Bukele Enacts Constitutional Reforms Allowing Life Sentences for Children as Young as 12 in El Salvador

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador has signed constitutional reforms that allow life prison sentences for defendants as young as 12, following passage by the Legislative Assembly; the measures take effect April 26 and will be implemented in newly created criminal courts. The changes expand capital criminal exposure beyond homicide, femicide and rape to include gang membership and accomplices, and come amid the government’s long-running crackdown on gangs that Bukele credits with driving the country’s homicide rate down from 53.1 per 100,000 in 2018 to 1.9 per 100,000 in 2024. Officials point to mass prosecutions and extraordinary sentences — including multi-century verdicts in some trials — as evidence the measures are intended to prevent a return to the violence of previous years.

Human-rights organizations and UN monitors have sharply criticized the reforms, warning that imposing life sentences on children violates international norms and El Salvador’s constitutional protections for minors. Those concerns are amplified by the scale and character of recent policing: roughly 91,650 people have been detained under the state of emergency, officials say, and analysis suggests about 36% of those arrested had not previously been identified as gang members, raising alarm about arbitrary detentions. On social media, Bukele’s official account defends the changes as essential to stop juvenile recruitment into gangs and to protect public safety, while critics — including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and activists online — portray the move as criminalizing childhood and a further erosion of civil liberties; supporters counter that harsh penalties are necessary to safeguard innocent victims.

Reporting on the story has shifted from earlier emphasis on the security gains of Bukele’s anti-gang campaign to a sharper focus on the legal and rights implications of this legislative milestone. Initial coverage highlighted dramatic reductions in homicide and popular backing for a tough response to gangs; more recent reporting, led by outlets such as NPR, has documented the formal signing, the exact effective date, the creation of special courts, the broader range of offenses covered, updated detention figures, and connections to other constitutional changes — including last year’s elimination of presidential term limits — that critics say point to consolidation of power as well as a tougher penal approach.