Matt Gaetz would oversee US prisons as AG. He thinks El Salvador’s hardline lockups are a model
As he stood inside the echoing hall of the prison, Matt Gaetz seemed impressed.
“There’s a lot more discipline in this prison than we see in a lot of the prisons in the United States,” said Gaetz, then a congressman, now announced as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for US attorney general.
It was July, and Gaetz — who will oversee the Federal Bureau of Prisons if he becomes attorney general — was visiting El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where gang leaders and murderers are locked up and from which they are never released.
The prison is a concrete manifestation of the hardline rule of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who is often berated by human rights groups for flouting norms but largely credited inside his country for returning safety to the streets.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/14/politics/matt-gaetz-attorney-general-el-salvador-prison-bukele/index.html