Bukele says El Salvador’s criminal justice system is “the best in the world”

San Salvador, Aug 21 (EFE).- President Nayib Bukele said in a message on X on Wednesday that El Salvador’s criminal justice system is “the best in the world,” referring to a rehabilitation project for “non-violent criminals.”

“Just wait until you see these guys (prisoners) rebuilding our country while reducing their sentences. We truly have the best criminal justice system in the world,” Bukele wrote.

The Salvadoran president pointed out on Tuesday, also in a message on X, that “Gang members will spend their entire lives in prison. But non-violent criminals can receive training and pay off their debt to society.”

He added, in a video showing prisoners performing various tasks, that “we have already started with the first 48,000.”

Bukele shared last July that “thousands” of “non-dangerous, non-gang member” prisoners are being trained, without detailing in which areas, to “rebuild” the country.

In an interview with EFE in Madrid last April, the honorary president of the Salvadoran government’s Integration Directorate, Alejandro Gutman, argued that the reintegration of young gang members is possible “in some cases.”

“For those who already have a very marked history, it is very difficult” because “they also have very long sentences,” he said, adding that “there are others who surely had less involvement” and could have “that opportunity to, over time, get out” of prison.

“It is important to work with them, with those who can,” and the State must “support them,” said Gutman, in response to criticism from international organizations of the security strategy based on a regime of exception implemented by President Bukele’s government against the so-called maras.

According to official figures, from March 2022 to this year, more than 81,100 arrests have been recorded under the emergency regime, among which more than 7,000 people have been released on parole.

This exceptional regime has become the Government’s main and only measure against gangs and has earned Bukele his immediate re-election, despite the constitutional prohibition.

However, various humanitarian organizations have received more than 6,400 complaints of human rights violations, mainly due to arbitrary detentions and torture, and have reported more than 300 deaths of detainees in state custody, most of them with signs of violence.

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