NCJ Number
108007
Date Published
1987
Length
377 pages
Annotation
This thesis analyzes the international effort, especially the U.S. Government's role, against illicit drug trafficking, from the perspective of three models.
Abstract
The first model explains the criminalization of drug trafficking and other activities throughout the world and why they have not been suppressed. The second elaborates on the transnational policing model, giving a historical overview of the internationalization of American policing and explaining why law enforcement officers were obliged to look beyond their own borders. The third model stresses the unique qualities of the international drug traffic and the efforts to suppress it. Those efforts face obstacles associated with vice markets as well as those presented by most smuggling ventures. The thesis also examines the diplomatic dimension of postwar U.S. international drug control efforts and the activities of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents in Europe and Latin America -- how they contend with foreign law enforcement systems, governmental corruption, political obstacles and their own lack of police powers. The author suggests that an international approach to the drug traffic that relies on noncriminal regulation, not on the criminal law and police, may ultimately prove more beneficial for most societies. Chapter footnotes. (Author abstract modified)