Bukele Plans Early Release for Up to 45,000 Gang Crackdown Detainees

3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Oct 15

Up to half of the more than 90,000 people detained under El Salvador’s anti-gang emergency could win conditional early release under a plan Bukele announced Tuesday night.
Bukele said the review would target prisoners jailed for “collaborating” with gangs—a broad category that includes lookouts and people who paid extortion—while keeping the emergency in place for now.
The crackdown began after more than 60 people were killed in a single day in March 2022, and officials say it helped drive the homicide rate down to 1.3 per 100,000 in 2025.
Human rights groups say the policy also fueled arbitrary arrests, logging more than 6,000 complaints and at least 575 deaths in custody, and argue releases alone would not repair the harm.