In March 2016, following a failed truce, El Salvador’s President Cerén announced plans to put an end to the gangs which had made the nation the homicide-capital of the world. The police and military would be put on the offensive and gang members packed into jails. In response to Cerén, the country’s biggest gangs (MS-13, 18th Street Southerners, and 18th Street Revolutionaries) made their own announcement: the government doesn’t have the ability to eliminate their groups and had worked out their own truce in an effort to end the violence. The gangs’ sense of responsibility comes from their overwhelming...