Twelve years old. Life in prison. In El Salvador, that is now the law.

President Nayib Bukele signed constitutional reforms on Wednesday permitting life sentences for children as young as 12 convicted of homicide, femicide, rape, or gang membership — including accomplices. The measures take effect April 26 and passed the Legislative Assembly with 58 of 60 votes.

The reforms establish new criminal courts with jurisdiction over both adults and minors facing life terms. Mandatory sentence reviews are required after 25 years for those convicted as minors and 30 to 40 years for adults. Assembly President Ernesto Castro said the reforms gave Salvadoran families certainty that convicted criminals would never walk free again, Deutsche Welle reported.

Previously, El Salvador capped sentences at 60 years for adults, with shorter terms and reduction mechanisms for juveniles. Those pathways are eliminated for covered offenses.

This is the latest escalation in Bukele’s gang war, launched under a state of emergency in March 2022 that has been renewed continuously since — marking over four years of uninterrupted emergency rule under continuously renewed 30-day extensions. Authorities have detained approximately 91,650 people. Official figures say roughly 8,000 were released after being found innocent. Rights groups say many more wrongly accused remain imprisoned.

Amnesty International has documented arbitrary detentions, torture, forced disappearances, and deaths in custody. More than 1,000 minors have been convicted, primarily on unlawful association charges, in proceedings marked by insufficient evidence and coerced guilty pleas, the organization reported.

The sole dissent in the legislature came from deputy Francisco Lira of the conservative Arena party, who said thousands of Salvadorans with no gang ties were still awaiting fair trials and that innocent people were paying for crimes they did not commit, according to Deutsche Welle.

The crackdown has delivered results Salvadorans can measure. Homicides have collapsed. Bukele’s approval has soared.

Whether that playbook coexists with due process is a separate question. The reforms scrap special juvenile procedures for serious offenses and allow minors to be transferred to adult prisons — a system where Amnesty has documented more than 300 deaths in custody. El Salvador’s new courts open in 10 days.

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