El Salvador's mass incarceration policy seems to be working

[WestCanMan]

On 1/25/2024 at 1:25 PM, QuebecOverCanada said:

 

 

Please move this to Rest of the World subsection of this forum.

Whoa!

This guy is badass. 11:00 - 12:15, just wow!

Edited January 28, 2024 by WestCanMan

[WestCanMan]

OMG, he was the biggest covid nazi in the world. Ugh. 

[WestCanMan]

23 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

You seem to be creating a story that suits your agenda.  Maybe post some peer reviewed studies?

There's no agenda, just observations. 

What this guy did obviously worked. It worked at every level. 

I think we could all agree that democracy prevailed when the electorate chose a leader and afforded him the power that he needed to accomplish the exact things that they wanted him to achieve. 

It's a dangerous level of power though, definitely not something that you'd want 99% of politicians to have. 

The good news for El Salvadorans is that he already pointed out article 87 to them. If they get really sick of him, they can get rid of him, and they don't have to wait for an election. 

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

Call me a coward but I would NEVER take my wife and kid there. 

Nor would I.

One of my aunts is a high ranking US government official (I have a lot of relatives in politics), and she's from Port au Prince. She looks like a tiny frail woman, but is a sharp shooter, with her Glock pistol. Even with this, wouldn't be caught dead returning to Haiti. It is too far gone.

I wouldn't feel comfortable inside a bulletproof vehicle, with two M16's inside. Enough said.

54 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

They do that to historical figures as well: judge people from 200 years ago based on today's standards. "Presentism". 

I find this hilarious, as its easy to tell yourself that you "wouldn't own a slave back in the slavery days--because its wrong". Same person would gladly own an Apple laptop, when Foxconn who builds them, has a horrific human rights record, having to build nets around some of their buildings, because people were jumping from windows, to kill themselves due to the conditions they had to work in.

God forbid I make a comment 10 years ago, that doesn't jive today but that I fully grew from.

Same type of thinking behind people feeling one should be ashamed of the US currently, due to slavery and ashamed of Canada, due to the treatment of first nations people when England took their land, vs how far both countries have come from those times.

54 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

or do they go all out to fight drugs and crime, create infrastructure, and bring in businesses? 

I don't understand how you expect to get the blue collar vote, without the above. Literally the class that builds your infrastructure, work for and build those business and likely would be front line fighting that crime, and drugs.

[OftenWrong]

1 hour ago, Rebound said:

More Republican BS out of you. 
What you said was, “The vast majority of people in US prisons are there for drug offenses, by a wide margin.”

I proved that you’re wrong, so you backpedal and say that drug convictions are the reason prison populations increased.  Maybe so, maybe not, but you were flat-out wrong. 
 

Meanwhile, we have a massive fentanyl and opioid problem and I think we ought to lock those dealers up.  

You proved nothing. I posted the official data from the FBP.

Dunno where your link is from and don't care. I'll go with the US government stats, thanks.

Besides I knew this for a fact before posting in the first place. My first post on the matter was from memory and I needed no link. Doesn't seem like you knew anything about it.

But hey, always happy to educate you Americans about the real issues in your shithole country. Anytime you need to know something, feel free to drop in and ask us Canadians here in our forum.  

Edited January 28, 2024 by OftenWrong

[QuebecOverCanada]

On 1/26/2024 at 3:27 PM, Aristides said:

The US has the largest prison population and the greatest incarceration rate in the world. If that's all it takes there should be no murders in the US at all.

The fact is, before the mass incarceration that truly began in the 1990s, there was more crime in the US.

It's not a long term solution for many reasons you would give to be against, but if you have a crisis, it's prescribed in some instances.

On 1/25/2024 at 4:39 PM, TreeBeard said:

Do you credit increased incarceration as the only factor in reducing the murder rate?

No, but I give it the most credit.

What else do you think made El Salvador considerably safer?

Edited January 28, 2024 by QuebecOverCanada

[QuebecOverCanada]

On 1/26/2024 at 4:12 PM, Perspektiv said:

I know someone who was arrested near Wanchai, Hong Kong for throwing trash and missing the garbage can. A cop noticed, and made the arrest.

Very good point. It might come at a surprise for us, because we don't need those laws necessarily, but it works.

A country with very strict laws and that give great punishments like Singapur is very much safer than many other countries.

Rwanda in Africa also follows that pattern. If you walk on grass you get a hefty fine (for their standards of living) or even get hit with a baton by the police officer who catches you. It's also called the Singapur of Africa for that reason and it is thriving much more than almost all of its neighbors, if not all of them.

[QuebecOverCanada]

18 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

OMG, he was the biggest covid nazi in the world. Ugh. 

Yes, COVID was used by many authoritarians (not necessarily dictators but they are included in that bracket) such as Putin who still uses COVID to prevent demonstrations or strikes.

Another example of a country which has stringent laws and punishment made crime virtually non existent compared to what was Russia post-USSR.

For Bukele, it was a tool to get everyone at home and get the criminals in their nests.

[QuebecOverCanada]

On 1/27/2024 at 8:52 AM, Michael Hardner said:

Interesting question.  There do seem to be a lot of murders in the USA.  And they're alone in the group of civilized democratic countries in using capital punishment.

 

Of course this is an old debate...

I don't think Americans priorities are safety over freedom.

A country like Japan practices capital punishment despite its very low murder rate.

But a country with a lot of murders like El Salvador probably has more of a compatibility with this way of ruling that Bukele pushes forward. I find it fascinating sociologically speaking, how it came to the point where imprisoning tens of thousand of people was the solution taken, and how it was popular.

Edited January 28, 2024 by QuebecOverCanada

[WestCanMan]

11 minutes ago, QuebecOverCanada said:

Yes, COVID was used by many authoritarians (not necessarily dictators but they are included in that bracket) such as Putin who still uses COVID to prevent demonstrations or strikes.

Another example of a country which has stringent laws and punishment made crime virtually non existent compared to what was Russia post-USSR.

For Bukele, it was a tool to get everyone at home and get the criminals in their nests.

There's nothing that a politician can do to lose credibility faster than drawing legitimate comparisons to Trudeau 🤮 

[QuebecOverCanada]

6 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

There's nothing that a politician can do to lose credibility faster than drawing legitimate comparisons to Trudeau 🤮 

Yeah ok, stupid Trudeau! We hate him!

But can we stay on the topic please, lol.

[WestCanMan]

3 minutes ago, QuebecOverCanada said:

Yeah ok, stupid Trudeau! We hate him!

But can we stay on the topic please, lol.

OK, my bad. 

TBH, I don't know what stage of the game Bukele initiated his covid protocols in. 

There was actually a point in time when his type of aggressive measures to limit the spread of covid made sense (like Trump's arrivals-from-China ban), and if he actually did it to limit the spread then it was understandable. 

Our government did nothing to limit the spread until after they let Chinese passengers roam freely for 2 months, and then the bulk of our gov't's dubious actions were to force people to take the jab - not for their own good - and I shouldn't have just assumed the same of Bukele. It was a knee-jerk reaction. 

I'll give Bukele a pass on this one because at every stage of the game, El Salvadorans have benefitted from his governance, however strict. He does seem to be doing everything within his power to benefit his country. 

We'll see if he ends with Pelosi-level wealth while his country goes the way of San Fransisco, but right now he's setting a scary precedent, by showing that a person can wield that much power, and do so almost exclusively for the good of his country.

 

You know that the Dems would love to sieze his level of power by clearing the SC of a few conservatives (they already tried to achieve the same thing by just adding more liberals, but that failed), assuming that level of control over the police (they already own the FBI and they politically cleansed the National Guard), and the DOJ (done).

I'm just assuming that Bukele's level of influence over the media is organic, due to his massive level of success at every level (it's hard to imagine that he used skullduggery to gain undue influence over them as an independent with a small budget, when two major parties had decades and massive budgets to do that very thing), but the Dems already have total control over the media and social media in the US too.

IMO the Dems are very close to having Bukele-like power, and they have a clear path to achieving it. 

[TreeBeard]

7 hours ago, QuebecOverCanada said:

No, but I give it the most credit.

Based on what?

[QuebecOverCanada]

On 1/28/2024 at 9:25 PM, TreeBeard said:

Based on what?

The measures taken and their results. He did not invest in Social Workers right here or integrated to society those he made arrested.

El Salvador's State is now a force to be reckoned with a cartel activity that suddenly became much less flamboyant than it was before Bukele's presidency. The numbers are unprecedentedly low for this country which historically has 30+ murders/ 100 000 inhabitants a year.

On 1/28/2024 at 3:19 PM, WestCanMan said:

I'll give Bukele a pass on this one because at every stage of the game, El Salvadorans have benefitted from his governance, however strict. He does seem to be doing everything within his power to benefit his country. 

We'll see if he ends with Pelosi-level wealth while his country goes the way of San Fransisco, but right now he's setting a scary precedent, by showing that a person can wield that much power, and do so almost exclusively for the good of his country.

Clearly, this is a problem, he will become corrupt 100% over time.

But a stable, corrupt society is better than an unsafe, corrupt society.

Edited January 30, 2024 by QuebecOverCanada

[QuebecOverCanada]

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvador-president-bukele-poised-another-landslide-voters-head-polls-2024-02-04/

SAN SALVADOR, Feb 4 (Reuters) - President Nayib Bukele on Sunday secured a thumping victory in El Salvador's elections after voters cast aside concerns about erosion of democracy to reward him for a fierce gang crackdown that transformed security in the Central American country.

Provisional results on Monday morning show Bukele winning 83% support with just over 70% of the ballots counted. Bukele declared himself the winner before official results were announced, claiming to have attained more than 85% of the vote.

----

Mass incarceration and its effects on crime made Bukele one of the most popular politician of our era.

[QuebecOverCanada]

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Haiti has once again made the news.

4000 inmates were freed by an armed militia.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68462851

The fact that criminals roam free in Haiti means that Haiti is extremely unsafe. Gangs lead the country, and normal life is simply impossible. Crime creates poverty, it's not the other way around. If Haiti wants to get out of its hole, it has to do what Bukele did in El Salvador.

[CdnFox]

40 minutes ago, QuebecOverCanada said:

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Haiti has once again made the news.

4000 inmates were freed by an armed militia.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68462851

The fact that criminals roam free in Haiti means that Haiti is extremely unsafe. Gangs lead the country, and normal life is simply impossible. Crime creates poverty, it's not the other way around. If Haiti wants to get out of its hole, it has to do what Bukele did in El Salvador.

I think they're way beyond that.  They need to declare martial law and start shooting 'criminal insurgents' on sight.  Remember that movie 'escape from new york'?   Welcome to Haiti.

[QuebecOverCanada]

9 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

I think they're way beyond that.  They need to declare martial law and start shooting 'criminal insurgents' on sight.  Remember that movie 'escape from new york'?   Welcome to Haiti.

Totally.

It's like China back at the start of the XXth Century, a land divided by multiple warlords, raping, looting, killing as much as possible. Rwanda also had this kind of anarchy back in the 1990s.

They need a total dictatorship, and for generations. Bukele showed us the way.

China showed us the way too. Same thing with Rwanda.

Dictatorship isn't a choice; it's a necessity for countries afflicted by this much crime and chaos. I wholeheartedly wish Haiti to find a strongman.

[Rebound]

On 1/28/2024 at 2:34 PM, QuebecOverCanada said:

I don't think Americans priorities are safety over freedom.

A country like Japan practices capital punishment despite its very low murder rate.

But a country with a lot of murders like El Salvador probably has more of a compatibility with this way of ruling that Bukele pushes forward. I find it fascinating sociologically speaking, how it came to the point where imprisoning tens of thousand of people was the solution taken, and how it was popular.

Japan “practices” the death penalty… yeah, but their last execution was sixteen years ago, for a guy who massacred a bunch of people.  
 

My view of the death penalty is that it’s a huge waste of government money.  

Edited March 6, 2024 by Rebound

[robosmith]

WTH does El Salvador's brutal injustice system have to do with US Federal Politics?

If we just shot criminals without a trial, Trump would be dead already. 

[Deluge]

On 1/25/2024 at 2:25 PM, QuebecOverCanada said:

El Salvador had a homicide rate of 36 murders for 100 000 inhabitants back in 2019. It has trended down to 7.8 in 2022.

How did they achieve such a feat? By incarcerating criminals, fast. Nayib Bukele, elected in 2019 has made it clear that law and order was his first priority, building a huge prison for El Salvador's criminals swiftly. He increased the salaries of the country's troops and the police. He even unfortunately went so far as to have cause innocents to be jailed as trials were expedited, it has been denounced by numerous NGOs. Bukele has kind of an authoritarian approach to things, and will represent himself once again for El Salvador's next election.

I found El Salvador's steps to be in line with the mentality in much poorer countries than Canada. What is happening there could be imitated by Ecuador which has many cartels trying to run the country.

Is it better to run a developing country ridden with crime this way? I think we have the proof that might be the case that dread has its virtues when it comes to some social issues in some parts of the world. I also think that this kind of policies will run out of its logic at one point as the cost of imprisoning such a huge chunk of its population will lead to economical losses. What are your thoughts on the matter? Is it moral to bring down crime this way?

 

Please move this to Rest of the World subsection of this forum.

Start labor camps. That way they will be forced into production despite the crimes they committed.

[WestCanMan]

According to Trump it's not so much mass incarceration that's working for them, it's exporting their criminals to America. 

It will be interesting to see what Bukele has to say about that.