On March 27, El Salvador’s legislative assembly approved legislation allowing those under the age of 18 to serve life sentences for murder, rape and terrorism. 

The move came just weeks after the Nayib Bukele regime amended the constitution to permit life sentences for adults, part of its hallmark iron fist approach to crime. 

The extension of penalties marks a significant escalation in the severity of the country’s punitive policy, raising a number of ethical and legal concerns, according to rights groups.

The reform to the Juvenile Criminal Law provides for “the inapplicability of the special juvenile procedure” which formerly saw children and adolescents held in separate, secure centres designed to provide a more nurturing environment for younger inmates. 

With the support of the Salvadoran Institute for the Comprehensive Development of Children and Adolescents, child-friendly court-procedures and age-appropriate prisons which prioritized education, vocational training, psychological support and social reintegration were once foregrounded. 

But under the reformed law children and adolescents could now be condemned to a lifetime in prison.

Rights groups warn that the reform risks disproportionately targeting children and adolescents from lower socio-economic backgrounds, many of whom are already vulnerable to coercion and exploitation by organised crime.

The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) said in a joint statement that the reforms “constitute a contradiction of the standards enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.” These standards say that children in conflict with the law must be treated in a manner that “prioritizes their rehabilitation and reintegration, and that deprivation of liberty be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest, appropriate time.”

Since being elected as president in 2019, Bukele has been a divisive figure in El Salvador. In a bid to tackle gang violence, he introduced a state of emergency in March 2022, granting authorities broad-based authority to arrest and detain individuals suspected of gang affiliation without warrants.

The state of emergency, intended to last no longer than 30 days, has been extended more than 20 times as Bukele continues his crusade against criminal networks, groups, individuals and affiliates. 

As of March 2026, approximately 91,500 people have been arrested under the state of emergency, according to official government figures. 

While the policy has been credited with reducing homicide rates and improving public safety, its implementation has been deeply controversial. Reports suggest that many individuals, and even young people and adolescents, have been detained based on tenuous evidence, including their socio-economic status. 

This raises the alarming possibility that minors could face life imprisonment not on the basis of proven criminal activity, but on suspicion alone.

However, Bukele seems an unstoppable force, frequently polling above other Latin American leaders in popularity during his term.

Minors face arrests under repeated states of emergency

The precedents set by President Bukele’s mano duro policy are particularly concerning with the new reformed juvenile penal code on the horizon.

Salvadoran security forces have already detained more than 3,300 children, many of whom had no apparent connection to gangs’ criminal activities, according to this Human Rights Watch report.

The risk of condemning a young person to a lifetime in prison based on flawed evidence or coerced confessions is a significant concern for NGOs and analysts. 

“The legislative changes place children under the authority of El Salvador’s adult prison administration, which has been responsible for torture and other grave abuses,” noted Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.

While the reform promises to hold “periodic reviews” for life sentences, it still raises questions about the availability of the alternative of rehabilitation programs within the prison system.

Previous amendments to the Criminal Code which determine that criminal courts will have “exclusive jurisdiction” to hear proceedings “against adults and minors” involved in crimes punishable by life sentences equally raises concern about the adequacy of legal representation for minors.

If the repercussions of the “Bukele Method” continue to be enacted so stringently, young people will likely continue to face undue arrest.

Minors transferred to adult prisons

Equally concerning are the precedents set by the “Bukele Method”, demonstrating a tendency that juvenile offenders may be absorbed into an already overburdened prison system. 

UNICEF and CRC have similarly argued that “detention is not only harmful to children, but also highly costly and ineffective in preventing crime”.

Juanita Goebertus explained that there is a risk of children experiencing mistreatment in adult prison systems and that “transferring children into detention facilities designed and operated for adults, even if they are placed in nominally separate areas, is a massive regression for children’s rights in El Salvador.”

Evidence demonstrates that young children and adolescents imprisoned for “collaborating” with organised crime groups or low-level crimes are more likely to reoffend or become more closely affiliated with criminal groups during their time in prison. 

While many Salvadorans credit Bukele’s hardline policies with delivering safer streets and a dramatic reduction in violence, international bodies such as UNICEF caution that security gains may prove fragile unless “the specialized nature of the juvenile justice system” and the rights of all children are fully upheld.

Failing to invest in rehabilitation, education and social reintegration risks entrenching the very cycles of crime these policies seek to eliminate. Prioritizing punitive measures over children’s rights may ultimately undermine both long-term public safety and the wellbeing of future generations.

Featured image description: (From left to right) Minister of Defense René Merino Monroy, General Director of Penal Centers Osiris Luna Meza, President Nayib Bukele, Minister of Public Works Romeo Herrera, and Director of the National Civil Police Mauricio Arriaza Chicas touring the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in January 2023.

Featured image credit: President’s Office of El Salvador.

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The last time Verónica saw her son was December 16, 2025. She had been working at the small food stand with which she supports her family — an improvised oven and some plastic tables and chairs alongside the highway that connects Quinindé with Esmeraldas on the northern coast of Ecuador. Starting early in the day, she had watched for the military convoy transferring her son to the maximum-security prison Encuentro, which was built in the middle of a forest, some 280 miles from her home. “It was as if God wanted us to see each other, because the vehicle stopped for a moment,” she remembers.

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On Monday, El Salvador’s Attorney General announced the beginning of a mass trial of 486 alleged members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, who are accused of more than 47,000 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022.

Among the defendants, 413 are already detained in different penitentiary centers, while 73 have arrest warrants issued against them. 

The Attorney General said that 22 historical kingpins of the Ranfla, MS-13’s top leadership structure, will be prosecuted in the trial, along with 212 other Ranfla members and 152 program coordinators. Charges include aggravated homicide, disappearance of persons, extortion, arms trafficking, and femicide.

MS-13 was founded in Los Angeles as a street gang in the 1980s by Salvadoran refugees who fled the civil war. It spread to Central America when many of its members were deported to their home countries during the 1990s and has been designated as a terrorist organization both by El Salvador and the U.S.

The trial takes place amid El Salvador’s state of emergency, which President Nayib Bukele declared in March 2022 under Article 29 of the country’s Constitution. Under the emergency act, security forces have broader powers to arrest and detain suspects, while certain constitutional protections have been suspended.  

Once among the most violent countries in the world, El Salvador has managed to reduce its murder rate to 1.3 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the lowest in the whole continent. 

More than 91,000 suspected gang members have been arrested since the implementation of the state of emergency, according to the government.

These measures have drawn criticism from several human rights organizations, which accuse Bukele’s government of rights violations and abuses.

In a statement published on April 21, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights expressed concerns that the prolonged state of emergency “suspends the rights to a legal defense and to the inviolability of communications, and also extends administrative detention timelines.”
In a report published last March, Salvadoran rights group Cristosal said that critics of the government, including journalists, activists, and opposition figures, have faced increasing criminalization since 2021.

Despite the critics, the latest data published by CID Gallup show that Nayib Bukele has reached a 94% approval rating, the highest level since he came into power in 2019.

Featured image description: MS-13 gang members sat through a mass trial on April 20.

Featured image credit: El Salvador Attorney General’s Office.

The post El Salvador begins mass trial for 486 suspected MS-13 members appeared first on Latin America Reports.

When the bloodthirsty Atlácatl battalion of the Salvadoran army massacred Jesuit Ignacio Ellacuría and seven others on the campus of the Central American University (UCA) in San Salvador on November 16, 1989, the news exploded like a bomb on the clandestine frequency of Radio Venceremos, the military command’s nightmare: “The assassination confirms that the regime has collapsed,” declared the station of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). That insurgent echo, which set the tone for a decade of war, became a voice of information and agitation, but it fell silent for decades. Until now, when it has been revived in a podcast that not only recounts its history but also confronts the historical revisionism of Nayib Bukele, the president intent on erasing the scars of the civil conflict that bled the Central American country.

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