A new comparative study of drug policies in eight Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay) suggests drug laws are contributing to “prison crises” across the region (case in point: Chile’s deadly prison fire this week, which HRW has a statement on here). That conclusion comes from a new joint study by the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute and the Washington Office on Latin America. According to TNI and WOLA, Latin America’s drug laws too frequently impose “penalties disproportionate to many of the drug offenses committed, do not give sufficient consideration to the use of alternative sanctions, and promote the excessive use of preventive detention.” Moreover, the vast majority of those arrested are not “high” or even “medium-level” traffickers but rather individuals who “occupy the lowest links in the chain,” thus contributing very little to a decline in production, transport, or use of drugs anywhere in the region. Pien Metaal, the coordinator of TNI’s drug reform project:
“Imprisoning minor offenders to restrict drug trafficking is useless, for the next day the bosses at the top replace them. But for the persons locked up, prison can destroy their lives. The criminal law approach to these persons also swamps the systems of administration of justice, thereby negatively impacting society as a whole.”
In Colombia, for example, 98% of persons imprisoned on drug related offenses are believed to be “low-level offenders,” the new study reveals.
Additionally, those most affect are so too the Latin America’s most vulnerable -- namely the poor and increasingly poor, single mothers, a trend as the report calls the “feminization” of drug offenses. “Disproportionate sentencing” lies at the heart of this problem as “laws do not distinguish clearly among users, small-scale dealers, small-scale transporters, and medium- and large-scale traffickers.” Again, TNI’s Pien Metaal, with one of the study’s central recommendations:
“To reestablish proportionality in sentencing, it is important that the authorities introduce clearer guidelines to identify the different levels of trafficking and the different types of drugs, and to keep users from ending up in prison.”
More from the BBC, which comments on the TNI/WOLA report.
To be sure, the drug policy experts have become increasingly concerned with examining the drug issue as one which must be dealt with not only at the point of production but also at the point of demand. In its latest issue, The Nation focuses principally on the Northern half of this equation, namely how the US-led war on drugs might be ended. Included in the forum, pieces by the Drug Policy Alliance’s Ethan Nadelmann, on why the prospect of drug policy reform has never been better in US; the Sentencing Project’s Marc Mauer, on how to build on the recent passage of the Fair Sentencing Act, a bill which scaled back “harsh and racially disparate” mandatory sentences for crack cocaine offenses; Harvard sociologist Bruce Western on the link between poverty and the criminalization of drug users; the Justice Policy Institute’s Tracy Velázquez with a critique of the drug courts system; Laura Carlsen of CIP’s Americas Program on ending Mexico’s drug wars; a piece by legal scholar David Cole; as well as an excellent report from Juarez by Observer/Guardian reporter Ed Vulliamy.
Vulliamy writes how killings in Mexico’s “murder city” today look little like the “war” of which they are purported to be part and much more like “criminal anarchy.” Or to quote Charles Bowden, as Vulliamy does, it’s no longer a question of Juarez being a "breakdown of the social order.” It’s Juarez as “the new social order.”
With the latest day-to-day reporting from Mexico’s drug anarchy:
· The New York Times Damien Cave writes on the cartel blockades set up yesterday on all five roads into and out of President Felipe Calderon’s hometown of Michoacan – apparently a “show of force” by the region’s principal drug gang, La Familia. A day prior, deadly shootouts between police and gunmen left three individuals dead, including an 8-month old child.
· In Rio de Janeiro, where state security forces mounted mass raids of two favelas two weeks ago, the New York Times suggests the military police who have continued to occupy the shantytown of Complexo do Alemao, are overstaying their welcome. The Times:
“One week after the Alemão operation, the culmination of a weeklong street battle against drug gangs that claimed dozens of lives across Rio, residents here were viewing the security presence through cautious eyes.
Gone was the initial euphoria when the police entered the community of 120,000 people on Nov. 28, prompting small children to frolic in a former drug trafficker’s rooftop swimming pool. By week’s end, residents had accused the police of dozens of abuses, including robberies and violent entries into their homes as officers scoured the slum for guns, drugs and money.”
· To Haiti, where demonstrations against the results of Nov. 28 elections are growing ever more intense. The AP this morning says the country is preparing for “armed clashes and more days of flaming barricades.” A shootout in one of the city’s largest tent camps near the crumbled national palace took the life of at least one on Thursday. Michel Martelly (profiled by Reuters today) has blamed violence on supporters of government-backed candidate Jude Celestin, who himself took to television Thursday calling for the mobilization of his own backers. Mr. Celestin’s campaign manager, Sen. Joseph Lambert went further, calling for supporters to “clean up” the streets of Port-au-Prince. Meanwhile, Guy Phillipe, the rebel leader who helped orchestrate the 2004 ouster of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, also went public with his first statements about the election and declaring everyone is guilty of fraud. For its part, the CEP also made a new statement Thursday, promising a review of the widely rejected initial results from Nov. 28 and inviting Martelly, Celestin, and frontrunner Mirlande Manigat to participate in that review. And, finally, the US re-issued a travel warning for Haiti – a warning which does not look likely to stop Sarah Palin (and family) – yes, that’s right – from traveling to Haiti this weekend. She’ll be accompanied by the ever-controversial Rev. Franklin Graham, who operates a humanitarian organization in the country. This author is left without words.
· Also, Jonathan Katz at the AP stays on top of cholera-related stories in Haiti, writing that a second study in two days has confirmed South Asia to be origin of Haiti’s epidemic. Although not directly dealing with the hypothesis that Nepalease UN peacekeepers are responsible for bringing the disease to the country, the report comes from a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Harvard researcher, Dr. Matthew Waldor.
· In Venezuela, the AP writes on a new report from the human rights group, Provea, which documents almost 14,000 murders in the country last year. Those numbers could be even higher, Provea says. They do not include government numbers currently classified as “unresolved deaths.” (There were more than 4000 such deaths in 2009). Also left out are Venezuelans killed during clashes with police, which include some 2,685 cases. Speaking about the numbers, Provea leader Marino Alvarado tells the AP that “There's no coherent anti-crime policy [in the country]. The government needs to develop short, medium and long-term policies based on consensus with other representatives of society.”
· Also in Venezuela, more from Reuters on a new media regulation bill which some say could result in internet crackdowns.
· The latest in intriguing Latin America Wikileaked material comes from Colombia where the Miami Herald, Wall Street Journal, and the National Security Archive all discuss new Colombia cables (the first of some 2,416 that apparently exist). The latter gives a good summary of the cables’ highlights while the Herald and Journal focus on how Alvaro Uribe may have sought direct dialogue with rebel groups at a variety of moments from 2008 to 2010.
· AFP on the FARC announcing the unilateral release of five hostages this week.
· The Economist on a story I’ve mentioned frequently here: Juan Manuel Santos’s respectable experiment in regional diplomacy.
· A new report, “Breaking the Silence,” from the US Office on Colombia and the Latin America Working Group on the 30,000+ individuals currently registered as “forcibly disappeared” in Colombia. The Guardian comments.
· The Tico Times on whether a package of FSLN-backed defense laws in Nicaragua, to be voted on next week, will open the door to the legalization of Sandinista paramilitary groups, among other things.
· The IMF has touched down in Argentina for the first time since 2005, reports El País. At the invitation of the government, an IMF mission will apparently be aiding the government in the construction of a more reliable “consumer price index.”
· Mercopress with news that UNASUR member states are prepared to jointly share and disclose data on their military expenditures for the first time ever.
· Finally, two opinions on Haiti. The New York Times, in an editorial today, can do little more than suggest the OAS and Caricom “keep a close eye on the next critical steps” in Haiti. In The Guardian, Kim Ives breaks down the complexities of the situation more clearly. Some of the moving parts: a UN Minustah force which says it will not allow Rene Preval to be toppled, maintaining “it would be a coup;” that same embattled president, Rene Preval’s relationship with the US – a frustrated one but one which the US seems intent on maintaining; and a Haitian street that has since now exploded with social and political discontent. Kim Ives, with the help of Wikileaks:
“[Current US]Ambassador Merten is undoubtedly pondering [former US Ambassador Janet] Sanderson's prophetic conclusion: ‘Managing Préval will remain challenging during the remainder of his term, yet doing so is key to our success and that of Haiti.’”
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