Drugs, Gangs, and Violence

Jonathan D. Rosen, Hanna Samir Kassab

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9783319944500
• eBook ISBN: 9783319944517
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the nature of transnational organized crime and gangs, and how these diverse organizations contribute to violence, especially in so-called fragile states across Central and Latin America. While the nature of organized crime and violence differs depending on the context, the authors explain how and why states plagued by weak institutions tend to foster criminal organizations and violence, and why counter-crime initiatives often result in higher levels of violence. By examining the consequences of tough on crime policies (e.g., mano dura ) in places like Mexico, El Salvador, and Colombia, the volume offers a new perspective on the link between state fragility, crime, and violence.

© The Author(s) 2019

Jonathan D. Rosen and Hanna Samir KassabDrugs, Gangs, and Violencehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94451-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Jonathan D. Rosen¹ and Hanna Samir Kassab²

(1)

Holy Family University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

(2)

East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA

Jonathan D. Rosen (Corresponding author)

Hanna Samir Kassab

End Abstract

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Americas is the most violent region in the world. The Americas has a homicide rate of 16.3 per 100,000 people, while Africa had a homicide rate of 12.5 per 100,000 inhabitants. Europe, Oceania, and Asia had much lower homicide rates with three percent, three percent, and 2.9 percent, respectively (see Fig. 1.1).¹ The Americas is also home to the most violent country in the world. In 2015, El Salvador surpassed Honduras as the most violent non-waring nation. Violence has exceeded the days of the country’s civil war, which lasted for more than a decade. In fact, experts note that at one point in 2015 El Salvador had one murder per hour. Jonathan Watts writes, “Last Sunday was, briefly, the bloodiest day yet with 40 murders. But the record was beaten on Monday with 42 deaths, and surpassed again on Tuesday with 43. Even Iraq—with its civil war, suicide bombings, mortar attacks and US drone strikes—could not match such a lethal start to the week.”² In January 2017, the country saw a rare phenomenon occur: one day without a murder.³ Much of the violence in El Salvador has been a result of gang-related activities as well as the consequences of the government’s tough on crime strategies.⁴ El Salvador’s neighbors, Guatemala and Honduras , have also seen high levels of gang-related violence.⁵ Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández argued that 80 percent of the homicides that occur in this country are related to organized crime.⁶

Fig. 1.1

Total number of homicides according to region (2012). Source: Created by authors with data from UNODC , Global Study on Homicide: 2013

To the north of Guatemala lies Mexico . During the six years of the Felipe Calderón administration, this country witnessed more than 100,000 drug-related deaths. While violence dropped in the first several years of the Enrique Peña Nieto administration (2012–2018), 2016 and 2017 have been extremely violent years.⁷ In December 2017, presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador contended that he would be willing to provide drug traffickers with amnesty to reduce the high levels of violence plaguing the country. He argued, “We are going to consider it. I am analyzing it. What I can tell you is that there will not be any issue left unattended, if it is to guarantee peace and tranquility.”⁸ In sum, drug trafficking, organized crime, and violence have plagued many countries.

How can we understand the nature of gangs and transnational organized crime, and how these organizations have contributed to crime and violence? This work is an effort to answer these questions. This book adopts a framework based on the concept of fragile states.⁹ The argument, which will be developed throughout the book, is that states plagued by high levels of corruption , impunity , and lack of transparency serve as incubators for crime and violence. Moreover, economic inequality, poverty , and unemployment create various structural problems. According to 2017 data, 70.1 percent of the global population is worth less than $10,000.¹⁰ There are 767 million individuals who survive on less than $1.90 per day.¹¹ In summary, these variables help contribute to state fragility.

Inequality and high levels of poverty could lead to more disconnected youth who are vulnerable to being recruited by criminal organizations.¹² The issue of disconnected youth has plagued many countries. For example, many Latin American countries have large segments of the youth who neither study nor work. The new lost generation of youth has been referred to as Los Ninis, which stands for the youth who neither study nor work (ni estudian, ni trabajan). In Latin America, for example, there are 20 million youth between the ages of 15 and 24 that are ninis.¹³ This is a major problem because young people who do not have the means to study or have the necessary skills to find work are vulnerable and more likely to partake in crime and other delinquent activities. It is rational that a young person lacking skills may decide to join a drug cartel and earn large profits as opposed to work at a menial job for little money. Governments must address the underlying socioeconomic challenges that create the appropriate conditions to being vulnerable to being recruited by gangs and other organized crime groups.

While there is a major difference between countries like El Salvador , Mexico , and Brazil , these states have elements of fragility. Each of these countries has been plagued by high levels of corruption and impunity as well as drug trafficking and organized crime.¹⁴ Indeed, the degrees and nature of organized crime are different in every context. This work seeks to understand how institutional weakness can help foster these organizations, which in turn leads to violence. Yet organized crime groups alone do not explain the nature of violence in some countries. It also is important to examine the role of government strategies. What has been the impact of “tough on crime” policies designed to combat gangs , organized crime, and drug trafficking? Have strategies that have concentrated on combating the supply of drugs been effective? How have such policies contributed to violence?

Supply-Side Policies: The Drug War

US President Richard Nixon declared the “war on drugs” in 1971, desiring to combat such dangerous substances. However, Nixon did not invent the prohibitionist drug policy model. The United States has had a long history of prohibitionist policies, beginning in 1914 when the United States signed a major anti-drug effort referred to as the Harrison Act.¹⁵ In 1971, Nixon approved the creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which remains a major anti-narcotics unit in the United States. During his administration, Nixon witnessed the first major drug epidemic within the United States (the heroin epidemic). Heroin became a major drug starting in the late 1960s, but the usage of this drug was primarily concentrated in several metropolitan areas in the country as opposed to rural towns. A key factor that led to the heroin epidemic was the soldiers from Vietnam who returned to the United States and used heroin to cope with the atrocities of the war . In the 1970s, the US military failed to help reintegrate soldiers back into society as many of them suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Soldiers with PTSD were stigmatized and believed not to be “tough enough.” Bruce Bagley, a drug trafficking expert at the University of Miami, notes that “American soldiers returning from Vietnam, where heroin was widely available, were apparently a contributing factor in the heroin epidemic as well. The annual number of new heroin users in the United States peaked in the early 1970s, dropped by some 50 percent by the end of the decade, and remained low until the mid-1990s, when a new heroin epidemic began.”¹⁶ Heroin is an extremely addictive and dangerous substance and is often consumed via needles, which creates a major problem because intravenous drug users who share needles can spread diseases, such as hepatitis and HIV.

Despite his rhetoric about the war on drugs, it is important to note that Nixon recognized the need to curb demand to curtail the profits from drug trafficking.¹⁷ Drug traffickers traffic such substances because they can make large amounts of money from this clandestine business, but traffickers cannot survive without...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. History of Crime and Violence
• 3. Fragile States, Corruption, and Crime
• 4. Trends in Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime
• 5. Gangs and Counter-Gang Strategies
• 6. Understanding the Nature of Violence: Crime and Its Future
• 7. Conclusion
• Back Matter