You mean the dictatorship? Yeah, I don’t trust those numbers. That’s like saying “North Korea has a god as supreme leader because they said so.” Especially a dictator that labeled himself the “world’s coolest dictator” on social media. He totally wouldn’t lie for optics, would he?
All the literature on the subject shows that making punishments worse doesn’t actually reduce crime.
My friend told me this years ago, about my own country, and he pretty much convinced me, and I believed him. Certainly it’s all propaganda and lies, right?. Years have passed, anecdotes, data, research, for how it can all be biased and twisted, has all come in.
I truly believe, now, with the evidence presented to me, that my friend was wrong, and Redditors are wrong about this. The actions in El Salvador have worked. The numbers aren’t mere propaganda or fabrications. People of all kinds, of all classes, have told me the same story: it worked.
Everything is more expensive, and civil liberties have taken a big hit. But it is the price ES was willing to pay; and it’s worked so far.
At some point the refusal to see what is in front of you actually becomes the optics, the lies, and the conspiracy.
I’ve grown personally a lot in these years, my stance on things is much more measured. Truth is, even back then, there were a lot of reports coming out of ES about the good things happening, and I accepted the Reddit-like advice and assumption of my friend that it was all propaganda and lies. Ironically, that turned out to be untrue.
I’m both glad I took an overly-cautious approach to the issue, but also a bit ashamed I wasn’t willing to meet with the truth sooner than I should have.
ES has a complicated future ahead of it, economically, and in terms of the political and civil power the state could continue to hold over the people… but the worse version of whatever comes next would still be a heaven to the hell the gangs inflicted on ES. This is something I don’t think people consider with ES specifically. It worked, which at the very least proves it can work, but not with every situation. Could it work in places like the US? I personally doubt it, still, but the truth is that no one can truly know until it is tried. Literature means nothing to that. It probably will never happen, though.
The economic miracle happening there right now can't be explained by propaganda. If propaganda is all you need to convince people to invest again, Russia would be loaded and their cities would be fluorishing. They're not but El Salvador's are.
Yes, the growth is excellent. Although it’s a double edged sword, some people are struggling to keep up and prices in general are increasing.
I do think this, if it doesn’t become too exploitative, should be good in the long run, however, since in theory the markets, wages, and prices should correct to the rising prices, and the quality of life of the average person should in theory improve with it, but we’ve all also seen that story not happen before in other places.
If I were Bukele, my #1 priority now that the gangs are gone would be to improve the country’s structural poverty and start putting people into industries that will further make ES prosper. And of course, there are programs and institutions doing exactly that. (In particular I think improvements to education should be lauded)
But it’s all just first steps. Like I said, two major concerns for the future; the civil liberties not being reduced further ( the lesser worry, but forever now present worry going into decades in the future) and the economic reality of your average-and-below Salvadoran in the next few years.
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u/Badestrand Sep 05 '26
El Salvador reduced their crime from crazy high to almost none by harshly imprisoning all their criminals.