Several countries in Latin America are tossing human rights on the garbage pile in trying to defeat gangs by making war on them in parallel with arbitrary imprisonment of suspects.

This war of repression looks like "the only way" for the government to end gang violence, but that assumes the government will win the war — and they don't seem to actually win. (The US government likewise assumed it would eventually win in Vietnam and Afghanistan, but it never did.) The governments of El Salvador and Ecuador may not win either. Haiti's government eventually surrendered to gang rule.

I don't know what these governments should do. Maybe it is hopeless. But it seems to me that this war is an extension of the US "war on drugs". If the US switches to a harm-reduction policy, with decriminalization and treatment, it could reduce the profits that keep gangs interested.