Emma Lightizer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gangs have been an issue in El Salvador<\/a> since before its twelve-year civil war ended in 1992. However, the problem became much more visible and violent after the United States initiated its policy of deporting any foreign nationals found guilty of committing a crime. Thousands of gang members from the Mara Salvatrucha<\/a> and Barrio 18<\/a>, both founded in the U.S., were deported to their countries of origin, intensifying the violence and instability already present in Central America during the 1990s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One set of policies that Central\nAmerican countries have employed to try to gain control over the gang problem\nis known as \u201cMano Dura,\u201d meaning \u201cfirm hand\u201d or \u201ciron fist.\u201d In El Salvador,\nthis policy was first put in place by President Francisco Flores in 2003 (Wolf 49).\nMano Dura created joint military and police anti-gang squads who made a\nspectacle out of arrests, hoping to gain public support by looking tough on\ngangs. The policy also included the Ley Anti Maras, or Anti-Gang Law, which\nmade gang membership itself a crime and allowed the squads to arrest people\nbased on their appearance alone (Wolf 50). The law applied to anyone at least\ntwelve years of age, meaning that many children were arrested for looking like\ngang members (Wolf 50). However, the Ley Anti Maras was challenged in court,\nand many judges refused to charge those arrested for alleged gang membership on\nthe grounds that the Ley Anti Maras violated Salvadorans\u2019 constitutional\nrights. Ninety-five percent of those arrested under the law were released without\ncharges due to lack of evidence (Wolf 51). <\/p>\n\n\n\n There were several claims that Mano\nDura wasn\u2019t doing enough, so the policy was rebranded as \u201cS\u00faper Mano Dura\u201d\nunder the next president, Antonio Saca. This version of the law added \u201cMano\nAmiga\u201d and \u201cMano Extendida,\u201d purported policies of rehabilitation and\nprevention for gang members, but the two new policies were more talk than\nreality. They were chronically underfunded and poorly organized, and were only\nthere to offer the president some credibility on paper of taking a more complex\napproach to the gang problem. Official policy continued to ignore the realms of\nprevention and rehabilitation, instead focusing on harsher punishments against\ngang members (Wolf 54).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Mano Dura is a Salvadoran\npolicy, it has corollaries in other Central American countries. Honduras, for\nexample, launched its \u201cBlue Freedom Plan\u201d the year before Flores\u2019 Mano Dura in\nEl Salvador. Honduras\u2019 plan included several of the same measures as Mano Dura:\nzero tolerance, the cooperation of police and military forces against gangs,\nand the use of tattoos and other physical traits as markers of gang membership\n(Garc\u00eda). In Guatemala, indiscriminate arrests of possible gang members were\ninitiated in 2003 under \u201cPlan Sweep.\u201d Even though this and other anti-gang\nlegislation was explicitly rejected by Guatemalan courts, officials continued\nto arrest suspected gang members under a zero tolerance policy; much like in El\nSalvador, most of these arrests were overturned due to a lack of evidence (Garc\u00eda).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of these policies have been\nwildly unsuccessful\u2013and even counterproductive. Since gang members were being\ntargeted based on appearance, they adapted and started being less obvious about\ntheir gang membership, hiding tattoos under clothing or foregoing them\naltogether (Wolf 72). More importantly, the abuses by police under the Mano\nDura policies led gang members to be even more distrustful of authorities and\ntherefore more loyal to their gangs and fellow members. The gangs became\nclose-knit in a way that makes rehabilitation a much more formidable challenge\nthan it was before (Wolf 72). Additionally, the few arrests that did\nsuccessfully lead to imprisonments were counterproductive: now, gangs are run\nfrom within prisons by gang members who gained street credit through their\narrests. Since the prisons are overcrowded and poorly run, clique leaders are\nable to work with their gangs and order hits from within the relative safety of\nthe prison: after all, they cannot be arrested again while they are still in\nprison (Wolf 72). The legacy of Mano Dura-type policies has been one of\nincreased violence, better organization of gangs, and failure of governments to\nsuccessfully introduce any significant rehabilitation or prevention efforts\nagainst gangs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bibliography:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garc\u00eda, Carlos. “Tracing the\nHistory of Failed Gang Policies in US, Northern Triangle.” InSight Crime.\nSeptember 20, 2017. Accessed May 10, 2019.\nhttps:\/\/insightcrime.org\/news\/analysis\/tracing-the-history-of-failed-gang-policies-in-us-northern-triangle\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wolf,\nSonja. Mano Dura: The Politics of Gang Control in El Salvador. Austin:\nUniversity of Texas Press, 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Further\nReading:<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/insightcrime.org\/news\/analysis\/tracing-the-history-of-failed-gang-policies-in-us-northern-triangle\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.insightcrime.org\/investigations\/how-mano-dura-is-strengthening-gangs\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n