HomeNewsBriefEl Salvador to Cut Mass Arrests, After Gang Demands
BRIEF

El Salvador to Cut Mass Arrests, After Gang Demands

BARRIO 18 / 8 AUG 2012 BY HANNAH STONE EN

El Salvador’s government announced that the police were going to slow the rate of operations to catch large numbers of suspected criminals, but denied that this was in response to recent demands made by gang leaders.

Security Minister David Munguia Payes said that the number of large-scale operations would be scaled back in the coming days, prioritizing the capture of those accused of the most serious crimes. He said this was because of a lack of space to hold those arrested, and denied that the government was giving in to the demands of the gangs for operations to cease, reported La Prensa Grafica.

According to Munguia, the security forces are currently arresting an average of 250 people a day, adding to the population of 26,000 prisoners and 3,000 people in police holding cells.

InSight Crime Analysis

It’s true that El Salvador's penal system is heavily overcrowded, with a capacity for only 8,100 prisoners, and another 400 in holding cells. The number of inmates has shot up in recent years, from some 20,000 in 2008.

However, the timing of Munguia’s announcement, less than a month after the leaders of the country’s two biggest gangs asked the government to suspend operations in their territory, raises suspicions about its motive. Since March, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 have cut down on killings, as part of a truce that has brought the murder rate down by some 60 percent.

In July, jailed leaders presented a list of demands to the government. They said that, as they have committed to cutting  violence, the government should do its part by suspending police operations in their territory, limiting themselves to making arrests when individuals are caught while committing a crime.

The government's lack of transparency during the entire process of dealing with the truce makes it difficult to know if it is accurate for Munguia to say that the slowing down of operations is nothing to do with this demand.

The announcement is a change in policy from the security minister -- in an interview in February this year, before the gang truce took hold, Munguia told El Faro that he was prepared to lock up another 10,000 members, if that’s what it took to defeat the gangs.

According to police figures from last year, there are currently 28,000 gang members in El Salvador -- roughly 10,000 of them in prison and the rest at liberty. If the government is arresting 250 people a day, most of whom are gang members as the Prensa Grafica report states, it should only take three months or so for the entire gang population to be behind bars.

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…

CYBERCRIME / 20 OCT 2021

A month after El Salvador’s government introduced Bitcoin as a national currency, an illegal corner of the new economy has…

ECUADOR / 18 AUG 2023

InSight Crime spoke with Brotherton to learn more about the history of gang legalization in Ecuador and examine its impact…

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…