Fantástico features El Salvador's controversial crimefighting plan
Since the 1990s, the country, once considered one of the most violent in the world, has been under the control of gigantic criminal groups known in Spanish as “Maras” or “Pandillas.” The peak of violence was in 2015: 107 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants for comparison: in Brazil, which is also very violent, this number is now around 20.
The scenario began to change in 2019 when the current president came to power and managed to reduce the number of murders by half in the first two years of government.
“Under the exceptional regime, rights and guarantees are suspended on several points: the criteria for arresting suspects, the duration of a person's detention is now unlimited, the prisoner's access to a lawyer and judicial procedures, which are now collective,” explains Carlos Monterrosa, professor of sociology at Central American University.
1 of 1 The murder rate has fallen drastically in El Salvador from 2015 to today Photo: Fantástico The murder rate has fallen drastically in El Salvador from 2015 to today Photo: Fantástico
El Salvador has 6.3 million inhabitants. Since the regime began, 78,000 people have been arrested the highest percentage of detainees in the world. But the murder rate fell from 107, a shocking figure in 2015, to 2.4 per 100,000 residents, according to government figures.
“It was a very dangerous area here. It was not possible to walk around at night because they would soon come and ask what we were doing. Young people are leaving home more and engaging not in bad things, but in the things of God,” celebrates a resident of Colonia Montreal, a modest neighborhood in the city of San Salvador.
“Security has improved greatly. Our relatives from other neighborhoods can visit us and we can visit family, but we also know that people, perhaps innocent people, are paying for what they didn't do,” muses another woman from the same neighborhood.
The exemption, which was supposed to last a month, has been in effect for two years. Reporter Álvaro Pereira Júnior spoke to the Minister of Justice and Public Security of the Bukele government, who defended the measure:
“The exceptional regime should not be demonized. Those who do this are the globalist elites. Of course, all police sometimes arrest innocent people. We are changing the laws to protect El Salvador from organized crime. I didn't want that.” to step into the role of another president and say: “Oh, poor murderers. They have spent too much time in prison, their brains have changed, they are no longer criminals.” It turns out that we Salvadorans don't do that. “We don't want criminals on our streets anymore,” says Gustavo Villatoro.