Maras: America’s Future

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Members of the Mara 18 gang help another with his wounds in the El Hoyon prison in Escuintla, Guatemala.

A dead Mara 18 member being wheeled away from El Hoyon in the aftermath of the riot. Mara Salvatrucha coordinated simultaneous attacks in five prisons across the country, leaving a total of 31 gang members confirmed dead.

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This girl just located a friend of hers amid the corpses piled up after the prison riot. The MS-13 prisoners put together the attacks with a system of interprison messengers, websites, and cell phones smuggled in by guards.

Meanwhile, almost a decade after the end of its civil war, Guatemala is again mired in blood. From July 2004 to July 2005 there were at least 1,966 murders in the country, bringing its murder rate to 34.7 per 100,000. Just to give you a reference point, the US rate for that year was 5.7.

The response to the gang violence down there hasn’t really made the situation any better. In 2005, a wave of mysterious “social cleansing” killings by unknown vigilantes began sweeping across the country, with the Maras as their number-one target. Police and army roundups, kidnappings, and random disappearances became regular occurrences, and every week, new mangled bodies turned up in fields and on the side of roads.

A member of Mara 18 out in the yard at El Hoyon. His chest tattoo reads, “I don’t tell secrets to anyone, especially not bitches!”

Another Mara 18 member being treated for his wounds in the hospital. How about those sad-clown tattoos for foresight, eh?