The Strain on El Salvador’s Prison System Sample Clauses

The Strain on El Salvador’s Prison System. The strain placed on the country’s prison system by the Xxxx Xxxx and Super Mano Dura offers one explanation for the failure of the firm-hand approach in El Salvador. Both the Mano Dura and Super Mano Dura allow for the random apprehension and booking of gang members.71 Prior to the enactment of these laws, Salvadoran prisons were already “the most overcrowded in the region,” making it difficult for the country to implement successful rehabilitation and surveillance programs.72 Between 2003 and 2004, while the Xxxx Xxxx was in effect, over 4,000 gang members were sent to prison— bringing El Salvador’s total prison population to 12,117.73 Fearing the volatile prison environment, Salvadoran inmates often turn to MS-13 and other gangs for protection during their incarceration.74 In 2005, the El Salvador Policía Nacional Civil (PNC) reported that MS-13 recruited 1,630 prisoners serving sentences in El Salvador’s prison system.75 Exemplifying this hostile prison atmosphere, on August 18, 2004, in La Xxxxxxxxx—El Salvador’s largest prison—the pressure amid the 3,200 inmates in the overloaded detention center hit xxxxxxxx xxxx.76 Four hundred “members of [the] notorious street gang, Xxxx 18,” armed with homemade grenades and knives77—“fashioned from broken wooden chapel benches and steel bed frames”—went to war with the other inmates.78 Before prison guards could contain the outbreak, thirty- one inmates were killed, “some scalped and mutilated beyond 68. Id.