By The International Crisis Group

  Principal Findings : What’s new? In President Nayib Bukele’s first year in office, El Salvador has seen a sharp drop in what long were sky-high murder rates. While the public celebrates his well-known “iron fist” policies, the reasons for success might lie in quiet, informal understandings between gangs and the government. Why does it matter? It is a major feat to reduce killings by the three main gangs in one of the world’s most violent countries. But the precise causes of the decline are complex and often unclear. Recent outbreaks of gang violence and political mudslinging underline the fragility and reversibility of this achievement. What should be done? Sustaining violence reduction is key. The government should prioritise community-focused development, rehabilitation of jailed gang members and more sophisticated policing efforts, including internal checks on security forces. Should gangs keep violence down and cooperate with authorities during the pandemic, Bukele should consider opening channels for local dialogue with them.   

  After decades of harrowing gang crime, homicides have plunged in El Salvador on the watch of the new president, Nayib Bukele. Faced with the growth of the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs, previous governments resorted to “iron fist” policies to crush them, only to find these fuelled a backlash. Since his 2019 election, President Bukele, a self-styled outsider, has won huge public support by presiding over a 60 per cent fall in murders. Yet prospects that this achievement will endure are in doubt. The collapsing homicide rate may stem not only from the government’s public security policies, but also from the gangs’ own decision to curb bloodshed, possibly due to a fragile non-aggression deal with authorities. In addition, Bukele’s confrontational style, which has been exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, risks entangling his security reforms in political battles. Broadly backed efforts to support affected communities, assist members wishing to leave gangs and encourage local peacebuilding are more likely to end definitively El Salvador’s cycle of violence. The Bukele administration argues that the plummeting murder rate – with daily killings now standing at their lowest rate since the end of the country’s civil war (1980- 1992) – represents the crowning achievement of a new security strategy. In theory, the government’s Territorial Control Plan couples robust law enforcement with violence prevention schemes. It has reinforced joint police and military patrols in 22 municipalities suffering high rates of crime, while toughening confinement measures in jails in a bid to sever communications between inmates and the outside world. At the same time, the government’s goal of building dozens of “cubes” – glass-walled recreational and education centres – represents the flagship effort to brighten the lives of young people growing up under gang dominion and prevent recruitment into their ranks. The precise reasons for the nationwide drop in homicides are hard to pin down. Statistical studies show that the Territorial Control Plan is most likely not the sole cause; specific local falls in murder rates do not correspond precisely to those areas where the plan has been implemented. Instead, in large part, gangs appear to have themselves decided to scale back their use of lethal violence. Unassailable control over communities, declining gang rivalry and increasingly autonomous gang leadership outside jails may explain this decision more than the Territorial Control Plan. Yet other government policies might have played a role: numerous analysts and local activists ascribe the gangs’ move to an informal understanding between them and the authorities, who have allegedly ordered security forces to dial back their clashes with these groups. A sudden killing spree attributed to MS-13 in April illustrated just how precarious the gangs’ commitment to reducing violence can be. Bukele’s reaction to the attacks, which left over 80 dead in a five-day span, reaffirmed his inclination to adopt punitive measures to force gangs into submission. Images shared around the world from inside El Salvador’s high-security jails revealed inmates huddled together or forced into shared cells without any access to daylight. Although murder rates have since fallen again, the risk remains that gangs, now short of extortion income due to lockdown measures and indignant at the government’s crackdown, will once again resort to extreme violence.  

  Crisis Group Latin America Report N°81, 8 July 2020  

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2020. 46p.

By The International Crisis Group

Born of Port-au-Prince’s most powerful gangs, Viv Ansanm has raised the criminal threat overhanging Haiti’s state and civilians to alarming heights. The gang coalition announced itself to the world by besieging the Haitian capital in early 2024, triggering former Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s resignation. After consolidating its hold on much of the city, Viv Ansanm has expanded into neighbouring departments, tightened its grip on the main roads connecting Port-au-Prince to the rest of the country and mounted attacks on the airport, essentially cutting Haiti off. Gangs’ violent offensives have killed over 16,000 people since 2022. But a rising death toll and diversifying criminal portfolio, now including extortion, piracy and drug trafficking, have not stopped gangs from claiming to represent the country’s downtrodden, especially on social media. UN approval of a new foreign force to combat the gangs could shift the balance of power. But it is vital that plans are in place not just to overpower the gangs but also to persuade them to demobilise. Haitian business and political elites have relied on paramilitary forces to protect their interests since the 1950s dictatorship of Francois Duvalier, or “Papa Doc”. But in the wake of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, gangs have mutated, evolving from tools in the hands of the most powerful to overlords of Haiti. Two main gang groupings – the G-9, whose most public figure was Jimmy Chérizier, alias Barbecue, and the Gpèp, under Gabriel Jean Pierre, known as “Ti Gabriel” – fought for supremacy after Moïse’s murder. Even as the two faced off, gang leaders discussed whether to strike agreements to scale down the death toll among their members and spare resources. Mediators managed to craft several pacts among local groups to divvy up coveted turf. Late in 2023, reports emerged that the country’s two main gang coalitions had merged into one platform; their first joint offensive began months later replace the current transitional government. The concrete result they aspire to is a general amnesty for leaders and members. Haiti and its foreign partners are looking to beef up their ability to respond to the gangs with force. The UN Security Council has approved a new security operation, dubbed the Gang Suppression Force, to replace the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission, which started up in 2024 but has never had the personnel or resources needed to check the gangs. The new force aims to incorporate 5,500 military personnel and expects to draw on reliable funding. Its mandate appears to give it more operational independence and the leeway to adopt more aggressive tactics. But until the force’s deployment, which is expected to commence around April 2026, Haiti’s authorities will have to turn to other methods. A task force, led by Haiti’s prime minister and powered by U.S. private military companies, has already used drones to hit gang members in their urban strongholds, killing over 200 people. Foreign partners are also providing training to the newly reconstituted army. Meanwhile, citizens exhausted by the threat to their neighbourhoods have established self-defence groups, provoking a brutal riposte from the gangs. Alongside its violent expansion, Viv Ansanm has sought to transform its public profile from that of a predatory criminal force into that of an ideological crusader. Crime bosses say their mission is to protect the poorest Haitians from rapacious elites and colonial powers that historically have oppressed this black Caribbean nation. Chérizier and other gang leaders have even announced the creation of a new political party, albeit without taking the steps needed to register it formally. While continuing to enrich themselves at the expense of Haitians rich and poor, their message has nevertheless become more overtly political: they appear intent on guaranteeing that their allies are part of the next administration, which should be formed by 7 February 2026 toreplace the current transitional government. The concrete result they aspire to is a general amnesty for leaders and members. Haiti and its foreign partners are looking to beef up their ability to respond to the gangs with force. The UN Security Council has approved a new security operation, dubbed the Gang Suppression Force, to replace the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support Mission, which started up in 2024 but has never had the personnel or resources needed to check the gangs. The new force aims to incorporate 5,500 military personnel and expects to draw on reliable funding. Its mandate appears to give it more operational independence and the leeway to adopt more aggressive tactics. But until the force’s deployment, which is expected to commence around April 2026, Haiti’s authorities will have to turn to other methods. A task force, led by Haiti’s prime minister and powered by U.S. private military companies, has already used drones to hit gang members in their urban strongholds, killing over 200 people. Foreign partners are also providing training to the newly reconstituted army. Meanwhile, citizens exhausted by the threat to their neighbourhoods have established self-defence groups, provoking a brutal riposte from the gangs. A well-resourced, properly informed and expertly commanded Gang Suppression Force could help change the balance of force on the ground and push the gangs onto the back foot. Port-au-Prince and its foreign counterparts, however, must take care to mitigate the dangers of civilian casualties and violations of human rights, ensuring that robust accountability systems are in place. Once the force is up and running, the Haitian government should also overcome the coordination failures that have plagued previous security campaigns. In particular, the government should appoint members to the National Security Council and ask them to design a strategy that lays out each institution’s role in fighting the gangs. Even so, it remains unlikely that force aone will entirely extricate gangs from the communities they control or sever the nexus with politics that has bedevilled Haiti for over half a century. Though informal negotiations with gangs take place on a regular basis – to gain access to people in need of humanitarian aid or to keep businesses open – many Haitians oppose the idea of formal dialogue with the perpetrators of crimes they consider unforgivable. Government officials have correctly said the Haitian state cannot engage in talks from a position of weakness. But if the new multinational force and revamped Haitian security forces allow the authorities to gain the upper hand and broadcast their armed superiority, state officials should look to use dialogue as a means of convincing the gangs to cut their losses, reduce violence against civilians and, eventually, demobilise

While that happens, the administration, with the support of donors, should expand the program that is now providing exit ramps for minors in the gangs’ ranks. In cooperation with international experts, it should also start to design a transitional justice system that provides benefits and a measure of judicial reprieve to those who disarm and cooperate with the authorities, while also guaranteeing that there will be no general impunity. It is hard to understate the damage gangs have wrought in Haiti, killing and raping thousands, creating the hemisphere’s worst humanitarian crisis and destroying the lives of millions. Understandably, many Haitians refuse to contemplate responding to the horrors they have endured with anything less than crushing retaliation. But even if the Gang Suppression Force lives up to its promise, it is hard to compute the possible cost in lives and resources of a campaign to destroy the gangs. At some stage, negotiations from a position of strength aimed at protecting civilians and disarming the gangs would serve Haiti far better as a first step on the long path to stability.

Port-au-Prince/New York/London/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2025. 49p.

By Julie A. Ward, Javier Cepeda, Dylan B. Jackson, Odis Johnson, Daniel W. Webster and Cassandra K. Crifas

Objectives.To describe all-outcome injurious shootings by police and compare characteristics of fatalversus nonfatal injurious shootings nationally.Methods.From July 2021 to April 2023, we manually reviewed publicly available records on all2015–2020 injurious shootings by US police, identified from Gun Violence Archive. We estimated injury frequency, case fatality rates, and relative odds of death by incident and victim characteristics.Results.A total of 1769 people were injured annually in shootings by police, 55% fatally. When a shooting injury occurred, odds of fatality were 46% higher following dispatched responses than police-initiated responses. Injuries associated with physically threatening or threat-making behaviors,behavioral health needs, and well-being checks were most frequently fatal. Relative to White victims,Black victims were overrepresented but had 35% lower odds of fatal injury when shot.Conclusions.This First multi-year, nationwide analysis of injurious shootings by US police suggests that injury disparities are underestimated by fatal shootings alone. Non-policing responses to social needs may prevent future injuries.Public Health Implications.We call for enhanced reporting systems, comprehensive evaluation of emerging reforms, and targeted investment in social services for equitable injury prevention.

American Journal of Public Health, 2024. 11p.