In 1998, the new court was packed with lawyers who were close both to the military and to officials accused of corruption. Death threats and violent attacks face judges who assert themselves in human rights cases. Although 90 percent of the 10,000 people incarcerated are awaiting trial, they share deplorable prison conditions with convicted inmates. Drug-related corruption is rampant, and in 1998, a top leader of the Atlantic narcotics cartel escaped through the front gate of the National Penitentiary after bribing prison officials. In 1997, the government moved to place the police under civilian control, a task made easier by the emergence of a cadre of police professionals at the top reaches of a force controlled by the military since 1963.
Police still practice arbitrary detention and torture.
A crime wave throughout Honduras has been fueled by the presence of some 120 youth gangs whose main activities include murder, kidnapping, and robbery. Where crime rings have been effectively dismantled, good police work, rather than troops in the streets, has made the difference. The military exerts considerable, if waning, influence over the government. By naming a civilian instead of a general to head the armed forces, Flores Facusse said he hoped to strengthen government control over the armed forces. Since 1963, Honduras has had 12 armed forces commanders, five of whom were deposed by their own troops.