No easy responses to the overall problem of gangs in El Salvador

InSight Crime's Tristan Clavel had an interesting interview with FIU's Jose Miguel Cruz a few weeks back about a recent study he had conducted on El Salvador's gangs. You should read the entire interview but here's an exchange from the end of the interview.

IC: Your report shows that overall, a large number of members want to leave the gang or calm down, but it is extremely hard to do so. What actions should the government, civil society, academics and experts thus take concerning gang member rehabilitation?

JMC: This is a tough question because there are no easy responses to the overall problem of gangs in El Salvador. The point is to create the conditions for those gang members who want to desist and rehabilitate so they can do it in a safe and sustainable way. That means first stopping the war and reducing the violence. Second, it's important to create justice mechanisms to deal with the conundrum of past criminal behavior. In other words, we need to face the fact that many gang members have committed crimes and the society needs to come to terms with how to deal with them in a way that will not ignore the victims, as hard as this may be. And third, it's important to provide life opportunities such as school, jobs and rehabilitation services for those who want to leave the gangs.

Everything in here is why I supported the 2012 gang truce. We had heard that many gang members no longer wanted to live the lives that they had chosen. Some knew what they were getting into when they joined the MS-13 and the 18th Street gangs, but many did not. They joined for family, for security, for a sense of belonging.

I still think that the goal should be to use the truce to get as many "kids" out of gangs as possible and to put in place smarter approaches to gang prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies. It isn't reasonable to expect all fifty thousand or so gang members to give up the gang life. (El Salvador: Historic gang truce brings mixed results, September 2012)

The truce provided an opportunity for the state to work with gang leaders to facilitate the exit of many members from their ranks. Unfortunately, the Salvadoran State and gang leaders, as well as the people of El Salvador and the international community, could not devise exit strategies, rehabilitation programs, job training initiatives, and actual jobs. They couldn't figure out how to address the fact that thousands of these individuals had committed heinous crimes.