Anyone is susceptible to crime in El Salvador, from a baby to a geriatric; it could even be you and me. Carlos Carcach, in the PGCC Criminal Justice Database, informed us “El Salvador is heavily marked by drug trafficking, smuggling, transnational gangs and other organized crime groups”(2). Alan Gomez for USA Today wrote “Government data show 6,657 people were murdered in the small country last year, a 70% increase from 2014. The homicide rate of 104 people per 100,000 is the highest for any country in nearly 20 years”. Nina Lakhani, for the Guardian, also reported that in El Salvador there was a “70% spike in violent deaths in 2015”. These figures explain why newspapers are writing various articles detailing the small country as the murder capital of the world. Alan Gomez’s article even concluded that the explosion of homicides is what likely makes the country “the murder capital of the world”. Residents suffer from home invasions, rape, burglaries, homicide and extortion. Meanwhile, tourists are likely victims of armed robberies. The second vastly committed crime is Extortion, though the figures aren’t what the actual amount of extortion that goes around equal to, but there are some who have reported it to the police. “Extortion… is an effective criminal enterprise… in 2014, there were …show more content…
These members of gangs such as the infamous 18 street and MS-13 grew up like other teens except they have lacked love or have felt pressured to join and feel accepted. Wim Savenije spent time with a few gang members during his research to write his book “Maras y Barras: Pandillas y Violenica Juvenil en los Barrios Marginales de Centroamerica”. He experienced that these teens were regular, happy, jokers, insanely smart kids that fell into the wrong path. Once a teen falls into that path there isn’t any going back and they most likely won’t have a long life span. Because teens are falling into these paths, the future of El Salvador and neighboring countries are doomed. Unless these gang members are controlled or exterminated, the country will keep going downhill. But once the government comes up with ways to implement laws and strop these gangs, they run away to neighboring countries and the cycle goes around as per dispersing cockroaches when a house is bug