The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans • Hacker News Board

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#171

Post by dawdawji » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 3:46 PM UTC

ashoeafoot wrote: post #167

netsharc wrote: post #4

Heh, even the extrajudicial imprisonment camps can be outsourced now. Why look bad having your military run Guantanamo when you can do the Uber model it for a cheap price. Heh, or is a pun on AirBnB the more apt name for it.. "Concrete Floor & Indefinite Detention"?

I bet you they subcontract them as slave labour to make a quick buck.

No doubt about it. Even in the U.S. we have a serious slavery problem. If you are incarcerated you do not have the same rights and most certainly can and will be made to labor if you want any hope of getting out.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

If we have indentured slaves in the U.S. then just imagine what they are doing at CECOT. Our judicial system is punitive. They would rather you working for 25 cents an hour cleaning vomit off hospital gowns then they would have you learning to read and write. Cash rules everything around them.

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#172

Post by collingreen » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 4:22 PM UTC

sanktanglia wrote: post #129

gotoeleven wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Oh please tell me when we suspended immigration laws and opened our borders

And imported third worlds like a commodity! I wonder if there is a tariff on that.

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#173

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 4:27 PM UTC

sanktanglia wrote: post #128

User23 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

And what role do you think the us had in destabilizing their country and building violent drug rulings across the world from its regressive anti drug policy?

[deleted]

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#174

Post by hayst4ck » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

afpx wrote: post #155

hayst4ck wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's too simple and unsympathetic which only serves to divide. They don't literally see themselves that way. That's a liberal pejorative of their belief system. There is (or was) a strong culture of self reliance, which is born out of a concept of freedom being focused around "freedom from" rather than "freedom to." They see a billionaire's freedom being taken away and worry that if it can happen to someone that po…

What are people proposing as the solutions? If you tax their wealth, they just move the wealth elsewhere, right?

Like they did between 1932 and 1981?

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#175

Post by ananamouse » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

TheCleric wrote: post #162

thephyber wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the year of press cycles where this guy took El Salvador from one of the worst crime rates in the Western Hemisphere to one of the best by liberally arresting anyone he thought might be related to crime gangs? From Wikipedia: > During his presidency, Bukele enacted tough-on-crime policies that scholars have characterized as successfully reducing gang activity and violent crime at the cost of arbitrary ar…

So having a low crime rate is more important than keeping innocent people out of jail?

According to the voting population of El Salvador, yes.

If society has philosophically nice and clean set of rules that allow brutal gangs to terrorize the citizenry, just how worthwhile are those rules? Maybe the system needs a reboot before they can be worthwhile again.

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#176

Post by poincaredisk » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 4:47 PM UTC

TheCleric wrote: post #162

thephyber wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the year of press cycles where this guy took El Salvador from one of the worst crime rates in the Western Hemisphere to one of the best by liberally arresting anyone he thought might be related to crime gangs? From Wikipedia: > During his presidency, Bukele enacted tough-on-crime policies that scholars have characterized as successfully reducing gang activity and violent crime at the cost of arbitrary ar…

So having a low crime rate is more important than keeping innocent people out of jail?

I assume in this context "low crime" doesn't refer to shoplifting, but to gang violence, murders, kidnappings, and shootings. If you fear about your life daily, you will probably be more willing to accept extreme measures than someone living in a relative comfort and safety.

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#177

Post by overfeed » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 4:48 PM UTC

thephyber wrote: post #143

elihu wrote: post #133

I came across this article[1] the other day, after reading about the US sending people to a prison in El Salvador and wondering what we actually know about the place. An incongruity that I didn't notice at the time but realized a bit later is that the prison is called "The Center for Terrorism Confinement" and it has a capacity of 40,000 people. Why would El Salvador or any country need a terrorist detention facility…

Did you miss the year of press cycles where this guy took El Salvador from one of the worst crime rates in the Western Hemisphere to one of the best by liberally arresting anyone he thought might be related to crime gangs? From Wikipedia: > During his presidency, Bukele enacted tough-on-crime policies that scholars have characterized as successfully reducing gang activity and violent crime at the cost of arbitrary ar…

Who, pray tell, publishes the Salvadorian crime rates? Dragnet arresting young men will reduce crime in any country, but that sure is worse than the disease because while that action of arresting innocents is not "illegal" from the regime's perspective, it should be. So "crime" has gone up, and perpetrated by the state against citizens.

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#178

Post by rangestransform » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 4:49 PM UTC

at_a_remove wrote: post #108

This is pretty sad as a headline. It's not a warning, it is business as usual. Civil asset forfeiture started expanding in the 1970s and in the next decade, we got Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. Gitmo? 2002. Room 641A is the next year. Black ops sites, aka "we can torture you as long as we're not in the United States" is somewhere around there. Extrajudicial killings, I read 2,400 in just Pakistan, that's O…

The pandemic showed me that people just hunger for authoritarianism, especially when it’s used against a group they view as bad for society

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#179

Post by overfeed » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 5:03 PM UTC

codemonkey-zeta wrote: post #158

IncreasePosts wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drug cartels are viewed as terroristic activity, so yes, there are a lot of terrorists in El salvador by that perspective. Shouldn't be too surprising when cartels commit outrageous acts like the Mejicanos massacre

Yeah anyone criticizing the mass incarceration in El Salvador as unjust should really familiarize themselves with the crimes of the gangs down there. The obliteration of a social scourge in a single presidency was nothing short of miraculous. That's why Bukele was re-elected at the highest levels in history - his people genuinely love him for it. The right to a fair trial is great in places that have law and order, b…

> you won't miss that right at all.

Until the day the goons break down your door and drag you away. Then you'll wish you had a fair trial. "It'll never happen to me if I keep may head down" will ensure no one will feel safe about publicly opposing the president on any issue.

Your dictator is not special, most of them concentrate their power by claiming to address an issue that's legitimately concerns a lot of citizens; Idi Amin expelled Asians under cover of addressing inequality.

Re: The 'Judicial Black Hole' of El Salvador's Prisons Is a Warning for Americans

#180

Post by ein0p » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 5:16 PM UTC

tastyface wrote: post #107

rayiner wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I suspect that people like you require the personal experience of having a loved one black-bagged in the middle of the night without recourse to understand OP's position. Every authoritarian regime ever uses the same logic to build up their police state: "for the greater good".

The US has 2.5x the incarceration rate of China, and 1.8x the incarceration rate of Russia. How's that for "authoritarian regime"? Or is this "different" somehow?