El Salvador's Bukele announces plan to free up to half of prisoners jailed in gang crackdown
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador announced a plan Tuesday night that could see up to half of the people detained under a long-standing state of emergency released early.
The proposed measure focuses on individuals classified as "gang collaborators"—a wide category that encompasses everyone from gang lookouts to people who paid extortion fees to avoid violence.
Since March 2022, the Salvadoran government has used a state of emergency to arrest more than 90,000 people in an aggressive campaign to dismantle the MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs. While the emergency mandate was originally intended to last only 30 days, it has been extended repeatedly over the last four and a half years.
Bukele defended the broad nature of the arrests, arguing that gang collaboration was once a common necessity for many citizens.
"There are many people who have indeed committed crimes, but their crime was collaborating with gangs," Bukele said. "They deserve to be in jail, but we come from a country where collaborating with gangs wasn’t so unusual, and if we were to arrest everyone who collaborated with gangs, we would have to arrest 20% of the population."
The president indicated that authorities will analyze specific cases to determine who is eligible for conditional release under government monitoring.
The crackdown began after a violent spike in March 2022 that saw more than 60 people killed in a single day. Under the emergency rules, constitutional protections were suspended, stripping detainees of the right to legal counsel, visitation, and the right to know why they were being arrested.
The government points to a staggering drop in homicide rates as proof of the policy's success. Government data shows a decline from over 100 murders per 100,000 residents in 2015 to 1.3 per 100,000 in 2025. However, critics note that the government has changed how it defines homicide, excluding deaths in prison, police killings, and unidentified bodies.
While the government touts a safer environment and a boost in tourism, human rights organizations have condemned the state of emergency as a vehicle for arbitrary mass arrests. These groups have documented 575 deaths in government custody and over 6,000 formal complaints.
For some, the prospect of conditional release is an insufficient remedy for the trauma of imprisonment. Bertha Deleón, a Salvadoran lawyer currently in exile, argued on X that victims deserve more than just freedom.
"The victims of arbitrary detentions don’t just deserve to recover their freedom, but they also deserve to be compensated for the harms caused by the State of El Salvador," Deleón wrote, citing loss of employment, education, and mental health struggles.
President Bukele has dismissed these criticisms, suggesting that human rights groups should prioritize the victims of gang violence over the detainees. While he expressed a desire to eventually end the state of emergency, he maintained that the measures remain necessary for the country's security.
