Dr. Bishop argued that homicides have decreased but that reduction is exaggerated since homicides are not counted the same way as before. Homicides in prison, deaths at the hands of police, and people who have disappeared are not counted.

Sarah Bishop, a professor at Baruch College, offered comments noting how Bukele became popular because of his use of image, hiding the erosion of democracy, and the presumption that the country was democratizing at the time he came to power. Inmates are uncommunicated and their rights suspended.

Why was Bukele’s mass incarceration policy effective? Dr. Cruz provided two reasons: 1) El Salvador is a small country; 2) it has two highly organized gangs. Once you bring those two groups under control crime drops. This is hardly replicable to other countries in the Hemisphere.

Bukele pursues a prong strategy: negotiation with gangs & a territorial control program, a mano dura policy linked to the same security cohorts that have supported this for many years. In 2022 MS-13 made more aggressive demands and launched an offensive in March that led to 80 homicides in a weekend

Violence decline began in 2015, 4 years before Nayib Bukele came to power. Bukele, arrived on the scene in the 2010s as a mayor. He reached the presidency becoming very popular through the use of social assistance programs during the COVID pandemic as well as a sophisticated political communication.

These policies in the 2000s became the state response for gang violence, leading to increasing mass imprisonment. This produced an unintended consequence: gangs become better organized through their networking in prison. Gangs went from isolation to close communication and operation.

Dr. Cruz showed country's continuity with counterinsurgent policies (e.g., mano dura and super mano dura policies), with members of security forces from civil war remaining in security services after transition to democracy. Political arrangements were not dissolved after democratic transition.