Earlier this month El Salvador’s national police (PNC) director Howard Cotto announced a 57% drop in homicides in September 2018 compared with the same month in 2017 (from 442 to 192). He also said that there had been an 11.4% drop in homicides in the first nine months of 2018 compared with the same period in 2017 – from 2,889 in 2017 to 2,560 this year. While Cotto didn’t give an explanation for the decline, some link it to the national assembly’s decision to make permanent the extraordinary measures rolled out in prisons by the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) government led by President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, aimed at tackling crime. Another hypothesis is that the decline could be the latest sign of possible dealings between gang members and politicians ahead of the February 2019 presidential elections.End of preview - This article contains approximately 1011 words.
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