Bukele of El Salvador announces plan to release half of prisoners held in gang crackdown.

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador unveils plan to release half of the 90,000 prisoners detained under the state of emergency targeting gangs.

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Salvadoran Vice President Naib Boquele has floated a plan that would allow early parole for half of those detained under the state of emergency that authorities have used to arrest more than 90,000 people in the past four and a half years as part of efforts to crack down on violent crime gangs.

Bokele's plan to reduce the prison population was announced on Tuesday night. The program focuses on releasing inmates known to be gang associates, a broad term that can include a variety of people, including gang watchers and those who make extortion payments.

"There are a lot of people who have actually committed crimes, but their crime was working with gangs," Boekle said. "They deserve to go to jail, but we come from a country where it wasn't that unusual to be involved with gangs, and if we wanted to arrest everyone who was involved with gangs, we'd have to arrest 20 percent of the population."

Without giving details, the president indicated that authorities plan to analyze the cases to determine possible early release with supervision, which could apply to up to half of those detained during the state of emergency.

The Trump administration says federal authorities have arrested more than 10,000 suspected gang members.

A state of emergency was declared in March 2022 after violence escalated, killing more than 60 people in one day. This measure was initially applied for 30 days, but it has been extended many times.

The declaration of a state of emergency has coincided with a dramatic decrease in the country's homicide rate and has helped make El Salvador a more attractive tourist destination, while suspending or limiting some constitutional protections, including the right to know the reasons for arrest, the right to access legal counsel, and the right to visitation.

El Salvador's president believes the move is needed to curb rival gangs MS-13 and Barrio 18.

Meanwhile, human rights groups have condemned the declared state of emergency, arguing that it has led to widespread arbitrary arrests. These groups have repeatedly asked Bokele to cancel this action.

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Human rights organizations have filed more than 6,000 complaints during the state of emergency and documented the deaths of at least 575 people in government detention centers.

Some argue that the possible release of thousands of prisoners is not enough to repair the damage caused by their long incarceration.

"Victims of arbitrary detentions deserve not only the restoration of their freedom, but also compensation for the harm caused by the State of El Salvador: physical and mental harm caused by imprisonment, family suffering, loss of work or education, damage to reputation, among others," Salvadoran exile lawyer Berta Delon writes in X.

Bukele rejected widespread criticism from national and international human rights groups, suggesting that he should take the side of victims of group violence.

The president also defended the need to maintain the state of emergency while announcing his goal to end it.

According to government statistics, the murder rate in El Salvador has decreased drastically in the last decade, including during the presidency of Boquele. That rate has fallen from a peak of more than 100 murders per 100,000 in 2015, four years before Boucle took office, to 1.3 per 100,000 in 2025.

But the government has narrowed the definition of murder to exclude killings by police, killings in prisons and bodies found in unmarked graves.