El Salvador: Crisis
Boosts Crime Rate
The economic crisis is
the main source of
soaring criminality in
El Salvador, said
National University
Professor Jose Antonio
Martinez at the 4th
International Meeting on
Justice and Law that
closes here today.
Martinez said the
extended crisis prevents
most Salvadorans from
leading a decent life so
criminals can not always
take the blame for their
social actions.
Among the leading causes
he mentioned soaring
unemployment rate (30
percent),
underemployment,
informal employment and
under 50 percent the
population with access
to formal jobs.
The expert also lashed
at the Salvadoran
neoliberal government
that accepts US meddling
in domestic affairs and
follows WB and IMF
recipes.
Martinez adds that
national jurisprudence
lost the advances gained
with the peace accords
in the 1990s and now
suffers a dangerous
retrogression.
With more than 300
reforms in the past, ten
years successive
governments have
obliterated the rights
and guarantees of
defendants making legal
cases more inquisitive,
and overlooking that
criminals are also human
beings.
A new draft bill grants
the Attorney General's
Office and National
Civilian Police broad
powers and misses basic
rights of the
defendants.
If approved, the police
could jail a defendant
up to four years without
trial and could be even
denied the right to
defense, hinting that
the above could help
restore torture in El
Salvador. |
