Going once, going twice: El Salvador's next offensive against gangs

Evan Ellis has a really insightful piece on El Salvador's security strategy in The new offensive against gangs in El Salvador for Latin America Goes Global.

From April 26-28, 2016, I had the opportunity to visit El Salvador and interact with senior military, police, and other government personnel as part of a professional exchange sponsored by the U.S. Special Operations Command South (SOCSOUTH), in conjunction with El Salvador’s Counter-Transnational Organized Crime Regional Training Center (CTRACCT, per its acronym in Spanish) and supported by Joint Special Operations University (JSOU).  The timing of the event, just a week after the Salvadoran government’s launch of a new series of initiatives against the violent criminal street gangs, afforded me an exceptional opportunity to speak with personnel closely connected with designing and implementing the government’s new initiatives, to understand what the government is trying to achieve, against difficult odds, and how.

While what I saw and heard gave me hope that the government may be turning a corner in its fight against gangs, it also left me with profound doubts whether the new initiatives could be sufficiently coordinated, resourced, and persistent to succeed.

So much seems to have happened since I visited the country last July. The article is well worth a read.

A change in policing strategies can help (Fixing ‘Broken Windows’ Policing to Make It Work for Latin America) but so much more needs to be done.