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Latin American women play a key role in the international cocaine business as couriers or mules. Beginning from theoretical perspectives that explain the relationship between criminality and gender, we analyze why women without a criminal background become criminals, how they become involved in trafficking, their positions and functions in the criminal organization, and the risks and benefits of their participation. Qualitative fieldwork was carried out based on in-depth interviews with fifty-one female inmates and twenty members of prison staff from nine Spanish prisons. A thematic analysis has been carried out based on this data. The results reveal that the prevalent profile among Latin women traffickers is that of heads of household. There is a relationship between their social and geographical contexts of origin and cocaine trafficking, which determines their criminal behavior. They occupy the most exposed and lowest-paid positions in the criminal structure. We found through their discourses, how they are recruited, how they transport cocaine and the money they obtain. We conclude that cocaine trafficking is a resource that women use to escape situations of exclusion and that allows them to avoid other options, such as prostitution and migration. Despite the risks of trafficking, the economic benefits they obtain from it leads them to commit the crime. Keywords: Latin American women inmates, Mules, Criminal behavior, Drug trafficking, Introduction and Background Women's criminology is an underdeveloped field compared to male criminology (Campbell 2008). Starting in the 1970s and taking place mainly in the 1980s, new approaches on female [...]

In this paper we approach a current issue related to the so-called concept of narcoculture. Several works in Latin America and the United States have addressed this matter and not only accept the term narcoculture, but also stress both the symbolic and aesthetic perspectives. In order to rethink the concept of narcoculture from different angles, we appeal to Juri Lotman and Boris Uspensky's proposals regarding the concepts of culture, non-culture and anticulture. Rather than accept and reproduce the concept of narcoculture, by means of linking Lotman and Uspensky's approach with the standpoint of complexity thinking and transdisciplinarity, we propose the treatment of drug trafficking as a semiosphere of anticulture. We emphasize the contradictions inherent in the actors dwelling in this semiosphere, incorporating reflections from chaotic and barbaric processes designed to wreak havoc in Mexican society. The common acceptance of the concept of narcoculture does not acknowledge the current devastation and bloodshed produced by narco-traffickers and others in cahoots with the Mexican government and its militarized drug war strategy. During the last few decades, drug trafficking has inspired organized crime and their actors, spurring the representation of everyday societal features such as music, fashion, architecture, or traffickers' social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVES: Street-involved youth are highly vulnerable to violence. While involvement in income-generating activities within illicit drug scenes is recognized as shaping youths' vulnerability to violence, the relative contributions of different income-generating activities remain understudied. We sought to examine the independent effects of drug dealing and sex work on experiencing violence among street-involved youth. METHODS: Data were derived from a prospective cohort of street-involved youth aged 14-26 who used drugs in Vancouver, British Columbia, between September 2005 and May 2014. Multivariable generalized estimating equations were used to examine the impact of involvement in drug dealing and sex work on experiencing violence. RESULTS: Among 1,152 participants, including 364 (31.6%) women, 740 (64.2%) reported having experienced violence at some point during the study period. In multivariable analysis, involvement in drug dealing but not sex work remained independently associated with experiencing violence among females (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 1.43; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.08-1.90) and males (AOR: 1.50; 95% CI: 1.25- 1.80), while involvement in sex work only was not associated with violence among females (AOR: 1.15; 95% CI: 0.76-1.74) or males (AOR: 1.42; 95% CI: 0.81-2.48). CONCLUSION: Findings indicate that involvement in drug dealing is a major factor associated with experiencing violence among our sample. In addition to conventional interventions, such as addiction treatment, novel approaches are needed to reduce the risk of violence for drug-using youth who are actively engaged in drug dealing. The potential for low-threshold employment and decriminalization of drug use to mitigate violence warrants further study. KEY WORDS: Drug abuse; drug trafficking; sex workers; violence; homeless youth OBJECTIFS : Les jeunes de la rue sont tres vulnerables a la violence. On reconnait que la participation a des activites generatrices de revenus dans le monde de la drogue influence la vulnerabilite des jeunes a la violence, mais la contribution relative de diverses activites generatrices de revenus demeure sous-etudiee. Nous avons voulu examiner les effets independants du trafic de stupefiants et du travail du sexe sur l'experience de la violence chez les jeunes de la rue. METHODE : Nos donnees ont ete obtenues aupres d'une cohorte prospective de jeunes de la rue de 14 a 26 ans consommant de la drogue a Vancouver (Colombie-Britannique) entre septembre 2005 et mai 2014. Des equations d'estimation generalisees multivariees ont servi a examiner l'impact de la participation au trafic de stupefiants et au travail du sexe sur l'experience de la violence. RESULTATS : Sur les 1 152 participants, dont 364 femmes (31,6%), 740 (64,2%) ont declare avoir connu la violence durant la periode de l'etude. Selon l'analyse multivariee, la participation au trafic de stupefiants mais non au travail du sexe restait independamment associee a l'experience de la violence chez les femmes (rapport de cotes ajuste [RCa] : 1,43; intervalle de confiance de 95% [IC] : 1,08-1,90) et les hommes (RCa : 1,50; IC de 95% : 1,25-1,80), tandis que la participation au travail du sexe seulement n'etait associee a la violence ni chez les femmes (RCa : 1,15; IC de 95% : 0,76-1,74), ni chez les hommes (RCa : 1,42; IC de 95% : 0,81-2,48). CONCLUSION : Ces constatations indiquent que la participation au trafic de stupefiants est un important facteur associe a l'experience de la violence dans notre echantillon. En plus d'interventions classiques comme le traitement des toxicomanies, il faudrait des approches novatrices pour reduire le risque de violence chez les jeunes qui consomment de la drogue et qui sont activement impliques dans le trafic des stupefiants. La possibilite que les emplois faiblement qualifies et la decriminalisation de la consommation de drogue attenuent la violence meriterait d'etre etudiee davantage. MOTS CLES : abus de drogue; trafic de stupefiants; travailleuses ou travailleurs du sexe; violence; jeunes sans abri La traduction du resume se trouve a la fin de l'article. Can J Public Health 2016;107(1):e88-e93 doi: 10.17269/CJPH.107.5219, Typically unstably housed, street-involved youth are vulnerable to an array of health-related harms, including violence and the associated adverse health consequences. (1) The number of street-involved youth in Canada has [...]

Mexico has undergone major changes over the past two decades, as its political system shifted from one dominated by a single official party to a highly competitive democracy, and its [...]

A dramatic increase in criminal violence in Mexico since 2007 has resulted in an estimated 60,000–70,000 “additional” homicides, often of an especially brutal form, related to drug trafficking and other organized-crime activities. This violence has been accompanied by a steep increase in rates of kidnapping and extortion and has targeted participants in the narcotics trade as well as government officials, journalists, and civil society activists. Despite the magnitude of the violence and enormous public concern about it, scholarly literature on this topic has been scant. This issue offers some of the most promising analyses conducted thus far on the trends in violence and their causes, focusing largely, though not exclusively, on the role Mexico’s government has played in the business of illegal drugs and the violence that accompanies it. In this introduction, we discuss the challenge of deriving reliable statistics on drug-related violence, its spatial and temporal patterns, prevailing explanations, its relationship to organized crime in general, and differences between this violence and substate political violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some territories ravaged by intense levels of criminal violence while others are relatively peaceful? This research contributes to an understanding of the escalation and diffusion of drug violence in Mexico from 2000 to 2010 by formalizing the interactions between the state and organized criminals and by relying on a large database of event data containing more than 1.6 million observations. Results based on spatial econometrics provide evidence of the spatial diffusion of violence. In congruence with the theoretical expectations, the results show that the disruptive effect of law enforcement is an important catalyst for the intensification of violence between criminal organizations, especially when deployed in areas hosting a high concentration of criminal groups. This relationship holds for a broad menu of violent and nonviolent law enforcement tactics. The analysis also reveals that other broadly held factors (international, geographic, and socioeconomic characteristics) have a modest effect on the dynamics of drug-related violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence is commonly viewed as an inherent attribute of the drug trade. Yet, there is dramatic variation in drug violence within countries afflicted by drug trafficking. This article advances a novel framework that explains how the interaction between two critical variables, the cohesion of the state security apparatus, and the competition in the illegal market determines traffickers’ incentives to employ violence. The analysis introduces a generally overlooked dimension of violence, its visibility. Visibility refers to whether traffickers publicly expose their use of violence or claim responsibility for their attacks. Drawing on fieldwork in five cities in Colombia and Mexico (Cali, Medellin, Ciudad Juárez, Culiacán, and Tijuana), 175 interviews, and a new data set on drug violence, I argue that violence becomes visible and frequent when trafficking organizations compete and the state security apparatus is fragmented. By contrast, violence becomes less visible and less frequent when the criminal market is monopolized and the state security apparatus is cohesive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, Rio de Janeiro was one of the most violent cities on the planet. Many of Rio's hundreds of shanty towns were controlled by heavily armed drug gangs taking advantage of the absence of the state. However, since 2008, a policy of pacifying some of the city's most strategically important and violent shanty towns through community policing overseen by so-called 'Unidades Policicias Pacificadoras' (Pacifying Police Units, UPPs) has led to a significant reduction in violence. This article argues that this success is down to the fact that this policy treats the issue of violent crime as Complex Adaptive Systems. As a consequence, it seeks to facilitate a process of self-organization balanced between order, flexibility, rules and freedom. The article will show how Complexity has been applied, what benefits it has brought, what problems remain and what broader lessons can be learned from this experience for public policy-makers elsewhere., Introduction Brazil has the unenviable reputation of being one of the most violent countries in the world. Between 2003 and 2007 more than 240,000 people were murdered in the country, [...]

Transnational organized crime is often manifested by prevalent territorial disputes between rival criminal factions at local levels. Rio de Janeiro--considered one of the most violent of Brazilian cities--has linked lack [...]

THE OPENING CHAPTER OF ULISES CRIOLLO (1935), the first of Mexican intellectual Jose Vasconcelos's autobiographical works, takes place when the author was a child, in the year 1885, in the [...]

This article seeks to build on prior research and knowledge about young female drug sellers' social power by answering the following research question: What are the behavioral manifestations of young female drug sellers' social power as these young women move through their native environments and social institutions? How do these behavioral manifestations influence their perception of the professionals with whom these young women interact in treatment and alternative education programs? The results indicate that young women develop requisite skills for surviving on the streets of their neighborhoods and that some bring these skills into the social institutions they enter for education or treatment. Moreover, the transfer of street-based skills into social institutions influences how young women respond to staff in these social institutions. Keywords drug selling, female adolescents, identity, power

"Given the rising tide of violence and the mounting evidence of drug-related corruption at all levels of government, it is probably fair to say that, so far, the cartels have managed to take the lead in a psychological war against the Mexican state."

Women's involvement in drug trafficking in recent years has expanded dramatically. Yet there are few studies of female drug smugglers, the causes of female involvement in smuggling, and the impact of smuggling on women's lives specifically. In this article, I provide in-depth ethnographic interviews and observations of a broad spectrum of female drug smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico border. Moving beyond stereotypes, I examine how drug trafficking affects women's relationships with men and their position in society. Economic and cultural factors strongly shape women's involvement in drug smuggling and the effects of smuggling on their lives, but these/actors and effects vary significantly, depending on women's social class position and place within drug organizations. High-level female drug smugglers may be attracted to the power and mystique of drug trafficking and may achieve a relative independence from male dominance. Middle-level women in smuggling organizations obtain less freedom vis-a-vis men but may manipulate gender stereotypes to their advantage in the smuggling world. Low-level mules also perform (or subvert) traditional gender roles as a smuggling strategy, but receive less economic benefit and less power, though in some cases some independence from male domestic control. A fourth category of women do not smuggle drugs but are negatively impacted by the male smugglers with whom they are associated. I argue that drug smuggling frequently leads to female victimization, especially at the lowest and middle levels of drug trafficking organizations. However, it is also, in the case of high-level and some low-level and middle-level smugglers, a vehicle for female empowerment. [Keywords: female drug smugglers, Cartel de Juarez, U.S-Mexico border, victimization, empowerment], Introduction Rosa Maria had never seen marijuana before. She only picked up the package of 'green fibers' from the El Paso motel because her sister said the police were coming [...]

As a Spanish-language broadcast programme based on a sympathetic Mexican character who also happens to be a drug kingpin, La Reina del Sur negotiates the perilous terrain of the European drug trade and an omnipresent hostility directed at Mexicans. As cable programmes with the industrial freedom to venture into spaces in between prosocial and antisocial, Weeds and Breaking Bad attempt to incorporate a more nuanced and culturally informed characterization of the Mexican drug dealer – one that notably impacts the relationship of the white protagonists to their new occupations as producers and dealers of illegal substances. These three series – produced independently of one another and distributed on three different networks – have crossed paths in a manner that can be revealed through the intricacies of a controversial and complex cultural artifact: the narcocorrido. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an analysis of the theatrical production "Crawling with Monsters," which is a multimedia work created by seventeen artists from the University of Texas Pan American, located in Edinburg, Texas, is presented. Topics addressed include the impact of violence in children who live in the U.S.-Mexico border region as the main subject of the production, the social consequences of illegal drug trade, and the lack of Hispanic American or Latino themes in college theater.

The issue of the social supply of illicit drugs is an important one because it delineates a separate category of 'dealing, 'whereby friends supply or facilitate supply to other friends. Supply of this nature has been argued to be sufficiently different to 'dealing proper' to justify a different criminal justice approach in relation to it. This has been argued to be particularly true regarding social supply among young people who use substances such as cannabis. This research involved interviews with 192 cannabis users in six (three rural, three urban) locations in England. Most were exclusively cannabis users. Nearly half (45%) had been involved in some form of supply, and 78% reported sharing their cannabis with others. Nearly all supply events were between friends within a close age range. The findings suggest that there is little contact by young cannabis users to the wider drug market and that it may be better to understand this activity as taking place in an 'arena of transaction' rather than seeing it as an extension of the normally conceived drug market. We argue that there is sufficient difference within this arena of transaction from the wider drug market for most activity there to be dealt with less punitively by the criminal justice system.

We present analyses based on selected findings from a NIDA-funded project entitled, 'An Exploratory Study of Ecstasy Distribution' (2003-2006). We conducted in-depth interviews with 120 men and women in the San Francisco Bay area who had sold five or more doses five or more times in the six months prior to the interview. The research focused on the motivations and circumstances surrounding the decision to initiate sales, sales settings, the characteristics of both sellers and buyers and their relationships. It also focused on negotiated order and social identities. We describe the ways in which a sample of educated, housed, and employed Ecstasy dealers' attitudes and practices compared with more marginalized groups from other drug market studies. These findings suggest attention to social class, that is, the social characteristics of sellers and the availability of types of sales settings (public vs. private) is critical to developing a sociological understanding of drug markets.

Research on drug trafficking has not been able to discern the exact nature of illegal drug markets and the relationship between their individual and group participants. This article delineates the role of Mexican immigrants and Mexican-American participants involved in the stratified drug market of South Texas. This article synthesizes ethnographic materials drawn from two previous National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) studies in order identify the different types of drug distribution behaviors that occur within the groups, the differentiated roles of individuals, the organizational framework, and most significantly, the processes that link market participants to others outside of the drug market. This illegal behavior can be interpreted as an adaptive mechanism that is a direct response to the marginal economic status imposed by macro socio-economical background factors. As well, we conclude that the specific foreground factors of the opportunities offered by the context, culture, and proximity of the U.S./Mexico border and invitational edges explain this behavior. There are both parallels and particular differences between the South Texas case and the structuring and functioning of informal legal and illegal markets that are characteristic of other economically disadvantaged communities.

This paper analyzes illicit drug markets in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina and access to drug markets following evacuation at many locations and in Houston. Among New Orleans arrestees pre-Katrina, rates of crack and heroin use and market participation was comparable to New York and higher than in other southern cities. Both cities have vigorous outdoor drug markets. Over 100 New Orleans evacuees provide rich accounts describing the illicit markets in New Orleans and elsewhere. The flooding of New Orleans disrupted the city's flourishing drug markets, both during and immediately after the storm. Drug supplies, though limited, were never completely unavailable. Subjects reported that alcohol or drugs were not being used in the Houston Astrodome, and it was a supportive environment. Outside the Astrodome, they were often approached by or could easily locate middlemen and drug sellers. Evacuees could typically access illegal drug markets wherever they went. This paper analyzes the impact of a major disaster upon users of illegal drugs and the illegal drug markets in New Orleans and among the diaspora of New Orleans evacuees following Hurricane Katrina. This analysis includes data from criminal justice sources that specify what the drug markets were like before this disaster occurred. This analysis also includes some comparison cities where no disaster occurred, but which help inform the similarities and differences in drug markets in other cities. The data presented also include an initial analysis of ethnographic interview data from over 100 New Orleans Evacuees recruited in New Orleans and Houston.