The government's prison system isn't reporting any infected prisoners - among the more than 37,000 inmates. The new measures ordered by Bukele are taking place amid the global COVID-19 pandemic.
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"We were enemies and everything, but now we already know that it is another life that we have to make together - living together as we are today, right?" Ávila Gómez, 18, said while Emeese Quintero nodded his head. In Cell 6 of the prison, inmates seemed OK with the situation.
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But it also internally consolidated criminal structures, so prisons became the command center for the cliques and tribes that operate in thousands of Salvadoran neighborhoods and towns. The measure put a stop to the massacres between the gangs or between gangs and organized gangs of "civilians" within the prisons. In September 2004, El Salvador made a controversial public policy move, assigning entire prisons to one gang, because they already had thousands of their members incarcerated. "If they create any problems and lives are lost, and the one who started does not die, he will have to pay with his life," says one of the nine points in the report. The information, provided by a gang member, refers in principle to practical issues such as the use of toilets and barrels of water, but it also specifies how outbreaks of violence will be resolved. A prison intelligence report dated April 29 establishes the agreements and rules for coexistence in the Izalco Phase II Penitentiary Center.