https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/25/el-salvador-crime-human-rights-prisons/ "In 2015, El Salvador was the world’s murder capital, with 107 homicides per 100,000 people — as if one of Chicago’s worst neighborhoods was a country unto itself. Since then, homicide in El Salvador has fallen so far, so fast that it now looks comparable to the United States’ and may still be falling. "It’s not entirely surprising that the people of El Salvador prefer the official police state to the [gangs]. And this is where El Salvador offers a useful lesson to the rest of us: Do not make people choose between human rights and safe streets, because they will choose safe streets every time." This is not at all surprising. It's a high price to pay - and is a slippery sloap - but people will pay it every time.......and will every time suffer other consequences.
Free and living in mortal danger or safe but living under a potential police state with limited rights and freedoms. What a terrible choice.
No introspection as to why there are so many criminal gangs there and the role of American prisons in creating/sustaining them I guess
MS-13 started in the US prison system and we deported a bunch of them back to El Salvador. Prisons play a huge part in gang recruitment and operations. I guess you can round up all the gangsters and put them in prisons to make the streets safe, but prisons are pretty conducive to gang activity, and the same sort of violence.
I'm a bit confused here. The people of El Salvador weren't asked to choose between human rights and safe streets. They were asked to choose between a state run by criminal gangs or a police state.
Creating a criminal gang of police to stop the criminal gangs. Besides, we've already done that here, lots of the cops just end up doing crime to make money. 'They are a cancer:' Deputy gangs still operating within LA County sheriff's department, report says
It seems that’s how you here in America look at it. I doubt the Salvadorians with families and businesses look at it. For them, it’s probably the lesser of two evils.
I imagine people in El Salvador felt the same way. You aren't free when violent street gangs run your neighborhood and can either force you to join them, pay them off, or they murder you/your family on their whim. That's a failed state. So I'm not surprised they chose the police state as the lesser evil. That's not choosing police state over human rights. It's choosing a police state over no rights.
Well said, but they do have one right - to live in peace but with a kicker: don't cross the state. I think there are many in America who would enjoy living in a Christian police state because they believe themselves Christian and would obey the laws without question. It has the benefit of stability and certainty, and they'd give up certain rights for that. Of course, it assumes what is almost never the case: a succession of benign dictators.
