few days later, his guerra contra la delincuencia began, or as it was more widely known, La Mano Dura. The Salvadoran government would eventually adopt Maduro’s approach, which relied on the same legal instruments introduced in California more than a decade earlier. Anyone charged with “illicit association” could face up to twenty years in prison. Sixteen-year-olds would be tried as adults. If the police acted “in defense of society,” it had carte blanche.
