V good essay on the stunningly successful Bukele crackdown on gangs in El Salvador, which had a murder rate of 107 per 100,000 in 2015 and was at 5.5 per 100,000 last year. I’d wanted to read something like this for a ages. Long but very informative. mattlakeman.org/2024/03/30/not…
The most important reason for @nayibbukele‘s successors not given enough credit: those reforms only work if the head is not corrupt. It was the same with @SaakashviliM in Georgia: only a non-corrupt leader can keep the police out of corruption. As soon a the leader accepts bribes, the whole Organisation below will follow.
@s8mb So for 7m people population, he’s saved around 100 lives per 100k, so about 7000 lives a year. That’s a massive return on investment. Even just running cold hard numbers we should be locking up the 300,000 most prolific criminals and it would pretty much eradicate crime.
@s8mb What I find puzzling is that almost all of the fall in the murder rate appears to precede the crackdown, yet the crackdown is given as the main mechanism for the fall.
@s8mb I don’t think it in any way establishes that the crackdown caused the drop in crime. As the graph you share shows the fall predates Bukele by several years (and could be attributed to US aid). It’s also oddly forgiving of his rather dubious approach to civil rights.
@s8mb @NicolasDorier Interesting morning read - thanks for sharing!
@s8mb Cheers, have likewise wanted to better understand this phenomenon before forming a take on it
@s8mb @NickCohen4 Mass incarceration is actually the only sane response to mass crime. Embrace that reality and prosper, ignore that reality and decline.
@s8mb @NickCohen4 It’s not just the lives saved, either. It’s the quality of life for all non-gang members.