By The Washington Office on Latin America, Latin America Working Group Education Fund, Due Process of Law Foundation, and Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA

Guatemala’s justice system has been co-opted by a network of corrupt political, economic, and military elites seeking to advance their own interests and to ensure that their acts of corruption and grave human rights violations from the armed conflict remain in impunity, while silencing voices from civil society organizations and independent media. Honest judges and prosecutors have been criminalized, threatened, removed, or transferred from their posts by the very institutions supposed to be advancing the rule of law and justice. Twenty-five judges and prosecutors, including the nation’s lead anti-corruption prosecutor, have fled the country into exile. The impacts of the co-optation of Guatemala’s justice system will set the country back decades. 

This report, produced by Washington Office on Latin America, Latin America Working Group Education Fund, Due Process of Law Foundation, and Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA, provides analysis on the steps taken to undermine Guatemala’s justice system from the stacking of its highest courts with corrupt judges to the co-opting and dismantling of the Attorney General’s Office and specialized prosecutors’ offices. It explains the longer-term implications of the ousting of honest judges and prosecutors and a broken justice system for the rule of law, transitional justice and protecting freedom of expression and the rights of marginalized communities in Guatemala.

Washington, DC: The Authors, 2022. 10p.

By The Washington Office on Latin America, Latin America Working Group Education Fund, and Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA

In Guatemala, human rights defenders, independent judges and prosecutors, journalists, and Indigenous leaders are under assault as part of a broader attack on democracy and path towards a kleptocracy. The criminalization and closing of civic space is one of the strategies being used by corrupt networks, the Attorney General’s Office, private actors, members of the military, and political elites to quell disruptions to their power, avoid historic responsibility for crimes committed during the internal armed conflict, and silence voices exposing corruption. It has resulted in severe democratic backsliding, creating a dangerous terrain in which human rights defenders, journalists, Indigenous community leaders, and justice operators receive no State protection and are instead persecuted and criminalized by their own government in complicity with private actors, often to the point of having to flee the country for their lives. The current situation in Guatemala creates serious challenges for U.S. policy and assistance and means that civil society organizations, human rights defenders, Indigenous communities, and journalists are more in need of international protection than ever.

Washington, DC: The Authors, 2022. 8p.

By The Washington Office on Latin America, Latin America Working Group, and Guatemala Human Rights

  With the support of the international community, Guatemala was making progress in strengthening the rule of law. Today, rule of law in Guatemala is on a dramatic downward spiral. A handful of corrupt political, military, and economic elites seeking to maintain their privileges at the expense of Guatemala’s Indigenous majority population have captured the state. They have systematically dismantled anti-corruption mechanisms such as UN-led CICIG and the special anti-corruption prosecutor’s office and infiltrated the justice system, starting at the top. Independent media, human rights defenders, and Indigenous leaders have been targeted and civic space restricted. Corruption is pervasive, depriving the population of access to basic public services, and few independent actors remain able to confront it. U.S. policy is also undermined. The United States needs to consider a range of policy tools to counter such a broad challenge to basic democratic values in Guatemala.   

Washington, DC: The Authors, 2022. 7p.

By Andres I Vecino-Ortiza & Deivis N Guzman-Tordecilla  

Objective: To assess the effect of a permanent gun-carrying restriction on gun-related mortality in Colombia between 2008 and 2014, and determine differences in the effect of the restriction by place of death and sex. Methods: In 2012, Bogotá and Medellín introduced a permanent gun-carrying restriction. We compared gun-related mortality rates in these cities (intervention cities) with the rates in all other Colombian cities with more than 500 000 inhabitants (control cities). We used data from the Colombian National Department of Statistics to calculate monthly gun-related mortality rates between 2008 and 2014 for intervention and control cities. We used a differences-in-differences method with fixed effects to assess differences in gun-related mortality in intervention and control cities before and after the introduction of the gun-carrying restriction. We stratified effects by place of death (public area or residence) and sex. We made robustness checks to test the assumptions of the models. Findings: Gun-related deaths in the control and intervention cities decreased between 2008 and 2014; however, the decrease was greater in the intervention cities (from 20.29 to 14.93 per 100 000 population; 26.4%) than in the control cities (from 37.88 to 34.56 per 100 000 population; 8.8%). The restriction led to a 22.3% reduction in the monthly gun-related mortality rate in Bogotá and Medellín. The reduction was greater in public areas and for males. Robustness checks supported the assumptions of the models. Conclusion_ The permanent restriction on carrying guns reduced gun-related deaths. This policy could be used to reduce gun-related injuries in urban centres of other countries with large numbers of gun-related deaths.

Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 98 (‎3)‎: 170 - 176

By Carolina Velez Ospina

The provision effects of local public goods on crime and education are not clear in the literature. While some argue that provision does not affect these outcomes, other find that effects depend on the benefits it offers to the community. This paper studies the effect of the construction of cultural centers in Medellín, Colombia on crime and test scores in mathematics and language. This policy is interesting since the communities participated in the design of these cultural centers. Using a dynamic difference-in-differences strategy, I find that schools near centers improve their test performance, especially for younger children. Regarding crime, I find that in neighborhoods near centers, there is a reduction in motorcycle and car theft crimes.

  Universidad del Rosario, Facultad de Economía, 2020. 51p.   

By Christopher Blattman, Donald Green, Daniel Ortega, Santiago Tobón

In 2016 the city of Bogotá doubled police patrols and intensified city services on high-crime streets. They did so based on a policy and criminological consensus that such place-based programs not only decrease crime, but also have positive spillovers to nearby streets. To test this, we worked with Bogotá to experiment on an unprecedented scale. They randomly assigned 1,919 streets to either 8 months of doubled police patrols, greater municipal services, both, or neither. Such scale brings econometric challenges. Spatial spillovers in dense networks introduce bias and complicate variance estimation through “fuzzy clustering.” But a design-based approach and randomization inference produce valid hypothesis tests in such settings. In contrast to the consensus, we find intensifying state presence in Bogotá had modest but imprecise direct effects and that such crime displaced nearby, especially property crimes. Confidence intervals suggest we can rule out total reductions in crime of more than 2–3% from the two policies. More promising, however, is suggestive evidence that more state presence led to an 5% fall in homicides and rape citywide. One interpretation is that state presence may more easily deter crimes of passion than calculation, and place-based interventions could be targeted against these incredibly costly and violent crimes.

Chicago: Becker Friedman Institute, University of Chicago, 2019. 80p.

Edited by Mangai Natarajan

International crime and justice is an emerging field that covers crime and justice from a global perspective. 'This book introduces the nature of internationaland transnational crimes; theoretical foundations to understanding the relationship between social change and the waxing and waning of the crime opportunity structure; globalization; migration; culture conflicts and the emerging legal frameworks for their prevention and control. tI presents the challenges involved in delivering justice and international cooperative efforts to deter, detect, and respond to international and transnational crimes, and the need for international research and data resources to go beyond anecdote and impres- sionistic accounts to testing and developing theories to build the discipline that bring tangible improvements to the peace, security, and well-being of the globalizing world. 'This books is a timely analysis of the complex subject ofinternational crime and justice for students, scholars, policy makers, and advocates who strive for the pursuit of justice for millions of victims.

Cambridge England and NY.. Cambridge University Press. 2019. 560p.

By Thomas Grisaffi

Bolivia is a centre for drug production and trafficking and yet it experiences far less drug-related violence than other countries in Latin America that form part of cocaine’s commodity chain. Drawing upon more than three years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2005 and 2019, this article presents evidence from the Chapare, a coca-growing and drug processing region in central Bolivia, to consider why this is the case. Building from the literature on embedded economies and the subsistence ethic of peasant communities, the article demonstrates that the drug trade is part of a local moral order that prioritizes kinship, reciprocal relations and community well-being, facilitated by the cultural significance of the coca leaf. This has served to limit possibilities for the violence that is often associated with drug production and trafficking. In addition, coca grower agricultural unions act as a parallel form of governance, providing a framework for the peaceful resolution of disputes and working actively to exclude the state and criminal actors.

Development and Change Volume53, Issue3: 576-599, 2022.

By Elizabeth Eggins, Lorelei Hine, Angela Higginson and Lorraine Mazerolle

Drawing on the Global Policing Database (GPD), this review assesses the impact of supplier arrests and seizures on drug crime, drug use, drug price, drug purity, and drug harm outcomes. Just 13 impact evaluation studies (reported in 18 documents) met inclusion criteria. An evidence and gap map was constructed, showing that research to date relates primarily to drug harms, followed by drug crime and drug price, and that there are significant gaps in the impact evaluation literature. The results of this review demonstrate the limited amount of high-quality scientific evidence that can be used to examine the impact of supplier arrest and seizure on a range of drug-related outcomes.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2020. 16p.

By Lorraine Mazerolle, Elizabeth Eggins and Angela Higginson

The Global Policing Database is used to update a 2007 systematic review of the impact of street-level law enforcement interventions on drug crime and drug-related calls-for-service. A total of 26 studies (reported in 29 documents) were eligible for this updated review. Eighteen of the 26 studies reported sufficient data to calculate effect sizes.

We find that, overall, street-level policing approaches are effective in reducing drug crime, particularly those involving partnerships. We also find that geographically targeted law enforcement interventions are more effective in reducing drug crime than standard, unfocused approaches. Approaches that target larger problem areas for intervention are more effective for reducing drug crime (but not calls-for-service) than approaches that focus on micro problem places.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2020. 20p.

By Beatriz Magaloni, Gustavo Robles, Aila M. Matanock, Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, Vidal Romero

Why do drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) sometimes prey on the communities in which they operate but sometimes provide assistance to these communities? What explains their strategies of extortion and cooptation toward civil society? Using new survey data from Mexico, including list experiments to elicit responses about potentially illegal behavior, this article measures the prevalence of extortion and assistance among DTOs. In support of our theory, these data show that territorial contestation among rival organizations produces more extortion and, in contrast, DTOs provide more assistance when they have monopoly control over a turf. The article uncovers other factors that also shape DTOs’ strategies toward the population, including the degree of collaboration with the state, leadership stability and DTO organization, and the value and logistics of the local criminal enterprise.

Comparative Political Studies 1–51 © The Author(s) 2019

By Itzel De Haro Lopez

The global increase in the demand for avocados has attracted the attention of rent-seeking criminal organizations in Mexico. As a result, farmers and packing houses have become the targets of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). This paper aims to answer whether declining drug revenues have motivated cartels to target licit businesses, such as avocado farms, rather than continue specializing in the production and distribution of illicit drugs. To do this, I exploit exogenous variation in the demand for pure heroin in the U.S. between 2011 and 2019. In particular, I use the introduction of Fentanyl in the U.S. as a proxy for the reduction in the demand for pure heroin in Mexico to answer whether this led to an increase in homicides and cartel presence in avocado- and poppy-growing municipalities. Using municipal level data, I show that the decrease in the demand for heroin increased homicide rates (including those of agricultural workers) in avocado-growing municipalities. I find no evidence of higher cartel presence in these municipalities, suggesting that, while DTOs do not seem to be moving into these municipalities, they have become more violent toward civilians. Furthermore, I find that the fall in the demand for heroin led to a decrease in cartel presence and homicide rates in poppy-growing municipalities. Overall, this paper provides evidence of inter-sector spillovers resulting from drug demand changes.

Madison, WI: Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin–Madison: 2022. 58p. Working Paper.

By John Walsh

More than half a century after the advent of a global drug prohibition regime and the launch of the U.S. “war on drugs,” the results have been disastrous for Latin America and the Caribbean, and for the United States itself. Even worse, prohibition’s consequences are exacerbating other grave problems—corruption and organized crime, violence perpetrated with impunity, forest loss and climate change, and displacement and migration—making solutions to these challenges even more difficult to achieve. The Biden administration’s historic embrace of harm reduction represents an enormous, lifesaving advance for U.S. drug policy. But even with harm reduction services, moves to decriminalize drug possession, and shifts underway to legally regulate recreational cannabis, the brunt of drug prohibition remains intact and the drug war rages on in the Americas. The principal victims of government repression in the name of drug control and of the predations of organized crime have always been and continue to be the most impoverished and marginalized communities. At the same time, the illegal drug trade constitutes an economic survival strategy for millions of people in Latin America and around the world—a de facto social safety net of the sort that national elites and governments themselves have proven unwilling or incapable of providing.   

Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), 2022. 28p.

Karen Duke, Helen Gleeson, Susanne MacGregor, Betsy Thom

This article explores the factors contributing to drug-related deaths in English and Welsh prisons between 2015 and 2020. Based on content analysis of all Prison and Probation Ombudsman ‘other non-natural’ fatal incident investigation reports, descriptive statistics were generated. Qualitative analysis explored the circumstances surrounding deaths and key risk factors. Most deaths were of men, whose mean age was 39 years. Drug toxicity was the main factor in causing death, exacerbated by underlying physical health conditions and risk-taking behaviours. A variety of substances were involved. New psychoactive substances became more important over time. A high proportion had recorded histories of substance use and mental illness. During this period, the prison system was under considerable stress creating dangerous environments for drug-related harm. This study highlights the process of complex interaction between substances used, individual characteristics, situational features and the wider environment in explaining drug-related deaths in prisons. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

J Community Psychol. 2023;1–22

By Jason ElighBy Jason Eligh

Despite the extensive population containment and control measures put into place across the globe in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the flow of cocaine powder from Latin America to global markets appears to have been largely uninterrupted. This is despite the fact that measures to significantly reduce supply have been put in place by the governments of Colombia – a country that is still the primary cultivator of coca – and the United States, the primary progenitor of and ally in the war on drugs.

The markets and supply chains for cocaine, as well as other illicit drugs, have proven to be remarkably resilient in the face of the growing patchwork of restrictions on movement and transport since March 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The many predictions by experts of supply chain disruption to drug flows and the potentially disruptive impact of this on consumer markets have not come to pass. Cocaine distribution networks and related agents quickly found ways to bypass challenges raised by lockdowns and restrictions. Coca cultivation and potential cocaine production even expanded during the first year of the pandemic, reaching record or near-record levels in the three primary cultivation countries of the Andean production region. 

Geneva: Global Organization Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2022. 64p.

By Tracit

In pursuit of various social, religious, health, or economic objectives governments have imposed a long history of regulatory controls on the producers and consumers of alcoholic beverages. Minimum age purchase restrictions are probably the most renowned and common. Dry laws and other forms of supply restrictions are probably the most notorious. For the most part, the failure of America’s experiment with Prohibition has discouraged governments from imposing them. That is until the onset of the global COVID19 pandemic, when several countries opted for some form of dry law on alcoholic beverages as a tool to mitigate the impact of the virus. Whether or not dry laws were effective in addressing the pandemic itself is not the purpose of this report. The ambition here is to analyze the economic and social impacts of dry laws beyond public health objectives, specifically those consequences associated with illicit trade. The findings are intended to yield valuable lessons from the experience with COVID19 prohibitions, which can be applied to shaping future policymaking at the intersection of alcohol regulation, illicit trade and public welfare.   

New York: Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade (Tracit), 2021. 34p.

By Louise Manning and Aleksandra Kowalska

Illicit (unrecorded) alcohol is a critical global public health issue because it is produced without regulatory and market oversight with increased risk of safety, quality and adulteration issues. Undertaking iterative research to draw together academic, contemporary and historic evidence, this paper reviews one specific toxicological issue, methanol, in order to identify the policy mitigation strategies of interest. A typology of illicit alcohol products, including legal products, illegal products and surrogate products, is created. A policy landscape matrix is produced that synthesizes the drivers of illicit alcohol production, distribution, sale and consumption, policy measures and activity related signals in order to inform policy development. The matrix illustrates the interaction between capabilities, motivations and opportunities and factors such as access, culture, community norms and behavior, economic drivers and knowledge and information and gives insight into mitigation strategies against illicit alcohol sale and consumption, which may prove of value for policymakers in various parts of the world.

Foods 10(7), 2021. 17p.

By The International Alliance for Responsible Drinking (IARD)  

Alcohol production and trade exist both within and outside of government regulation; the relative size of each depends on the region of the world and social, cultural, and economic factors. Both segments are well established and people often – knowingly and unknowingly – interact fluidly with both of them. The regulated alcohol market is recorded in government statistics; unregulated alcohol, which is largely illegal, is more difficult to assess and falls into the “unrecorded” sphere (see Taxonomy of Unregulated and Unrecorded Alcohol). This segment is complex and diverse and includes everything from high-quality artisanal homebrew to illicit drinks that may contain methanol or other toxic ingredients. In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued its Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health and estimated, based on 2010 figures, that unrecorded alcohol made up an average 25% of all alcohol consumed worldwide [2]. Alcohol produced and sold illegally outside of government regulation is the most problematic part of unrecorded alcohol; it is untaxed, circumvents restrictions around availability, is of inconsistent quality, and, depending on the ingredients used to make it, is even potentially toxic. This report considers these wide-reaching implications and brings together recent data on the illicit market, compiled by the global market research firm Euromonitor International. While illicit alcohol is also widespread across Asia and parts of Europe, this report focuses on data from Africa and Latin America. Unregulated alcohol is more widespread in lower-income countries than in more affluent ones. Yet, whether in mature or emerging economies, it is largely consumed in some of the world’s poorest communities and, because it lacks quality and production standards, may contribute to an already significant problem of ill health. While home-produced artisanal alcohol may be part of cultural heritage and largely unproblematic, the illicit sector is not only large but also comes at a significant cost. HUMAN COST: The deaths in early 2018 of almost 150 people in Indonesia from poisoning by adulterated alcohol serve as a reminder that unregulated alcohol can cost lives   

Washington, DC: The International Alliance for Responsible Drinking (IARD),  2018. 16p.  

By Andrés Ham, Darío Maldonado, Michael Weintraub, Andres Felipe Camacho, Daniela Gualtero

This paper studies whether bartenders that adopt standardized practices can promote responsible alcohol consumption and subsequently reduce alcohol-attributable violence. We conducted a randomized experiment in four localities of Bogotá in cooperation with Colombia's largest brewery and Bogotá's Secretariat of Security, Coexistence, and Justice. Our design allows estimating direct and spillover effects on reported incidents within and around bars. Results show that bartenders in treatment locations sell more water and food, thus contributing to more responsible alcohol consumption by patrons. We find no direct or spillover effects of these changes in consumption on brawls, but some improvement on other alcohol-related incidents.

Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad de los Andes, 2019. 61p.

By Ria Ivandić, Tom Kirchmaier and Neus Torres-Blas 

 We study the role of alcohol and emotions in explaining the dynamics in domestic abuse following major football games. We match confidential and uniquely detailed individual call data from Greater Manchester with the timing of football matches over a period of eight years to estimate the effect on domestic abuse. We first observe a 5% decrease in incidents during the 2-hour duration of the game suggesting a substitution effect of football and domestic abuse. However, following the initial decrease, after the game, domestic abuse starts increasing and peaks about ten hours after the game, leading to a positive cumulative effect. We find that all increases are driven by perpetrators that had consumed alcohol, and when games were played before 7pm. Unexpected game results are not found to have a significant effect.  

London: Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, 2021. 66p.