Significance: It takes something exceptional to get all of El Salvador’s polarised political parties to vote overwhelmingly in favour of any legislative initiative. The ‘extraordinary measures’, decreed by the government led by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén in an attempt to reduce the soaring levels of violence in the country, took effect in April last year. They initially entailed tightening security in El Salvador’s prisons to stop killings being ordered from inside by severing the link between the imprisoned leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the two factions of Barrio 18 (Revolucionarios and Sureños) gangs, and the rank-and-file mara members operating outside. Amongst other things, mobile phone signals around the perimeter of prisons were cut. Mid-level gang leaders identified as playing a lead role in ordering killings from inside prisons were also transferred to maximum security prison, placed in isolation cells, and denied visits. A few weeks later, the left-wing Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) government started putting more soldiers on the streets, and it created an elite 1,000-strong special reaction force (Feres) to hunt down mara leaders.
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