El Salvador Politics and Justice

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.