NCJ Number
118653
Journal
Police Journal Volume: 61 Issue: 2 Dated: (April-June 1989) Pages: 157-173
Date Published
1989
Length
17 pages
Annotation
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents have devised means of working above and around the corruption which infects criminal justice agencies throughout Latin America.
Abstract
DEA agents have pleaded, cajoled, threatened, and tricked their local counterparts into cooperating with them. Relying both on the diplomatic leverage exercised by the U.S. ambassador and on the transnational police subculture which police share the world over, DEA agents have succeeded in immobilizing many top drug traffickers who assumed they had purchased protection from law enforcement. The DEA tactics most clearly resemble those of the CIA and other transnational organizations in their pursuit of a common mission around the world and in their persistent disregard of sovereign prerogatives. The U.S. experience in dealing with corruption in police agencies and governments abroad has not improved over time. Close relationships between DEA agents and local authorities, so essential in working around corruption, have rarely survived the transfer of one or the other to different assignments. The most persistent feature of U.S. efforts to eradicate and circumvent drug-related corruption has been the resilience of the corruption itself. 13 notes, 42 references.