HomeNewsBriefEl Salvador Survey Highlights Opposition to Gang Negotiations
BRIEF

El Salvador Survey Highlights Opposition to Gang Negotiations

EL SALVADOR / 11 DEC 2014 BY KYRA GURNEY EN

A survey in El Salvador revealed both overwhelming opposition to gang negotiations and mixed feelings about the country's police force, a snapshot of public perceptions of security in one of Latin America's most violent countries.

According to a survey conducted by the University Institute of Public Opinion in El Salvador, over three-quarters of respondents are against the government negotiating with the country's gangs.

Meanwhile, a third of all respondents indicated that they thought police were involved in criminal activity, while 34 percent said the police protected citizens and 26 percent said they believed the police force contained a mix of both. An overwhelming 90 percent of respondents stated that purging the national police was either very or somewhat urgent.

Although only a fifth of respondents said they had a lot of confidence in the national police, 60 percent believed the deployment of community police would improve security.

In terms of the country's overall security situation, 69 percent of respondents said they thought that crime increased in 2014, while nearly 22 percent reported having been the victim of a crime. Although the numbers remained small, the percentages of respondents who moved (nearly 5 percent) or had a member of their household leave the country (8 percent) due of threats doubled in comparison to the previous two years.  

InSight Crime Analysis

Public opposition to the gang truce appears to be in line with government policies. President Salvador Sanchez Ceren's administration has indicated that it will not publicly support negotiating a new gang truce after the peace deal forged under the president's predecessor fell apart following an initial drop in homicides. When reports emerged at the beginning of November that the National Council for Citizen Security (CNSCC) was evaluating the possibility of opening dialogues with members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and Barrio 18 gangs, council members were quick to discard the possibility.

SEE ALSO: El Salvador Gang Truce: Positives and Negatives

In terms of El Slavador's security forces, the lack of public trust in the national police is understandable. Corruption in the police force is a pervasive problem in El Salvador, where both United Nations and journalistic investigations have revealed links between the country's drug trafficking groups and security forces. On the other hand, there appears to be a great deal of optimism about the new community police force, which was deployed in capital city San Salvador in August and has been tasked with using the input of local communities to address crime. 

Meanwhile, the two-fold increase in the percentage of respondents who had a member of their household leave the country because of threats likely reflects one of the major factors that has precipitated a flood of child migrants from Central America to the United States over the past year.   

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

BOLIVIA / 3 MAR 2023

As the CITES treaty hits 50, we take a look at its successes, failures, and future challenges in reducing the…

BARRIO 18 / 22 SEP 2023

Confidential police reports reveal that the three main gangs operating in El Salvador remain a real threat.

COCAINE / 14 AUG 2023

Mounting homicides and increased drug trafficking have raised concerns about organized crime in Uruguay. Recent studies presented to the Ministry…

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…