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Escalating Violence in El Salvador

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CRS INSIGHT Escalating Violence in El Salvador January 7, 2016 (IN10382) | Related Author Clare Ribando Seelke | Clare Ribando Seelke, Specialist in Latin American Affairs (cseelke@crs.loc.gov, 7-5229) During 2015, El Salvador, a country with a population of 6.5 million people, recorded some 6,657 murders. As a result, El Salvador probably posted the world's highest homicide rate, an alarming 104 per 100,000 people, last year. El During 2015, El Salvador posted the world's highest homicide rate, 104 homicides per 100,000 people. Homicides, many gang-related, have trended further upward in 2016, with more than 2,000 killings recorded through March, including massacres, killings of police and their families, and extrajudicial killings of suspected gang members. El Salvador has the highest concentration of gang members per capita in Central America; as a result, gangs are responsible for a higher percentage of homicides there than in neighboring Guatemala and Honduras. The current level and type of violence that El Salvador has experienced—including massacres, killings of police and their families, and extrajudicial killings of suspected gang members—rivals the worst periods of the country's civil conflict (1980-1992). Gangs in El Salvador The largest and most violent gangs in El Salvador have origins in and ties with the United States. The 18th Street gang was formed in Los Angeles in the 1960s by Mexican youth who were not accepted into existing Hispanic gangs. The MS-13 (in Central America. Many analysts assert that the government's tough anti-gang policies are worsening the violence; others maintain that the government has few policy options available. Escalating violence and political polarization in the country have inhibited U.S. and Salvadoran efforts to improve security and bolster growth.

Gangs in El Salvador

The largest gangs in El Salvador have origins in and ties to the United States. The 18th Street Gang was formed in Los Angeles in the 1950s as a Mexican gang; it later embraced other Latinos. The MS-13 (
Mara Salvatrucha-13) was created during the 1980s by Salvadorans in Los Angeles who had fled the country's civil conflict. Both gangs later expanded their operations to Central America after many of their leaders were deported to the region in the 1990s. GangSome gang cliques (clicasclicas) in El Salvador have maintained ties with U.S. gangs. ties with gangs in the United States, particularly in the Los Angeles and Washington, DC, metro areas. Although El Salvador has struggled with gang-related violence for many years, but homicides have escalated since the demise of a 2012-2013 truce between the country's two largest gangs. Post-truce, the gangs are more fragmented and powerful. Gangs have increasingly violent and the state appears incapable of restoring order. Gangs have become involved in extortion; kidnapping; and drug, auto, and weapons smuggling. Gangs They have extorted millions of dollars from residents, bus drivers, and businesses. Failure to pay often results in harassment or violence. In July 2015, gang threats prompted a three-day shutdown of San Salvador's bus system. Gang-related. Gangrelated crimes continue to drive internal displacement and illegal emigration. Government Efforts: A Return to Mano Dura (Firm Hand) Policies? From 2003 to 2009, El Salvador pursued aggressive anti-gang policies referred to as mano dura. Those policies involved incarcerating large numbers of youth for illicit association and increasing sentences for gang membership and related crimes. Delays in the judicial process and massive arrests led to severe prison overcrowding, and the government's lack of internal control allowed prisons to become like "finishing schools" " for gangs. Most youth arrested under mano dura mano dura provisions were later released for lack of evidence. At the same time, gangs and gang tactics became more sophisticated in order to avoid detection and arrests. The Mauricio Funes Administration (2009-2014), the first leftist government to govern El Salvador, adopted an to avoid detection. The Mauricio Funes Administration (2009-2014) initially adopted an approach for dealing with gangs that involved prevention and rehabilitation, but ultimately but failed to substantially reduce crime rates. Under pressure over his failure to quickly decrease violence, crime rates. President Funes appointed his defense minister as head of public security in 2011. With the minister's approval, top gang leaders were transferred from maximum security prisons to less secure facilities in March 2012 to "facilitate" a truce between the gangs. Between the time the prison transfers took place and May 2013, homicide rates declined dramatically. While someSome praised the truce, many, including U.S. officials, but many expressed skepticism. During the truce, disappearances increased and extortions continued while gangs gained media attention and political power. By 2014, murders had begun to rise, and the Funes government disavowed the truce. After a narrow victory, President Salvador Sánchez Cerén took office in June 2014, inheriting a security crisis with few continued, while gangs gained media attention. Gangs continued to conduct illicit activities using cell phones in the prisons. By 2014, the Funes government had disavowed the truce and murders had begun to increase. In June 2014, President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a former guerrilla commander of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), took office. He inherited a security crisis with few resources and without a legislative majority. The government formed a National Council for Citizen Security that designed an integrated "El Salvador Seguro (Secure)" security plan that is being launched in 10 of the most violent municipalities and includes proposed legislation to create reinsertion programs for gang members who have not committed violent crimes. The plan forms part of a regional Alliance for Prosperity plan put forth by the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to reduce emigration by promoting development and the rule of law. El Salvador's legislature has Seguro (Secure)" plan, which was announced in January 2015 and praised by international donors. After significant wrangling, El Salvador's legislature approved a new tax and $100 million in loans to support the security plan; however, its implementation will likely require additional taxes and loans. Consensus on those funding mechanisms has been difficult to achieve. plan in late 2015. Implementation of the Seguro plan has been slow and will likely require additional resources. In the meantime, President Sánchez Cerén has taken a tough anti-gang approach. tough anti-gang approach that has yet to yield positive results. His government has refused to negotiate with the gangs, returned gang leaders involved in the aforementioned truce to maximum security prisons, and mobilized three military battalions to bolstersupport police anti-gang operations run by the police. In August. In August 2015, El Salvador's Supreme Court declared that gangs, which had recently carried out a massive bus strike and used that had used grenades against government installations, could could be charged with terrorism. Since March 2016, the government has sent nearly 300 mid-level gang leaders to more secure facilities, blocked phone signals near jails, deployed 1,000 military reservists, and secured legislative approval of another $100 million loan for public security. Human rights groups and the Secretary General of the Organization of American States have warned the Salvadoran government that some of these policies could exacerbate the situation and prompt human rights abuses by security forces.

U.S. Policy

. Human rights groups have warned the Salvadoran government that these policies could exacerbate human rights abuses committed by the country's underpaid and ill-trained security forces. Implications for U.S. Policy Escalating violence in El Salvador and the ongoing political polarization in the country have inhibited the success of U.S. and Salvadoran efforts to improve security and bolster growth and investment under the Partnership for Growth (PFG) that began in 2011. U.S. law enforcement and prevention programs funded through the Central America America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) have begun to be co-located are being colocated through a "place-based approach" in the cities prioritized by the Salvadoran government" in the same cities that the Salvadoran government has prioritized (see CRS Report R41731, Central America Regional Security Initiative: Background and Policy Issues for Congress). Those programs could potentially be scaled up using funds provided in the Consolidated Appropriations Act,appropriated for 2016 (P.L. 114-113). The act provides "up to") and requested by the Obama Administration for FY2017. P.L. 114-113 provides up to $750 million to implement the U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America that, which supports the Alliance for Prosperity. This plan put forth by El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The act includes up to $68 million for El Salvador and $349 million for CARSI. The actIt places a number of conditions on the assistance, however, requiring the Salvadoran government (as well as the governments of Guatemala and Honduras) to take steps to improve border security, combat corruption, increase revenues, and address governments to take steps to combat corruption and address human rights concerns, among other actions (see CRS Insight IN10237, President Obama's $1 Billion Foreign Aid Request for Central America). things (see CRS In Focus IF10371, U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America: Background and FY2017 Budget Request). El Salvador has drafted a solid security plan with help from international donors and created a multi-sectoral Alliance for Prosperity Consultative Group to help oversee itsthe plan's implementation. El Salvador is also receiving U.S. economic support through a $277 million Millennium Challenge Corporation compact. Nevertheless, El Salvadorit is the only country in the so-called "northern triangle" of Central America where violence is trending upward. The U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador has called upon the Sánchez Cerén Administration and the Legislative Assembly to work together to tackle the country's security challenges. On January 5, 2016, the Legislative Assembly elected Douglas Arquímides Meléndez to serve a three-year term as El Salvador's attorney general. Meléndez, a consensus candidate who received nearly unanimous support, is a career prosecutor with experience in handling corruption cases who could play a decisive role in El Salvador's efforts to combat impunity. He will inherit an attorney general's office that has been plagued with problems and thus far resisted offers to partner with an external entity to combat corruption and reduce impunity as neighboring Guatemala and Honduras have done. Seein which violence is trending upward and the attorney general lacks a partnership with an external entity to help him investigate corruption. These trends may not bode well for El Salvador's ability to meet U.S. conditions and make progress in confronting crime and impunity (see also CRS Report R43616, El Salvador: Background and U.S. Relations. ).