The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights came out with a statement on Tuesday, slamming El Salvador for some recent changes it made to its laws. Here's what it had to say:
We urge the authorities of El Salvador to promptly review the worrying constitutional and legal changes adopted last week, which provide for life imprisonment for children as young as 12, in contradiction with international human rights standards.
Under these provisions, cases of children sentenced to life imprisonment will generally be reviewed only after they have served 25 years of their sentence. This approach contravenes the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires that children in conflict with the law be treated in a manner that prioritizes their rehabilitation and reintegration, and that deprivation of liberty be used only as a last resort and for the shortest possible period.
Prolonged detention is deeply harmful to children, violates several of their rights, and affects their development and well-being throughout their lives, reducing their chances of successful reintegration into society.
It is also essential to improve prison conditions and ensure full compliance with human rights standards for all persons deprived of their liberty.
While the UN makes it sound like the Salvadoran government, led by President Nayib Bukele, is just running around locking up children for stealing candy or something, that's not quite the truth.
I wrote about this earlier this month, but El Salvador's Congress voted 59 to 1 to approve constitutional reforms that would make those committing murder, rape, or acts of terrorism subject to a lifetime jail sentence. Even members of the opposition voted in favor of it, and it was recently ratified. Article 27 of the country's Constitution previously prevented any single criminal from serving more than 60 years in prison.
It also passed a similar bill on life sentences for minors who were jailed while under the age of 18. In those cases, there can be a review after 25 years. And again, it's not for kids who stole some candy from the corner store; it's for those who commit acts of rape, murder, or terrorism.
It's also important to note that in 2022, El Salvador changed its juvenile criminal laws, lowering the age of responsibility for gang-related activity to 12, and making it so that kids ages 12 to 15 who are affiliated with organized crime can get up to 10 years in prison, while 16- to 18-year-olds can get up to 20 years.
This doesn't mean that all the teens in El Salvador will serve 10 years, 20 years, or even lifetime sentences. It just means there's an option when necessary. And, in this country, it's often necessary.
These ain't your average juvenile delinquents. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago:
Global recidivism rates range from 20% to 63%, depending on several factors, which means that when a prisoner is released from jail, he's 20% to 63% likely to commit a similar crime. If that criminal is a murderer, rapist, or terrorist, even 1% is too much of a risk for a civil society to take. People intent on destroying or ending the lives of others do not deserve a chance to do it again. Their rights do not trump the rights of their potential victims.
In a place like El Salvador, where many of the murderers, rapists, and terrorists have an extra element behind their crimes — gang affiliation — it's even more important that these people are no longer able to participate in society, so that the millions of people who do not commit crimes can live peacefully. When criminals are gang members or affiliated with organized crime, those recidivism numbers skyrocket.
Many on the left like to paint members of MS-13 and Barrio 18 — El Salvador's most dominant gangs — as if they're just kids in street gangs who can be rehabilitated. The reality is that these are terrorist groups. Members are willing to die or go to jail to prove their loyalty. For many, it has even become spiritual, a religion of sorts, and they feel that justifies their heinous crimes... many MS-13 members have Satanic ties and see murders as mere sacrifices to a higher being.
We all know now that Bukele did what it took to clean up El Salvador. He had to rely on desperate action to handle a desperate situation. But the global elites, like these folks at the UN High Horse Commission or whatever you call it, like to sit in their ivory towers and tell other countries how to do their business, pretending as if those minors who participate in systematic organized crime are simply kids who are a little misguided.
Bukele took to social media and told the UN exactly what it could do with its "social experiment," as he called it. I'm going to post his entire remarks here because it's a good lesson for everyone.
Do you remember April 27, 1994? Maybe you don’t, but we do.
El Salvador had just emerged from a bloody civil war that left 85,000 dead. Then, following your recommendations, on that day the Juvenile Offender Law was approved, under the same arguments as the document you’re now attaching.
Three years later, Bill Clinton deported the Salvadorans who had formed gangs in the United States. They arrived in El Salvador and found a law that essentially granted impunity for minors under 18 to commit crimes.
And, of course, the newly arrived gang members began recruiting almost exclusively minors, all capable of committing heinous crimes with the only risk of PERHAPS facing a MINIMUM SENTENCE in a light facility, where they even went so far as to kill and rape other minors who had only committed minor offenses and who could actually have been reformed.
The rest of the story you all already know: those gangs became the bloodiest criminal groups in the world, held 80% of our country hostage, established a parallel government, and left a quarter of a million dead and missing, plus 2 million displaced, just in El Salvador, the country they turned into 'the murder capital of the world.' So no, thanks but no thanks.
Take your social experiments to other countries that haven’t suffered what we’ve suffered; maybe they’ll believe you (hopefully not). We’re not going back to the past.
Tell 'em, sir!
I really don't think these people understand exactly what El Salvador was up against. Bukele chose security for the innocent and the survival of his country over organized crime, and it's worked. His approval ratings are through the roof, and even his opposition admits that.
The Salvadoran people don't need — or want — these hoity-toity UN folks who live charmed lives in Geneva or wherever the heck telling them how to "fix" things. It's that kind of "concern" that leads to criminals running amok anyway.
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