It's nice to have friends...
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador may take some of the pressure off US jails and prisons.
All sorts of positives there:
- El Salvador gets a couple of thousand well-paid (by local standards) jobs, and buys food, etc. for the prisoners from local markets, benefiting their entire economy;
- El Salvador's relationship with the Trump administration becomes solid as a rock;
- If any US prisoners should manage to escape, they'll be in a foreign country where rewards will be paid in hard currency to anyone who turns them in;
- If a future, more liberal US administration decides to terminate the deal, El Salvador ends up with a nice new prison and thousands of people trained to work hard, and extra space to accommodate its own criminals. It can also offer a similar deal to any other country battling to find (and to afford) sufficient space to accommodate its criminal element.
- Prison corporations in America have long been the subject of complaints (fully justified, from my experience with them as a prison chaplain) about how they treat prisoners entrusted to their care. We can shut them all and export their inmates, and still save money, because I think El Salvador will charge a lot less per prisoner than a private US corporation.
- Finally, hard cases who cause trouble in the US prison system can be given an ultimatum. Get with the program, or be sent to El Salvador, where their program is a darn sight tougher than ours and you will, repeat, will get with it - or else. If they're in any doubt, show them videos of El Salvador's CECOT in operation.
Peter
http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/02/its-nice-to-have-friends.html