Merry Christmas TexAgs. A few things being conflated, I'll post my piece, and then I'm gonna enjoy Christmas.

Violent gangs terrorizing a country is horrific. Arresting them, incapacitating them, and locking them up for life is justified and necessary. Deterrence and public safety matter. What does not follow is that once the state has done this, and has total control of whomever is in their custody, it is free to abandon moral limits, dismiss evidence of abuse as "bleeding heart left wing agenda", or do what many of you are doing and declaring whole categories of people as subhuman and deserving of any kind of abuse that state can imagine. That's terrifying on a human rights level and the amount of power you're willing to trust to the state.

Bukele absolutely improved safety and did what was necessary to claw his country back from the brink. I can recognize that and still have full conviction that the state shouldn't torture prisoners.

Malibu said:

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Interviews from former prisoners who have been there, including podcasters and media types looking in. Routine beatings, malnutrition, sensory deprivation chambers, sodomizing from guard batons. It's a false choice that either El Salvador has to torture prisoners or have unabated MS-13 terrorism. You can incarcerate people for life that deserve to be incarcerated for life without beating the **** out of them as a routine standard of care.

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So no different than American prisons.

There is no evidence that this is truly happening.

And, no, the "evidence" you've given isn't believable.

Quote:

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Hell, I'd lie about getting tortured if that could get me out of jail and so would you and most of us on the board. Do whatever it takes to survive and get out of hell.

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I'm not sure anybody in CECOT is ever "getting out". The justice minister has openly stated that the only way that prisoners will ever leave there is "in a pine box coffin".

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Edit - misquoted the justice minister. Must have been thinking about the good senator and former college football HC from Alabama

This is a complicated issue/topic. I have no doubt that there is a decent degree of torture and pretty bad treatment in that big new prison, any prison in LatAm is going to be rough (unless the prisoner can afford otherwise). Salvador is/was my favorite country to work in LatAm, great people. Excellent work ethic and pride in their work, grateful for opportunities. It is a complicated society, only about 5% of the land is arable the civil war did a number on it.

The right in SV has always been unmerciful and harsh and the left pretty tough too. The gangs were products of the civil war and had their origins in the US. The crime scene that developed was a product of the 80's in SV and the US then deporting the youth that they allowed to come into the country in response to the civil war.

The tough question is that what Bukele has been and is doing is going to have collateral damage and will concentrate power in individuals, including Bukele. No doubt SV needed radical measures and with radical measures comes some really unsavory things.

Case in point a lady who I worked with for years has a son, non gang guy for sure and a decent kid. I have known him since he was 5 or 6. Kid got mixed up with a girl and the girls parents didn't approve. Girls dad was connected to someone in the police and denounced the kid as a gang member. Kid got picked up and sent to that prison, basically no legal process or much of anything, just straight to jail. It took the mom, a single working mother, about 3 months to get him out. Cost her about $12K in legal fees, she makes about $850 a month for the sake of comparison. Kid ended up with no charges against him, lost about 25 pounds off an already thin frame. Was beaten up several times and had broken fingers and such. Tore the mom and kid up.

The possibility of abuses with the kind of situation that Bukele is overseeing is what is scary. Is it worth it or not? Luckily not my call. SV is a lot better nowadays than it was, that is unarguable. Will it always be? I have no idea but my eyebrows are raised.

Are they being prohibited from getting more tattoos? Because that seems to be the most important thing to those inmates.