Overview
- President Nayib Bukele said his government is evaluating a program that could grant early, monitored release to about 50% of people jailed for collaborating with gangs, a claim he made during a press appearance this Tuesday.
- Bukele said beneficiaries would still be legally considered guilty but could leave prison under conditions and oversight, and he framed decisions as case-by-case by level of collaboration.
- Officials confirmed a commission is reviewing detainee files but have not disclosed who sits on it, what power it holds, what criteria it uses, or whether the judiciary will approve releases.
- Rights groups and U.N. experts warned the plan does not address long-running complaints of arbitrary arrests, restricted access to lawyers, mass prosecutions, and hundreds of deaths in custody under the regime of exception.
- The proposal comes on top of a four-year security policy that began in March 2022 and led to roughly 93,000 detentions and a sharp fall in homicides, and it could change daily life for thousands if rules, monitoring and legal pathways are clarified.