Will El Salvador’s Homicide Rate Continue Falling?

Christine Wade, Felix Ulloa, Arturo Matute, and I provide some provisional answers about the recent decrease in El Salvador's homicide rate for the Inter-American Dialogue’s daily Latin America Advisor.

El Salvador, which has among the world’s highest homicide rates, has seen that rate drop by half to 331 murders in June, as compared to 677 for the same month the year before. The government credits a tough military crackdown on gang violence as the reason for fewer instances of violence, while the three main gangs attribute the drop in homicides to a nonaggression pact formed in March between the groups. What is the main cause for El Salvador’s sharp drop in violence? What more can the country do to build upon the positive momentum? How will the drop in murders, if sustained, affect the economy and migration patterns in the Central American country?

Obviously all the answers are excellent but I really like Felix's contribution. Here's the second half:

I do not think my country has seen a sharp drop in violence. What we face are different expressions. As it has repeatedly done in the past, the government’s repressive actions will further exacerbate this violence. Most Salvadoran citizens applaud the new ‘death squads.’ Police and soldiers brandish pictures of murdered gang members on social media. The gangs have been classified as terrorist organizations. The Legislative Assembly authorized ‘extraordinary measures’ called for by the executive branch, and the judiciary issued arrest warrants for those who attempted to negotiate peace, through the truce in 2012. These actions are neither new nor positive. They leave unaddressed extreme inequality, psychological trauma and impunity.

A sustainable decrease of murders would stop large-scale flight. But to achieve that, the long-term economic and social policies for what is currently unaddressed are needed. The multimillion-dollar economic aid offered by the United States government should be redirected from security measures to these needs. Rather than leading the madness, governments must model effective, fair and rehabilitative justice and show how to treat each other as human beings.

You can read the 250-word answers here.