| Sumario: | Until recently, El Salvador had one of the world's highest homicide rates, largely driven by criminal groups. Since 2003, the government attempted to reduce violence through mano dura policies and gang truces. Mano dura involves aggressive enforcement, harsh punishments and authoritarian measures, while truces rely on negotiations between gangs, state actors, and civil society. Analysing nation-month data for 2003–22 with autoregressive integrated moving average time-series methods, we found mano dura significantly increased violence. Monthly homicides were 54 per cent higher during mano dura than truce periods, with 17,767 homicides attributable to mano dura. These findings are robust across analyses and highlight the iatrogenic effects of repressive policies compared to the relative success of truce-based approaches.
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