HomeNewsBrief26% of El Salvador Homicides Linked to Gang Members
BRIEF

26% of El Salvador Homicides Linked to Gang Members

BARRIO 18 / 21 MAR 2016 BY JAMES BARGENT EN

Just over 26 percent of people convicted of murder in El Salvador in 2015 were gang members, according to new statistics that undermine the government's assertions about what is driving violence in the country.  

According to Public Ministry figures obtained by EFE, a total of 739 people were convicted of murder in 2015, 650 of them on aggravated charges. Of these, 193 people, were recognized as gang members, of which 172 were convicted of aggravated homicide.

In total, 10,792 people were convicted of a crime over the course of 2015, and 2,561 of these were gang members, representing just under 24 percent of the total. Of these, 1,433 belonged to the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13), 1,085 were from Barrio 18, 25 from Mirada Loca, 12 from La Máquina and six from Mao Mao.

InSight Crime Analysis

Violence in El Salvador has reached brutal heights over the last year, making it the most violent country in the Western Hemisphere. The state has maintained that much of this violence is due to intra-gang violence, with officials insisting the overwhelming majority of killers and victims are members of the MS13, Barrio 18 or other street gangs.

However, the Public Ministry figures would appear to contradict this, suggesting gang members are responsible for less violence than the government claims.

Obviously, there are various other factors that could explain this discrepancy, not the least of which is El Salvador's sky-high impunity rate. Most murders cases do not result in a conviction, and as a result, the perpetrators are not included in the figures.

SEE ALSO:  El Salvador's Gang Truce: Positives and Negatives

Nevertheless, this is not the first time that homicide statistics have undermined the government's narrative. Police figures released late last year showed that of the 8,150 murder victims from the start of 2014 to mid-September 2015, only 32 percent had established links to gangs.

These data sets may not be giving a complete picture of the extent to which gangs are involved in El Salvador's violence. However, they do suggest that the government's narrative on the security crisis is, at the very least, an oversimplification of an extremely complex and murky situation.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

EL SALVADOR / 15 JUN 2022

The MS13 gang and the Pentecostal Church are two worlds seemingly at odds. One man, known as Elvis, has a…

CRIMINAL MIGRATION / 19 JUL 2022

Amid El Salvador's brutal anti-gang crackdown, one top MS13 leader was escorted out of the country by a government official.

BRAZIL / 4 APR 2023

In Leticia, a tri-border between Colombia, Brazil, and Peru, Brazilian gangs are pushing up violence as the battle for control.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…