Overview
- President Nayib Bukele said he is considering a plan to grant conditional, monitored early release to roughly 50 percent of inmates judged to have worked with gangs.
- The proposal updates earlier talk of reviews and does not include concrete legal steps or a timeline for how prisoners would be screened or supervised.
- Authorities say the 2022 emergency powers used to arrest suspects have produced about 93,000 detentions and helped drive homicide rates to record lows.
- Human rights groups and a UN expert group have repeatedly warned of due‑process violations, with Socorro Jurídico alleging at least 30,000 wrongful detentions while officials say about 8,000 detainees have been freed as innocent.
- If enacted, the measures could ease severe overcrowding and change detainees’ daily lives but would also trigger scrutiny over oversight, how risk is assessed, and whether wrongful detentions are properly remedied.