Fragile states / Comment
Crime and drugs in fragile states
20/07/2007 By Ivan Briscoe
The security policies adopted by the United States and Europe towards narco-trafficking and organized crime have used various approaches in the fight against producers and criminal groups: alternative development, strengthening judicial systems and reintegration policies have been financed in drug-producing countries, above all by the EU in Colombia, alongside fumigation, extradition and military offensives, all favoured by the US.
However, these policies have proved highly ineffective. Cocaine prices have continued to fall in recent years on US streets, and purity has improved. At the same time, state agencies and security forces in production and transhipment countries have been massively penetrated by narco-traffickers, producing in extreme cases a near-total institutional alignment between public authority and the interests of organized crime.
This comment explores the relations between certain fragile states and narco-trafficking, and concludes that the creation of new policies aimed at strengthening institutions will do little to reduce global drugs sales so long as it is not joined to a new focus on the gross disproportion between licit economic activities and the earnings derived from narco-trafficking.
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Keywords
Colombia Corruption Crime Fragile state Guatemala Inequality Latin America & Caribbean MexicoRelated publications
Bio author: Ivan Briscoe
Ivan Briscoe studied philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at the University of Oxford, before receiving a Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship to continue his studies for a year at Harvard University. He has also completed a master's degree in Development at Madrid's Complutense University. From 2004 he has worked as the editor of the English edition of El País (Madrid). He writes often on Latin America and developing world issues for Open Democracy (www.opendemocracy.net) and The New Internationalist, and has taken part in numerous radio programmes on the BBC, Radio Nederland and Radio France International.
