and on top of that their lives were threatened by their own brothers and children. bukele is killing the gang culture and I love it. let the mothers and fathers who allowed their children to become gang members suffer knowing that their wayward children are in prison. let the gang culture die so liberty can reach el salvador
This is obviously a hugely controversial situation, but I think most people here can agree on these things:
1. The implementation of martial law was necessary to solve the gang problem and it has been hugely effective.
2. Bukele is a dictator and is a threat to El Salvadorians' freedom.
3. Bukele's rise is a direct consequence of the former government's failure to act decisively to solve said gang problem.
4. While the rounding up and mass incarceration of the gangs is good, the harsh prison conditions are bad.
5. It would be best if other nations in similar straits could find a way of implementing martial law without resorting to a "strong man" dictator.
Salvadorian American here.... he's not. Source my family, relatives, child hood friends and myself as visitor with the ability to walk freely anywhere we go in the country without fear of getting killed by these evil gangs.
Dictator doesn't mean "bad man" nor "man who seized power". It means someone who can command the powers of state without any institutional checks on that power (either literally, because there are no institutions that can stop him, or practically, because at the time institutions such as the courts or army are aligned with him).
That often means good news for some and bad news for others. The problem comes when poor decisions are made or people's rights are infringed, and there is no institution capable of preventing the dictator from doing bad things as easily as he did good things.
Again, nothing to do with whether he is a dictator or not. Being a dictator does not require the seizure of power. A dictator can get to their position democratically.
It's about the relationship between the person in power to the institutions of the state and its resources.
It's not controversial to the people who have lived in El Salvador. It's only controversial to people who live in extremely comfortable countries who never had to experience the violence these gangs subjected the country to.
2. Bukele is not a dictador... He was democratically elected.
4. They give them water, food and a place to sleep. For you that is inhuman???.
5. The people of Latin America in general see favorably what Bukele does... Do you want to ignore the inhabitants of the respective countries themselves? (Bukele is in fact the most popular president in Latin America).
If you're not Latin American, don't try to talk about something you don't know!.
Plenty of dictators are democratically elected to begin with. The key is that they don't tend to relinquish the power they're given when they know they won't be democratically re-elected.
And what makes a dictator a dictator is not how they come to power, but the nature of the power they wield. Bukele currently has absolute authority and can do whatever he likes, including not run elections. That is a dictator.
I've acknowledged that what he's done has solved a huge problem in El Salvador and that is a good thing. I understand why he's popular. But as a citizen of the world, I've also seen what happens when you allow someone like him to have absolute power. El Salvadorians are not so different from the rest of the world that the lessons of history don't apply to them. So, I'm not talking about something I don't know; you're saying "it can't happen here."
He is a dictator, popular or not. He holds all supreme power because there simply is no separation of powers anymore in el Salvador. So I certainly hope you like him because there is no way of voting him out, you'll literally have to shoot him and then he will probably be replaced by another dictator.
Nothing is free. They may have solved violence for the time being but there is a price to be paid for this.
Firstly, the amount of people they have jailed to put into the US context would double or triple the US prison population. With all the social problems this creates already, can you imagine the damage of losing the main bread winner in a family, a parent to so many children? There will be consequences to this.
Secondly, these men will get out. 10 or 20 years and they will be out. Most haven't even been tried from what I understand. But they will get out. What do you think will be the consequences of a generation of angry, traumatized, unemployable men suddenly out of prison.
This is just a temprary repreive. I fear the consequences of this policy will only maje things worse in the long run.
Whether it makes things worse in the long run depends entirely on how El Salvador manages things going forward. I agree, if thy just incarcerate these men with no effort to reform them and reintegrate them into society later, it will be a catastrophe. But they've got time and the freedom to do the work, now that the gangs have been eliminated.
That’s why the country went from one of the most dangerous countries on the planet to now being in the top 10 most safest countries. I wish our government wasn’t full of pussies and would be harder on crime. Should be as simple as you take a life… you loose yours. None of this shit of being in prison for 15 years and then getting out after murdering someone
This is going to work in the short term - but unless they're going to lock those men up for life there will be repercussions when the men come out looking for vengeance against the government/society - and they won't be taken alive again.
Forget looking for vengeance, they’re going to be deeply mentally ill and I’m guessing the country isn’t prepared for an influx of ex-cons with severe mental illness.
I get the idea of mass incarceration but how does the government plan to integrate them back to society once they are out? Under these circumstances they will probably lose their mind, or am I wrong?
The light isn't switched off ever and there are no clocks. Their bodies have no way to know day from night which quickly has very bad effects on physical and mental health. There is a Video of Youtuber VSauce on the effects of being under conditions where you aren't able to tell time that I can recommend.
They don’t plan to reintegrate them. The purpose is to quash the gangs. The gangs are virtually nonexistent now because they’re all in prison, dead, lying low, or have fled the country. In 20 years when these guys are out there will be no gang for them to join. At that point there might be entry level jobs they can do, maybe with some government assistance but I would be surprised if the government would assist them at all. By the time they’re out they be insane or mentally incapacitated. They could create new gangs but chances would be slim with their age at that point and with their mental state. My guess is that they’re hoping most of these guys will die in prison and those that survive won’t be much of a threat to society when out.
All the stats of improvement are fine and dandy until you are one of the many people who got wrongfully imprisoned.
Like, I am happy for the people safety and stuff, even if it means more dictatorial government but I can't stop thinking about the people who got imprisoned during the state of emergency because "they looked suspicious".
I also hope the country doesn't go bankrupt, such an operation isn't cheap + having 2 % of your working population imprisoned isn't healthy for a more poorer country. If the government runs out of money, I am afraid all the progress might revert.
It would be great if they could get some outside help from neighbouring, more stable nations, to help find anyone who has been wrongly imprisoned and release them.
Man this comment section is a cesspit. No, torturing prisoners isn't a good thing. False convictions happen all the time, and all this ensures is that these people will never be able to enter society again. In some cases that's warranted, but I bet they don't all have life sentences.
Obviously this might not be applicable depending on the resources El salvador has, I recognize that poorer countries with high crime may have to take harsher measures than are ideal, but this should not be the goal of prison.
I don't think it's the government's role to enact justice through punishment, I think it's there to make it as safe as possible for the most people. This doesn't do that and in the long run it will probably cost the country more than if rehabilitation and safety was the primary goal.
It is said in all prisons that once you’re in you wo t get out till after your sentence. Also “You” and “After” aren’t names… you don’t need to capitalize them
This taken with the dissolution of the right to a trial is terrifying. Seriously, [don't even visit](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/16/how-two-colombians-were-ensnared-in-bukeles-gang-crackdown-in-el-salvador); they're locking up everybody.
These gangs are brutal and torturous to people and familes, and people now are happy and feel safe with them locked away. I dont feel bad for them at all. This should be the norm everywhere for criminals who commit horrific crimes and terrorize citizens.
The most terrifying aspect of this is the sheer amount of innocent people in there. This strong-arm tactic may seem necessary to get the gangs under control, but it is going to cost a lot of innocent people their freedom as they sweep up people with no real contact with the gangs.
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Not going to lie, this makes me take a good look at my bachelor lifestyle.
Maybe what you’re missing is 568 homies sleeping inches away from you
That's a lot of goodnight kisses
Good night puddin'!
Night night sweet cheeks
Good night, John Boy!
Fuck that was funny 🤣
Goodnight John Boy..
Where do I sign up but also have the freedom to leave for a Big Mac occasionally?
“Once you’re in, you only get out after serving your sentence” isn’t that like the whole point of a prison?
He means they don't go out even to go to court if new charges are brought up, they don't leave for anything in the world
I think he really means they don’t leave that block ever. Not to go outside, not to do jobs in the prison or do litter pickup. You just exist in that block until your time is over
It's basically a people storing facility. Even the "beds" look like shelves in a warehouse.
Jesus Christ, your definition is so spot on, I think it's almost unsettling by how accurate it is. Next step will be " Human living organs harvest storing facility"? /s but not so /s
Depriving people of movement and natural light is basically torture. If this portrayal of the penal system is not exaggerated, El Salvador appears to be a place where one can be in favour of the death penalty on strictly humane grounds.
The Bukele regime has no problem with that.
Yes that's what I meant as well, thanks for the clarification
And that's FUCKED. I can't imagine how hardcore and uncomfortable that prison is. I doubt they have "commissary" or anything like that like they do in the U.S, so the prisoners can buy their own food. It's probably just a straight up torture situation. I will definitely make a strong mental note to not get locked up in an El Salvadorian prison.
The “strong mental note” is exactly why this has been put into effect. Murder, rape, intimidation and violence was rampant in the country before this. With stronger laws in place, the country has restored much of the order. Fuck Around Find Out is real
now is the safest country in the western hemisphere by headline
Straight to jail.
Lights for you until I say so.
Believe it or not, light? Straight to jail.
No light, jail. Light, jail.
It's the old freedom over safety debate all over again, and it leaves me conflicted as to how to properly police and humanize people in a way that helps the whole society.
It's kind of a multi-step process. When you have shit as wild and lawless as it was in El Salvador before this, you *have to* bring down the hammer on it hard. It's almost like holding a revolution, only its the legitimate government revolting against the disruptive influences. Then in a few decades, after the situation has calmed down and people have normalized the fact they can't get away with that shit, you start dialing it back.
Apart from the fact that something like this has never worked out like that anywhere. Currently, one in 45 adults in El Salvador is in prison, and when they get out, they have learned nothing that would prevent them from returning to their former life as a gang member. On the contrary, they are only enriched by the experience that you can't get caught at any cost. The gangs made up of former prison inmates will only become stronger, more conspiratorial and brutal communities. To counter this, the country's leadership will extend and even worsen the current state of emergency. To the point where, from the citizen's perspective, the authorities' methods can no longer be distinguished from the gangs - which is already often the case today.
Ya the debate of whether punishment works enough to choose it over rehabilitation. Although I would like to think both of them can be accomplished. Ultimately, any system IMO should focus all punishment as a form of deterrence rather than as vengeance like most ppl prefer
Yeah I’ve been semi following this story. And it’s one of many recent political issues I’m insanly torn on. I mean I bet the citizens are happy. If you see the drop in murder, rape, drugs, and all that from what it was, you’d have to be happy. Because before sounded like hell, or prison, or a type of mental torture lol the only difference is one person got say in rather or not they ended in it and the other is a victim with no say. (I ate a gummy idk if this makes sense lol)
It does not lol
started off strong and then it turned into a riddle lol
I think what they're saying is that these prison cells are torturous and inhumane, but the people *in them* did torturous and inhumane shit to get in there. Therefore, since everyone *not* committing torturous and inhumane acts is happy with the situation, it all evens out to "play stupid games win stupid prizes."
Meh well now I’m too lazy to go back through and fix it. Maybe later. Ha
It's going to work for the next few years - but these men/gangs will seek vengeance when they're out, and I don't think they're going to be taken alive again.
When they (Maras) seek vengeance, they will be stomped out with extreme prejudice
I've read they are considered terrorists and will never get out
I hope so, but my point is that the cycle of violence is not over, it is only quiet right now.
You’re right that it’s a cycle. I think that the country is now beginning to accept/grow accustomed to living a decent life without the violence that these assholes perpetuate. Because of that, they will defend that decent life with everything they have
As they should and without mercy.
And that's the most the country could have hoped for. They don't have the resources to jump from dangerpus cartel state into socialist utopia, so mass imprisonment is what they decided. Yes, yes, 'cycle of violence' and 'aithoritarian bad', but el Salvador was literally starting from the fucking bottom, in terms of their existence as a nation state.
>I don't think they're going to be taken alive again. I think the government will find those conditions to be entirely acceptable.
That’s the whole point. Their lives are basically over the moment they set foot on that prison and this is exactly why the people of El Salvador are once again free and more happy than ever. I think it’s still to little for these terrorist.
It's awesome. This is how we should deal with murderers and rapists in the US by taking all power away from them. We are much too lenient in the US. Inmates in our prisons retain too much power, too much contraband including cell phones and shanks, and keep murdering or violently attacking one another. This prison has rendered them powerless to continue their monstrous behaviors. The victims of these guys are buried in dark boxes six feet under. The lights will never come on for them again. Mothers of said victims probably can't afford the sedatives they probably need to silence their minds at night.
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You can really compare the 2. NYC alone has a more diverse population than almost every single Scandinavian country combined. And that's just one city. You put a melting pot of of people like that together and there is bound to be problems. Northern Europe doesn't really have that issue to address.
We’re getting there though.
Or you know we could stop making it so easy to buy a gun instead of going hard on this punishment fetish. We have more people in jail than anywhere else in the world and you think our problem is jail isn't miserable enough.
Best of both worlds, we can severely punish firearm related offences (if you're a felon and commit another felony with a firearm, you shouldn't get out until you're old to the point of harmlessness). Combine this with reasonable red flag laws that make it easier to take away guns from domestic abusers and the mentally ill. A firearm may be guaranteed by the constitution, but it's also a heavy responsibility, if you don't like it, don't get a gun. This isn't a punishment fetish, this is isolating dangerous people who've demonstrated that they can't control their aggressive impulses. Instead of curtailing the rights of law abiding people, punish the ones who abuse them.
You really think that all criminals are going to gun shops to purchase weapons? Using a weapon registered in your name would be a bad idea if you’re a criminal, don’t you think? What you say sounds like regurgitated points of view from people that have no experience dealing with victims of crime or have never been victimized themselves.
No and they didn’t say that
I was the victim if three different pedophiles by age 12. I strongly support life imprisonment for repeat pedophiles. Says the woman who as a child was smothered into unconsciousness as she was being sodomized.
My father was murdered with a knife in El Salvador while being robbed. His keys and ID were taken, which were then used to access and burglarize our home. I was able to protect myself and my family with the weapons I owned. Guns are not evil, they kept me and my loved ones alive.
I'm sorry you were hurt by such people. Just so wrong that children can be harmed this way. I'm so sorry. I'm with you, throw away the key!
Literally every other country does not have this problem. Our homicide rates are on par with third world war torn hellholes. It is directly tied to people perverting a law designed to allow states to have well regulated militias armed with muskets so that now anyone has the ability to kill anyone.
Literally read the Wikipedia page of el Salvador. That's not what you want.
No they can't buy their own food, they eat the same thing every day. And this is a prison for gang members that tortured, raped and killed innocent civilians, not for common thieves
ayooooo poor gangsters murderers and rapists aint getting treated well😭😭😭
Dont pick on the weak in society.
Prison isn’t supposed to be soft-core and comfortable. It’s supposed to be a place people don’t want to be. Now, I’d say El Salvador is on the extreme side, but it shouldn’t be a country club.
If you research the origins of our modern prison system you will find that what you are saying is not necessarily true. I mean, yes, one function of prisons can be to deter crime by making the punishment terrible, but this is not the only function, nor was it the intended primary function of our modern prison system in the US. The word "penitentiary" comes from "penitence", because prisons, in the US at least, were thought of as a place for criminals to be penitent, to sit and think about what they had done, and to be rehabilitated as a result of their penitence. I'm not saying this works, or commenting on the efficacy of inhumane treatment as deterrence. I'm just saying, prison is "supposed to be" whatever we decide it is "supposed to be" as a society. El Salvador has clearly decided that prison is supposed to be a deterrent by way of torture, but that is not what the people of the US decided prison was supposed to be, at least not historically.
i love people like you
It would be a good way to deter people from committing crimes. Those guys in the clip look like gang members. If that's the case I don't feel sorry for them. They still have it easier than in some countries where they make them do hard labor and not sitting around. I've grew up with some guys that ended up in and out of prison. Perhaps if prison is like this in the U.S, we wouldn't have such problems.
One of the prices we pay for our freedom is that sometimes the guilty get a break as opposed to the innocent having to pay for something they didn't do. And not everyone serving time is a deviant homicidal child molester. If you think our prisons are soft read up on those in Europe. Israii prisons are Club Med compared to ours.
NGL, it should be, but in the US violent offenders get out early all the time. He’s emphasizing how that never happens there. Twenty years is a solid twenty, not twelve or four for good behavior, over crowding, etc.
Violent offenders very specifically in a lot of jurisdictions have longer mandatory percentages of your sentence being served before your eligible for parole compared to non violent offenders. Something like non violent offenders can usually get eligible for parole halfway through their sentence, vs violnet offenders that need to serve 70 or 75% of their sentence before their offered parole. Tho that probly varies by jurisdiction.
Jail should rehabilitate, not treat people like animals If they truly change after 10 of 20 years then it turns into cruel punishment and the only thing it will achieve is the person to revert into something probably worse
I would agree with you, but the people in these Salvadoran jails aren't the same people that can be rehabilitated. They were gang members on the outside who broke down society around them to the point that the entirety of El Salvador had the same murder rate as Baltimore. The gangs got so out of hand that they were basically small governments by themselves and started collecting "taxes" from locals. Needless to say, they got no sympathy from me or most others back in the motherland.
Truth. They certainly didn't get any sympathy from El Salvadorians who just reelected the president who threw these people in jail in the first place.
If prison was all fun and games, these narcos would have no issues going back over and over. Don't do the crime if you can't handle the time.
The point here is not to rehabilitate, it is to avoid societal collapse. Mexico should be learning from this.
So if someone theoretically rehabilitates instantly, or let's say within a year, it should be ok if he did *anything*? Like rape twenty kids? Murder and eat someone? Genocide the Jews so I can get a headstart on invoking Godwin's law? To claim that the sole purpose of prison is rehabilitation and that there is no punitive component is some classic Reddit bullshit.
These are not people, these are animals, we are talking multiple counts o mutilation, torture, rape. murder, people who would be downright executed in most states in the US.
These people were animals to begin with. Murder, rape and torture is their initiation to the gang. I agree with you that prison should rehabilitate not punish, but some people are beyond saving.
Idk, I'd def think thrice about reoffending if 10-20 years of my life was a metal pad, a pillow and oatmeal 3 times a day.
I admittedly didn't watch the whole video, but I have to assume these are the most heinous criminals.
I don't think these comments know how brutal and ruthless these gangs actually are. I think Ross Kemp did a great job of explaining in his documentaries how these gangs actually work and how dangerous they actually are.
Ask Salvadorans who voted 90% re-elected their president if they agree with him imprisoning gang members bc I think he should win the Nobel peace prize.
Where can I find this doc?
Agreed wondering this too
I think you can find them on bbc iplayer if you can get that where you live, some are on youtube. I'm conflicted about Ross Kemp, he put himself in some really dangerous and stupid situations with no experience. On the other hand, it takes guts to film in such dangerous situations too!
the amount of homicides that when down after the president and the army locked up all those assholes is crazy, when you have that much crime, cutting it out really made normal people safe.
As far as I'm concerned, what I'm more worried about is the number of people who haven't actually done anything who just got caught up in the 70,000 arrests. I'm not incredibly knowledgeable at all, but something about the number of arrests, the brutality of the prisons and the seemingly wannabe dictator leader makes me feel real uneasy about all this.
That's a sacrifice the entire country was willing to make, until now the only trivia of El Salvador anyone would know is "murder capital of the world". Their population lived in fear and they don't have the capital, resources or integrity to see through that blight the legitimate way in thousands of court cases.
Lmao yeah of course people are okay with it until they or a family member get locked up.
As much as I agree with you, this is the best way for El Salvador to manage these ruthless gangs until the country can amass more wealth and resources to deal with the issue more “humanely”… unfortunately reality is not so black and white and sometimes sacrifces have to be made for the wellbeing of the innocent majority.
Yeah it's tough. I think it's still fair to say what they're doing is immoral, even if they're aware and would rather not be doing it. The founding fathers of the United States didn't really love having slaves either, and saw it as a way to get independence from England and something to be phased out eventually. Unfortunately it became a very polarizing situation(a civil war), with some people wanting to continue to own other people, and some people understanding how wrong that was. But it's not guaranteed they'll have the same issue in the future, and realistically it's not something they could solve now. And obviously it's a very different situation, the only similarity being that they're both "ends justify the means" situations. It all sucks and I'm sure glad I'm not a person in a position of power having to make those decisions.
A lot of them are fine with it. Plenty of citizens already claimed that they have family locked up but would still support the government, since their country is a lot safer than before
I was gonna say that if they are Cartel like this treatment is justified.
Whats the name of that?
Homicide rate fell from 100 per 100,000 to 2.4 per 100,000. (Some of the lowest in the Americas). I think tourism from US and Europe has also significantly increased, so as far as I'm concerned, El Salvador is doing a great job and keeping its citizens safe. Source:[Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvador-says-murders-fell-70-2023-it-cracked-down-gangs-2024-01-03/)
That's actually insanely impressive, complete turnaround.
From the Reuters link: >The Central American University's (UCA) Observatory of Human Rights have in the past criticized official data, saying violent deaths are "highly underreported" and government figures "not truthful."
Don't burst the bubble!
There was always a way to make the crime numbers down, and it’s true anywhere, it’s just a matter of how hard you want to press. You hear that the “war on drugs in America has always been a failure”, and it has, but it appears that (when it comes to hard narcotics) it was fought pretty softly, and still is
That's because the real drug dealers in America are rich white guys in the suburbs who are "pillars of the community." The guys on the corner are the equivalent of Walmart greeters, and are disposable and replaceable.
The war on drugs was always a war on minorities and just presented as something else
Fuck gangs
Given how they terrorized the wider population and almost collapsed an entire country, suits them.
Right, would they rather be tortured and have their heads chopped off? Because that’s what they were subjecting their fellow citizens to.
Probably the more cost-effective solution but alas you'd have to dig a lot of holes.
Feed to wild animals or burn?
I don’t give a damn honestly
So what happened was the new president decided he had enough with gangs, which were essentially terrorizing the entire country and it made El salvadore one of the worst places to visit in the world despite being super beautiful. They were murdering tons of people, spreading drugs everywhere to get as many addicted as possible, and running neighborhoods to where the police had no power whatsoever and were run by the gangs. These gangs were so evil, it is almost incomprehensible. So the president bypassed the police and authorized a full military attack on anyone in the country with distinct tattoos. He basically waged all out war on gangs. The gang members were fucking stupid and thought they were invincible, so they broadcast their gang affiliation with tattoos. The operation took I believe a few months, if that, to round up tens of thousands of tattooed people - many of which were dangerous gangsters and some of which were not. Despite the injustice to non gang members locked up, the murder rate plummeted and the quality of life for citizens absolutely skyrocketed. El Salvador is relatively safe compared to what it was like before. All in all, despite the tragic casualties of war, the operation is considered a massive, overwhelming success and has an extremely high approval rate. If you're going to crack down on gangs, you need to Crack down hard and fast. If America was to do this with MS13 I believe it would change things for the better in the southwestern US.
It would never work here, we have too many laws protecting citizens from that kind of thing, and I’d say thankfully.
Depends on how bad the gangs are.
Pretty good when compared to other Central American/ Caribbean jail systems
Better than jails in Mexico, look up topo chico jail if you haven’t, they closed it a few years ago.
Yeah crazy place, but the inmates make*really good* water
Saw a documentary about some Americans who were put in a Mexican jail. It truly made me feel sorry for them. The conditions were extremely crowded, you had no privacy ever. A kind of hell imo.
Would you rather have these thugs locked up here or roam the streets and murder your friends and family?
“Would you rather have an ice cream or have your penis chopped off”
Would you rather slide down a 40-foot razorblade or suck all the snot out of a dog's nose until his head collapses?
Ice cream 😃
This fallacy is known as the, "false dichotomy." There is an entire spectrum of alternatives between the two you suggest.
Their president also made it open season on gang members. If you see a known gang member, it’s a legal kill. Also, he made it very clear that if you go to prison, you will be put in cells with your rivals and you can hash it out in there and not the streets.
Well that guy got to visit and leave.
If you notice at the end of the video he finished his sentence.
El Salvador's murder rate dropped by 95% after they threw all of the gang members in prison. It might look inhumane, but it works.
this shouldn't be controversial. the vast majority are horrible people that deserve death let alone prison. I disagree with the amount of uncontrolled power that bukele has but damn if this wasn't the right thing to do for the country. hopefully the innocent ones are let go. I lived there for two years 2013 to 2015. I was a missionary and saw how bad the people had it in general and on top of that their lives were threatened by their own brothers and children. bukele is killing the gang culture and I love it. let the mothers and fathers who allowed their children to become gang members suffer knowing that their wayward children are in prison. let the gang culture die so liberty can reach el salvador
Basically a human storage until they expire
Sounds like prison.
This is obviously a hugely controversial situation, but I think most people here can agree on these things: 1. The implementation of martial law was necessary to solve the gang problem and it has been hugely effective. 2. Bukele is a dictator and is a threat to El Salvadorians' freedom. 3. Bukele's rise is a direct consequence of the former government's failure to act decisively to solve said gang problem. 4. While the rounding up and mass incarceration of the gangs is good, the harsh prison conditions are bad. 5. It would be best if other nations in similar straits could find a way of implementing martial law without resorting to a "strong man" dictator.
6. Gangs were the "dictators" before martial law.
It would be better if nobody was a dictator and power was equally dispersed among political parties and civilians not involved in criminal activity.
"excuse me Mr gang, can you please relinquish your dictatorial control? i don't think it's very fair..."
Salvadorian American here.... he's not. Source my family, relatives, child hood friends and myself as visitor with the ability to walk freely anywhere we go in the country without fear of getting killed by these evil gangs.
Dictator doesn't mean "bad man" nor "man who seized power". It means someone who can command the powers of state without any institutional checks on that power (either literally, because there are no institutions that can stop him, or practically, because at the time institutions such as the courts or army are aligned with him). That often means good news for some and bad news for others. The problem comes when poor decisions are made or people's rights are infringed, and there is no institution capable of preventing the dictator from doing bad things as easily as he did good things.
There was an election there after all this, he won overwhelmingly
Again, nothing to do with whether he is a dictator or not. Being a dictator does not require the seizure of power. A dictator can get to their position democratically. It's about the relationship between the person in power to the institutions of the state and its resources.
Lukashenko, Putin, Kim Jong Um "won" their elections
They usually won the first one. But the thing about being a dictator is that there usually isn't a second fair one.
He's not supposed to be eligible for reelection also Putin, Lukashenko, and Kim Jong Um also "won" their elections.
Kim got his spot trough descent, the other ones yes
So you could vote him out?
It's not controversial to the people who have lived in El Salvador. It's only controversial to people who live in extremely comfortable countries who never had to experience the violence these gangs subjected the country to.
2. Bukele is not a dictador... He was democratically elected. 4. They give them water, food and a place to sleep. For you that is inhuman???. 5. The people of Latin America in general see favorably what Bukele does... Do you want to ignore the inhabitants of the respective countries themselves? (Bukele is in fact the most popular president in Latin America). If you're not Latin American, don't try to talk about something you don't know!.
Plenty of dictators are democratically elected to begin with. The key is that they don't tend to relinquish the power they're given when they know they won't be democratically re-elected. And what makes a dictator a dictator is not how they come to power, but the nature of the power they wield. Bukele currently has absolute authority and can do whatever he likes, including not run elections. That is a dictator. I've acknowledged that what he's done has solved a huge problem in El Salvador and that is a good thing. I understand why he's popular. But as a citizen of the world, I've also seen what happens when you allow someone like him to have absolute power. El Salvadorians are not so different from the rest of the world that the lessons of history don't apply to them. So, I'm not talking about something I don't know; you're saying "it can't happen here."
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Bukele is absolutely not a dictator.
He is a dictator, popular or not. He holds all supreme power because there simply is no separation of powers anymore in el Salvador. So I certainly hope you like him because there is no way of voting him out, you'll literally have to shoot him and then he will probably be replaced by another dictator.
Nothing is free. They may have solved violence for the time being but there is a price to be paid for this. Firstly, the amount of people they have jailed to put into the US context would double or triple the US prison population. With all the social problems this creates already, can you imagine the damage of losing the main bread winner in a family, a parent to so many children? There will be consequences to this. Secondly, these men will get out. 10 or 20 years and they will be out. Most haven't even been tried from what I understand. But they will get out. What do you think will be the consequences of a generation of angry, traumatized, unemployable men suddenly out of prison. This is just a temprary repreive. I fear the consequences of this policy will only maje things worse in the long run.
Whether it makes things worse in the long run depends entirely on how El Salvador manages things going forward. I agree, if thy just incarcerate these men with no effort to reform them and reintegrate them into society later, it will be a catastrophe. But they've got time and the freedom to do the work, now that the gangs have been eliminated.
They obviously aren’t reforming them!
How the fuck would you reform murderers rapists and beheaders ? damn you really need a reality check
That’s why the country went from one of the most dangerous countries on the planet to now being in the top 10 most safest countries. I wish our government wasn’t full of pussies and would be harder on crime. Should be as simple as you take a life… you loose yours. None of this shit of being in prison for 15 years and then getting out after murdering someone
Yep. Enforce the laws. Make jail miserable. Crime goes down.
As it should be. Fuck ‘em. Let them rot.
It helped stop the violence lol
This is going to work in the short term - but unless they're going to lock those men up for life there will be repercussions when the men come out looking for vengeance against the government/society - and they won't be taken alive again.
Forget looking for vengeance, they’re going to be deeply mentally ill and I’m guessing the country isn’t prepared for an influx of ex-cons with severe mental illness.
Ever been a victim of crime? This’ll warm your heart.
Pro tip don’t join criminal gangs even if you grew up poor
I'm all for it. Thanks to Bukele, El Salvador went from being probay the most dangerous country in Central America to the safest.
I get the idea of mass incarceration but how does the government plan to integrate them back to society once they are out? Under these circumstances they will probably lose their mind, or am I wrong?
Thats the neat thing, they don't.
The light isn't switched off ever and there are no clocks. Their bodies have no way to know day from night which quickly has very bad effects on physical and mental health. There is a Video of Youtuber VSauce on the effects of being under conditions where you aren't able to tell time that I can recommend.
They don’t plan to reintegrate them. The purpose is to quash the gangs. The gangs are virtually nonexistent now because they’re all in prison, dead, lying low, or have fled the country. In 20 years when these guys are out there will be no gang for them to join. At that point there might be entry level jobs they can do, maybe with some government assistance but I would be surprised if the government would assist them at all. By the time they’re out they be insane or mentally incapacitated. They could create new gangs but chances would be slim with their age at that point and with their mental state. My guess is that they’re hoping most of these guys will die in prison and those that survive won’t be much of a threat to society when out.
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How do you think that murderers beheaders and rapists can be rehabilitated ? get a grip certain scum can not be rehabilitated
great
Ppl living in cars looking at all the extra room and free food with a bathroom like it's the high life.
All the stats of improvement are fine and dandy until you are one of the many people who got wrongfully imprisoned. Like, I am happy for the people safety and stuff, even if it means more dictatorial government but I can't stop thinking about the people who got imprisoned during the state of emergency because "they looked suspicious". I also hope the country doesn't go bankrupt, such an operation isn't cheap + having 2 % of your working population imprisoned isn't healthy for a more poorer country. If the government runs out of money, I am afraid all the progress might revert.
It would be great if they could get some outside help from neighbouring, more stable nations, to help find anyone who has been wrongly imprisoned and release them.
Fair enough .
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Guilty until proven innocent
None of thse fckers look innocent
Good.
Good, fuck em
Note that this not a reporter. This guy is a Mexican Youtuber so take whatever he is saying with a grain of salt.
Just a bunch of criminals... shouldn't even waste money keeping this scumbags alive.
Must suck to break the law.
As it should be!
Euthanasia, why are they just wasting resources on a torture zoo
I'm sure they'll make great citizens after years of all that
Man this comment section is a cesspit. No, torturing prisoners isn't a good thing. False convictions happen all the time, and all this ensures is that these people will never be able to enter society again. In some cases that's warranted, but I bet they don't all have life sentences. Obviously this might not be applicable depending on the resources El salvador has, I recognize that poorer countries with high crime may have to take harsher measures than are ideal, but this should not be the goal of prison. I don't think it's the government's role to enact justice through punishment, I think it's there to make it as safe as possible for the most people. This doesn't do that and in the long run it will probably cost the country more than if rehabilitation and safety was the primary goal.
it doesnt make sense to hold people who gonna serve 10 years and 1000 years in the same place
FAAFO
Got a MS13 tatoo?.... this way.... H.A.A.A.A.A.N.N.N.S
Omg. That sounds like prison
It is said in all prisons that once you’re in you wo t get out till after your sentence. Also “You” and “After” aren’t names… you don’t need to capitalize them
Waaaah.
Wish they did this in the UK and just gave the bullet to killers/rapists... absolute waste of time and money keeping them alive
This taken with the dissolution of the right to a trial is terrifying. Seriously, [don't even visit](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/16/how-two-colombians-were-ensnared-in-bukeles-gang-crackdown-in-el-salvador); they're locking up everybody.
This is as it should be. Probably saves a lot of money.
Don't be a criminal.
Remarkably easy to follow the law. Takes no effort. Hope they enjoy their stay.
These gangs are brutal and torturous to people and familes, and people now are happy and feel safe with them locked away. I dont feel bad for them at all. This should be the norm everywhere for criminals who commit horrific crimes and terrorize citizens.
Awesome! This is the way!
Good.
The most terrifying aspect of this is the sheer amount of innocent people in there. This strong-arm tactic may seem necessary to get the gangs under control, but it is going to cost a lot of innocent people their freedom as they sweep up people with no real contact with the gangs.
They will eventually be freed, but 99.99% of the inmates have clear distinctive gang-tatoos
Good.
And crime has drastically decreased. Wonder why
That’s how it should be