Deep inside the forests of El Salvador lies the largest detention center in the world. The Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), is the physical amalgamation of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s mass crackdown on gang violence. The center was constructed in 2023, but awareness of its operation has increased following the Trump administration’s accidental deportation of over 200 migrants to El Salvador, where they have since remained in CECOT. As American media companies and politicians have gained access to the prison, questions have emerged about potential human rights abuses and how to determine appropriate punishment for the most violent offenders.

The prison sits like a fortress, in deep forest an hour outside the capital, San Salvador. There are more than 1,000 security personnel situated in and around the fortress, with 24 hour surveillance. The prison is surrounded by three meters of electrified fencing which lie above nine meters of concrete wall. Inmates are assigned to one of eight sectors; each sector holds about two dozen large cells, holding about 80 inmates per cell. Once these prisoners enter their sector, they never leave; they are completely isolated from society. From doctor visits to court hearings, everything happens inside the prison.

Prisoners are given three meals per day, only leaving their cells for an hour a day when prison personnel lead exercise programs. The cells aren’t exactly five star hotels, featuring large metal shelves that serve as beds, with no mattresses or pillows. All the inmates in a cell go to the bathroom in the same toilet, and they wash themselves in the same pit of water. If any prisoner gets violent with another, they are sent to solitary confinement for upwards of 15 days, a pitch black room with a pea-sized oxygen hole.

All prisoners, however, are covered in the markings of the gangs that held El Salvador hostage for years such as MS13. Before we discuss the ethicality of this jail, we must first understand the historical context of El Salvador and the situation that motivated President Bukele to declare a state of emergency in 2023. Like many geopolitical stories, this one begins during the Cold War.

From 1979 to 1992, El Salvador was engulfed in a brutal Civil War between the American- backed El Salvador government and the Soviet-backed Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, a coalition of left-wing guerilla groups. Decades of authoritarian regimes and powerful landed oligarchy, which controlled large sums of land, created mass inequality and resentment among the population. Groups like the FMLN saw themselves as freedom fighters fighting for social justice and inequality.

The Chapultepec Peace Accords were signed in 1992, which ended the war and gave the guerillas the ability to enter the country’s democracy. However, this treaty did nothing to create an economic agreement of reconciliation to lift people out of poverty, so it did little long-term to create a more peaceful and stable society. Meanwhile, the United States began mass deportations in 1989, sending young men to El Salvador who were criminally involved with gangs in Southern California. El Salvador had just finished climbing out of a war that claimed the lives of 75,000 people, and did not have the capacity to manage this growing influx of foreign criminals.

The United States sent 4,000 men to El Salvador in 1989, which over the following decades multiplied to over 60,000 gang members. The fragility of the El Salvador state, combined with this thoughtless American policy, culminated in El Salvador having the highest murder rate in the world by 2003. The murder rate was 71 for every 100,000 people. As the 2000s progressed, the problem intensified, and one out of every 972 people in El Salvador was murdered in 2015. Confrontations between police/military forces and gang members were commonplace, and this led to the country taking the appearance of a war zone.

This instability most severely affected the youth of the country, and for men between ages of 9 and 17, gang life became impossible to escape. Law enforcement would often target innocent adolescents, as any tattoo was seen as a gang marking. Much of the youth were forced into gangs to get protection from law enforcement, or to find a sense of community and brotherhood in times of chaos and poverty. Being a member of a gang was defined mainly by a sense of cultural identity, not economics. In other words, these young boys sought to answer the question: how do I define myself as an adolescent?

Problems escalated when the government lost control and the country became divided along gang lines. Children were forced to pick sides, and gangs demanded extortion payments from the people that reside in their territory. If one didn’t join a gang, their life is severely restricted, and violence could very well come knocking at their door. Considering this, it’s important to remember that these gangs aren’t “from El Salvador,” as it was the criminals that America introduced to El Salvador that started these gangs in the first place

El Salvador remained a lawless wasteland until the election of President Bukele in June 2019. Immediately, President Bukele began his seven phase ‘Territorial Control Plan’ to disrupt gang finances. The plan was initially effective, but in 2022 gang violence spiked again, and there were 92 homicides in a two day span in March 2022. This spike in violence motivated Bukele to declare a national state of emergency in the next year, which resulted in military mobilization to raid neighborhoods for criminal elements.

While many people questioned the constitutionality of this executive action, it was highly effective. By 2024, the murder capital of the world had lowered its homicide rate to 1.4 per 100,000, lower than that of the United States. However, it would be naïve to say this mass crackdown was all smoothing sailing. Innocent victims have been swept up during mass arrests, and were even held in security prisons for months at end. The issue for these people is that the state of emergency declared by President Bukele declares that constitutional rights are suspended for anyone that is suspected of gang affiliation. Bukele’s regime has admitted that there have been about 60,000 wrongful arrests since the crackdown on gangs began.

While it’s easy for countries such as the United States to then assume that these policies are harmful, and potentially violate human rights, political culture is important to assume. Political culture outlines the expectations of a populace to its government, as well as the rights and duties they expect to have. While political culture should never serve as an excuse for immoral policies, it does provide context into what the social contract is between the government and the people. After decades of turmoil, it’s clear the El Salvador populace prioritizes domestic security over individual rights.

This idea is supported by the actual victims of wrong imprisonment. In an exclusive look into CECOT, a CNN reporter sat down with Juan Carlos, a middle aged resident of the mountainous regions of El Salvador, who was wrongfully arrested in early 2024. The terrible conditions in his detention centers led him to develop an infection in his right leg, which resulted in partial paralyzation. He was arrested for his “rugged appearance” according to authorities, and the tattoos that he bears, which according to Carlos are simply artistic expressions. The Bukele regime views such incidents as collateral damage, and Juan Carlos, despite his frustrations with the tactics, does believe his country is safer and heading in the right direction.

In this same documentary, CNN reporter David Culver got an exclusive look into a midnight raid, where hundreds of heavily armed foot soldiers were all deployed into one neighborhood, looking to root out suspected gang activity. When Culver asked if they felt the increased display of force was a violation of privacy, the village residents all responded with the same sentiment: No, we feel safer.

So Bukele has delivered on his promise to lower crime and make El Salvador safe, but were his tactics moral? Is life locked away in prison, completely isolated from society in unfathomable conditions, moral for even the most violent criminals? Is life imprisonment in CECOT cruel and unusual punishment?

Cruel and unusual punishment throughout history referred to methods of torture and execution. The founding fathers wrote the Eighth Amendment with the notion that torture with the end goal of a coerced confession is always immoral. During the French Revolution, scholars in France debated whether or not the use of death by guillotine during the Reign of Terror was moral. So that begs the question: is CECOT torture? Reports from the United Nations Human Rights Convention have expressed serious concern of human rights violations within the prison, documenting cases of “torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, severe violations of due process and inhumane conditions, such as lack of access to adequate healthcare and food.”

The problem for Bukele is that reports of mistreatment of detainees extends beyond those he would categorize as “the worst of the worst.” According to the same report from the United Nations, “Human Rights Watch documented 66 cases of children subjected to torture, ill-treatment and appalling conditions, including at times extreme overcrowding, unhygienic conditions, and inadequate access to food and medical care while in custody.” Human Rights watch has also documented over 3,300 cases of children being detained with no gang affiliation  at all.

If these reports are accurate, then the immoral detention of children should be universally condemned. Children should not be subjected to the conditions within the CECOT under any circumstance. This also goes for migrants to the United States, and anyone else that has not been convicted of heinous crimes related to gang activity. If Bukele is to continue operating CECOT, he needs to ensure the people imprisoned are truly the worst of the worst, and the hammer of justice doesn’t fall on innocent civilians.

If Bukele is to continue operating CECOT, he needs to ensure the people imprisoned are truly the worst of the worst, and the hammer of justice doesn’t fall on innocent civilians.