Yes, we can. Just look at El Salvador.
They jailed 2% of their population, so the remaining 98% can live in peace.
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Crime in the Democrat stronghold Chicago is out of control. Residents cannot even hold a Christmas tree lighting ceremony without people getting killed:
A 14-year-old boy shot and killed Friday night in the Loop, just hours after the city’s annual Christmas tree lighting downtown, is being remembered as a funny, basketball-loving teen with a bright future.
The deadly shooting, which also wounded an 18-year-old man, was the second of two shooting incidents in the Loop less than an hour apart late Friday night. Hundreds of young people had gathered downtown to participate in a so-called “teen takeover” that was advertised on social media, adding to the thousands already downtown for the Christmas tree lighting.
In total, nine young people were shot in the separate incidents.
The source of the crime is cultural; the welfare state has been used breed a population of sociopathic savages. The reason the crime is allow to flourish is ideological. Black Lives Matter Mayor Brandon Johnson lays it out:
To quote:
“We cannot incarcerate our way out of violence.”
Why not? Because:
“It is racist.”
That is liberals’ BLM ideology in a nutshell. Enforcing the law is racist, so criminals must be allowed to run amok terrorizing the law-abiding. If you don’t like it, you are a racist and will be dealt with appropriately as soon as Democrats have the political leverage. That’s when they will have a use for the police.
Bukele didn’t just “get tough,” he flipped the script instead of policing symptoms street level dealers & shooters, he dismantled the entire command and control structure of the gangs in one synchronized, overwhelming sweep, then parked 80 000+ of them in a place they can’t run or communicate from.
The result speaks for itself San Salvador went from the murder capital of the world to safer than most U.S. cities in <5 years.America doesn’t have 18th Street or MS-13 running 70 % of neighborhoods like El Salvador did, but we do have pockets parts of Chicago, Baltimore, St. Louis, Albuquerque, etc. where gang territorial control is effectively permanent and the local population lives under daily extortion and threat of violence.
The Bukele model suggests three uncomfortable but testable ideas for those American hotspots. Temporary suspension of certain civil liberties in precisely defined high violence zones a “state of exception” limited in geography and time to allow mass, intelligence led roundups of entire gang structures, not just low-level soldiers. A federal mega facility or several regional ones built to Supermax standards where verified gang leadership and soldiers are permanently separated from the outside world no phones, no visits that can be used to run the street, no early release. Call it CECOT North.
Zero tolerance enforcement paired with a believable, advertised “off-ramp” any gang member who permanently renounces and cooperates gets relocated with a clean record anyone who stays in gets the hammer. It’s not about turning the whole country into El Salvador it’s about admitting that in a few dozen American neighborhoods the social contract has already collapsed and the current playbook has failed for 30+ years.
A short, overwhelming reset followed by actual rule of law might reclaim those areas faster than another generation of “community programs” funded on revolving credit. The trade off is real some innocents get swept up (El Salvador’s error rate appears <1 % but still exists), habeas gets paused, and you have to trust the state not to overreach permanently. Those are heavy costs. But letting 15–24-year-old black and Hispanic males in certain zip codes keep dying at 50–100× the national rate is also a heavy cost one we’ve already paid for decades.
Bukele forces us to ask the question we usually dodge at what point does the right to due process for predators become a death sentence for their prey? Worth an honest debate, at least.
