Open drug scenes and police strategies in Oslo,Norway

Harm reduction has since the late 80s gradually been part of Norwegian drug policy, challenging original working strategies for police in open drug scenes; places with extensive public trade and use of illegal drugs. This study addresses the research questions: What characterizes police work in open drug scenes in Oslo? How do the police solve the practical challenges of working within a ‘dual-track policy’ combining harm-reducing and punitive approaches? This historical analysis of police approaches to open drug scenes concerns the years 1993–2015. The open drug scene has moved continuously within a limited area around the Central train Station. The study uses data from newspaper articles, semi-structured interviews of responsible police in the area and public action plans by the Municipality of Oslo. Police strategies in Oslo’s drug scenes have changed from strictly punitive to a mixture of harm-reducing and punitive efforts. The police change back and forth between these strategies, and within the same time period they sometimes engage in both. Within the current drug policy, the dilemmas of practical police work persist, as inhabitants of the drug scene perform numerous criminal acts and simultaneously are in need of care.     

Drugs,Guns and Rebellion: A Comparative Analysis of the Arms Procurement of Insurgent Groups in Colombia and Myanmar

Several insurgent groups have financed their arms procurement through drug trafficking, explaining in part the long duration of conflicts in drug producing countries. Incomes generated from this trade do not however automatically translate into improved military capabilities, since access to military-grade weapons typically requires tacit or active state support. Hence, two groups with similar types of funding can still have access to very different types of armaments, impacting their operational capability. This paper compares the arms procurement of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and the United Wa State Army (UWSA) in Myanmar. Both insurgent groups have procured arms through networks and with finances from the drug trade. The UWSA's 20,000-strong force and significant armaments, including Man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) believed to be provided by China, is largely supported by these illicit activities and the networks they provide. FARC has ample access to small arms, the acquisition of which has been financed by taxation of the drug trade. In spite of significant incomes, FARC however until very recently lacked access to MANPADS, a fact which has significantly hampered its ability to withstand the Colombian counterinsurgency campaign, specifically targeted aerial assaults. The exploratory comparisons drawn in this paper offer insights into how insurgent groups can pass a crucial threshold of arms procurement, funded by illicit activities, that renders their dissolution far more difficult, while also highlighting the continued importance of state support in explaining rebel group resilience.     

Structural sources of international crime: Policy lessons from the BCCI Affair

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was established in 1972 to provide help for poor people and poor countries. However, its scandalous closure, as the centre of a huge fraud, indicated that the main beneficiaries of the services of BCCI were the Colombian drug barons, the CIA, and several prominent Third World dictators. The BCCI collapse provides an opportunity to look into these global networks of criminality. It demonstrates that the lines between legitimate and illegitimate enterprises can be very thin; that illicit enterprises can themselves collaborate; and that the bank was itself involved in covert operations and the foreign policies of several states. The BCCI scandal presents a number of lessons in regulatory failure.     

Illicit pharmaceutical networks in Europe: organising the illicit medicine market in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands

It has been widely suggested that the global market in counterfeit, falsified and illegally traded medicines has expanded at a tremendous rate in recent years, offering lucrative opportunities for criminal entrepreneurs with little legal risk. However, with a few exceptions, there has been little criminological research conducted on the trade’s actors and organisation. Of the few studies that are available, most position the supply of these products in the context of ‘transnational organised crime’, often presupposing the overwhelming presence of large-scale, hierarchical structures in the trade. This article, based on two extensive research projects in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, offers an account of the illicit supply of medicines in two European jurisdictions. The research outlines the nature and dynamics of the trade including the roles played by each national context as nodes in the global supply chain. The focus then shifts to the modus operandi, actors, online trade and social organisation in both countries. In contradistinction to the ‘transnational organised crime’ narrative, the empirical data outlined in this paper demonstrates that actors and networks involved in the trade are highly flexible and complex structures that straddle the categories of licit and illicit, online and offline, and global and local. This suggests that operations supplying illicit medicines vary largely in terms of size, reach, organisation and legality.     

A Rush to Judgment?: The Origin of the 2001 Australian “Heroin Drought” and its Implications for the Future of Drug Law Enforcement

This paper reassesses the origins of what has been referred to as the Australian “heroin drought.” It looks at the theories that circulated in drug policy circles immediately after the supply shortage was discovered in 2001. It concludes that there may have been a ”rush to judgment” as these inferences were based on unsatisfactory data. As such, none of the theories that were advanced at the time hold true — the shortage was almost certain to have been the result of a Taliban- enforced reduction of Afghanistan grown opium. As interdiction strategies were one of the main theories for the shortage, this might seem disappointing, especially as supply reduction strategies struggle to maintain relevancy against a growing shift to demand reduction and harm reduction strategies. But this situation should not be the case — drug seizures should not be hailed as law enforcement's central strength in this or any other situation. Instead, the strong point of policing should be seen as the broad approach it takes to reduce crime through its attack on all criminal enterprises, not just its assault on a particular criminal sector — like the drug trade.     

Criminal heterarchy and its critics: governance and the making of insecurity in Colombia

ABSTRACT

The FARC, Colombia’s oldest and biggest guerrilla organisation, has long been constructed as the country’s public enemy number one, an enemy that is increasingly portrayed as an outright criminal actor who abandoned all political ambitions. This image of the FARC as a criminal threat to the Colombian state and society is central to a broader turn towards criminalisation in Colombian politics. Through the lens of a critical governance perspective and the notion of the state’s discursive selectivity this article analyses turning points during which the construction of Colombian society’s criminal enemies became a driving force in the country’s security governance. Which social forces support the implementation of criminalising forms of security governance and how? What are the social and political consequences of the latter? In answering these questions, the article argues that the war on (guerrilla) crime assumes a ‘productive’ role for Colombia’s formal democracy.     

The illegal trade in black caviar

The trade in caviar has a rich and colorful history, influenced over thousands of years by many cultures, societies and in the last decades by regulation. The value of caviar is historically discovered in the context of social change, political relationships and environmental change. The role of organized crime is described, as the scarcity of caviar has offered the unique opportunity to fish illegally, smuggle and trade contraband to mainly European countries with millions in profits. This study highlights that these criminal networks manifest themselves at all levels of the trade: from the poaching areas where organized criminal groups cooperate with law enforcers and possess top-notch equipment to major smuggling operations in the hands of sophisticated criminal networks. Although due to overexploitation ‘wild caviar’ is increasingly difficult to obtain, the demand in the context of exclusivity and scarcity remains intact by the upper class society desire for edible gold.     

Out of Africa: The human trade between Libya and Lampedusa

Smuggling and trafficking in persons is ipso facto illegal. Is this criminal activity organised or diffuse? Recent objective indicators show that between 2000-2005 the reported incidence of people trafficking and smuggling from North Africa to Europe has escalated. The article examines the nature of criminality involved in people smuggling and trafficking with specific reference to the sea route between Libya and the Italian island of Lampedusa, 180 miles north of the Libyan coast. In 2006 almost 19,000 illegal migrants arrived on this small island. Recent major operations conducted by the Italian anti-mafia unit and the state police suggest transnational criminal organisation of the trade. The networks involved in this trade, however, do not conform to mafia-like hierarchical organisations but rather smaller, more complex and fluid criminal networks. The article aims to cast light on how people are smuggled and trafficked. The background to the rise in illegal immigration from Libya is sketched underlining the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors involved in the human trade. The article’s chief objective is to provide a greater understanding of the mechanisms and processes involved in smuggling/trafficking. A better knowledge of the processes involved is vital if domestic, regional and international authorities and bodies are to counter the practice and/or to formalise it.     

Inventing Drugs: A Genealogy of a Regulatory Concept

The trade in, and consumption of, illicit drugs is perhaps the archetypal ‘wicked problem’ of our time – complex, globalized, and seemingly intractable – and presents us with one of the very hardest legal and policy challenges of the twenty‐first century. The central concept of a ‘drug’ remains under‐theorized and largely neglected by critical socio‐legal and criminological scholars. Drawing on a range of primary archival material and secondary sources, this article sets out a genealogy of the concept, assembled a little over a century ago out of diverse lines of development. It is argued that the drug label is an invented legal‐regulatory construct closely bound up with the global drug prohibition system. Many contemporary features of the ‘war on drugs’ bear traces of this genealogy, notably how drug law enforcement often contributes to racial and social injustice. To move beyond prohibition, radical law and policy reform may require us to abandon the drug concept entirely.     

Colombia's cocaine syndicates

Colombia's main drug trafficking coalitions — the Medellín and Cali syndicates — constitute powerful illegitimate interest groups. Traffickers (especially the Medellín coalition) exert political influence partly through violence and intimidation; yet the drug lords' political arsenal also includes non-coercive means-bribery, contributions to political campaigns and even open lobbying in the media. Conventional law enforcement strategies have been ineffective against the cocaine mafia, which is well entrenched in Colombian society. Wide domestic opposition to the drug war has prompted Colombia to opt for an unconventional strategy-to negotiate the voluntary withdrawal of major traffickers for the cocaine trade. A negotiation approach is extremely risky; yet, under tightly-controlled conditions, such an approach could allow U.S. and Colombian authorities to make significant progress in disrupting the cocaine multinationals and reducing the flow of Colombian cocaine into international markets.     

Local governance of safety and the normalization of behavior

In almost all West-European countries and large parts of the world the governance of public safety tops political priorities at both national and local level. We can observe a growing attention for public safety issues in our cities and streets, resulting in local communities and authorities that increasingly have the possibility to deal with these issues in a rather autonomous way. In this contribution, I discuss the local governance of safety through a critical analysis and reflection of inherent, new regulatory tools within an administrative or civil framework. In doing so, I focus on the precarious position of three specific categories, i.e., minors and youth, panhandlers and ‘potential’ drug users. This analysis starts off with and draws a parallel to broader social and political trends, which criminologists have described as the shift from a ‘post-crime’ to a ‘pre-crime’ society where pre-emptive logics, mechanisms of exclusion and the criminalization of behavior tend to prevail.     

Situating gangs within Scotland’s illegal drugs market(s)

The Scottish government’s (2008) publication ‘The road to recovery: A new approach to tackling Scotland’s drug problem’ elaborates and outlines the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) desire to make Scotland ‘drug free’ by 2019. To achieve this objective, the Scottish Government’s (2015) ‘Serious Organised Crime Strategy’ (SSOCS) entails dismantling networks of drug supply. Yet missing from this strategic planning is a) recognition of how, if at all, different types of gangs are involved in drug supply, and b) how drug supply processes actually work. Therefore, this article seeks to extend McLean’s (J Deviant Behav, 2017) Scottish gang model, which specifies a typology of gangs in Scotland, in an effort to locate precise levels of gang involvement in the drugs market. This is achieved by drawing upon Pearson and Hobbs’ (2001) hierarchical model of the UK’s illegal drug(s) market. In-depth interviews with 35 offenders involved in criminal networks and five practitioners, indicate that recreational Youth Street Gangs are really only involved in ‘social supply’. Youth Criminal Gangs are primarily involved in commercially motivated dealing at the low- to mid-levels, including bulk-buying between the retail-to-wholesale markets. And enterprising Serious Organised Crime Gangs operate from the middle-to-apex market level. Conclusions which situate this gang typology within the illegal drug market(s) are used to put forward recommendations aimed at dismantling of drug supply networks.     

Putting a price on drugs: An economic sociological study of price formation in illegal drug markets

Prices in illegal drug markets are difficult to predict. Based on qualitative interviews with 68 incarcerated drug dealers in Norway, we explore dealers’ perspectives on fair prices and the processes that influence their pricing decisions. Synthesized through economic sociology, we draw on perspectives from traditions as different as behavioral economics and cultural analysis to demonstrate how participants in illicit drug distribution base their pricing decisions on institutional context, social networks, and drug market cultures. We find that dealers take institutional constraints into consideration and search for niches with high earnings and low risks. The use of transactions embedded in social networks promotes a trusting form of governance, which enables strategic network management and expedient distribution but also uncompetitive pricing. Finally, dealers’ pricing decisions are embedded in three different cultures narratives: business, friendship, and street cultural stories, with widely varying implications for prices. Our findings demonstrate how an economic sociology of illicit drug distribution can extend insights from behavioral economics and cultural studies into a coherent criminology of illegal drug markets.     

Implementing statistical learning methods through Bayesian networks (Part 2): Bayesian evaluations for results of black toner analyses in forensic document examination

This paper presents and discusses the use of Bayesian procedures – introduced through the use of Bayesian networks in Part I of this series of papers – for ‘learning’ probabilities from data. The discussion will relate to a set of real data on characteristics of black toners commonly used in printing and copying devices. Particular attention is drawn to the incorporation of the proposed procedures as an integral part in probabilistic inference schemes (notably in the form of Bayesian networks) that are intended to address uncertainties related to particular propositions of interest (e.g., whether or not a sample originates from a particular source). The conceptual tenets of the proposed methodologies are presented along with aspects of their practical implementation using currently available Bayesian network software.     

Producing race disparities: A study of drug arrests across place and race*

In studies of race disparities in policing, scholars generally employ quantitative methodologies with the goal of determining whether race disparities exist or, in fewer instances, of ruling out correlates. Yet, lacking from theoretical and empirical efforts is an elucidation of how and why on‐the‐ground policing produces race disparities that are justified in legal, race‐neutral terms. To address this knowledge gap, I analyze officers’ self‐reported accounts of their enforcement activities, justifications, and decision‐making in a representative sample of 300 official reports of drug arrests made in St. Louis from 2009 to 2013. These accounts are analyzed across neighborhood racial contexts and arrestee race, revealing important differences that help illuminate the race disparity problem. Unlike drug arrests in White neighborhoods or of White citizens that primarily stem from reactive policing, drug arrests in Black and racially mixed neighborhoods and of Black citizens result from officers’ greater use of discretionary stops based on neighborhood conditions, suspicion of ambiguous demeanor, or minor infractions. During such stops, officers’ discovery of drug possession often results from discretionary Terry frisks or searches incident to arrests for outstanding bench warrants. These findings fill important theoretical and empirical gaps and have implications for reforms toward racially just policing.     

Research on the dilemma and improvement of legal regulation for unfair competition related to corporate data in China

Corporate data disputes have been rising rapidly in recent years in China. Courts typically apply the trade secret clause, the Internet clause, and the general clause under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of PRC to the disputes. However, there are some limitations and problems, including the limited scope of the trade secret clause, the difficulty in interpretation of the Internet clause, and short of sufficient demonstration of the general clause, all leading to the lack of clear rules and guidelines for solving corporate data competition issue. The property nature of corporate data and the business operators’ factual control of the data necessarily require standard legal protection. Corporate data is not the property right, but the property interest protected under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law. For further legal positioning of the corporate data, the paper refers to the trade secret clause’s legislative principles. The paper also learns from the United States and Japan that both information misappropriation rule and newly established ‘shared data with limited access’ provision protect corporate data under their anti-unfair competition law. The paper concludes by providing judicial and legislative suggestions to pave the way for corporate data protection in China. At the judicial level, Chinese courts should clarify the specific application conditions of the general clause. At the legislative level, enacting new legislation ‘data clause’ into the Anti-Unfair Competition Law is necessary to regulate unfair competition behaviors related to corporate data.     

Prosecutorial Discretion,Drug Case Selection,and Inequality in Federal Court

Abstract

In this article, I explore variations in prosecutors’ discretionary case selection practices by drawing on findings from a comparative field research project of drug prosecutions conducted in four federal districts. Using data from a series of in-depth interviews with legal actors in each district, I develop a typology of the kinds of drug cases brought in my sample districts, explore the logics underpinning their selection, and examine the potential impact of selection practices on racial inequality in drug caseloads. Findings elucidate the local variations in logics and practices that are nonetheless shaped by broader ideologies and structured incentives that encourage certain types of prosecutions. Prosecutorial discretion at the case selection stage also plays an important role in how cases are adjudicated, which is often closely linked to the logic underpinning the choice to file.     

Some Observations on Changing Business Practices in Drug Trafficking: The Andean experience

The field of cocaine production and trafficking has become more differentiated and the enterprises have become more heterogeneous. A new generation of traffickers has entered the business. They are low profile, cautious and they organize the trade in an informal way. They have a different style of operation than the druglords in the epoch of the big ‘cartels’. The use of individual couriers smuggling small amounts of cocaine while using normally scheduled flights has increased spectacularly presenting new challenges to law enforcement.     

贸易摩擦背景下美国在华专利布局与中美技术竞争

围绕日趋激烈的中美科技竞争,本文使用WIPO专利申请数据,对美国在华专利布局的演进特征和优势领域进行了实证分析,并构造技术相似度指数衡量中美在我国市场的技术竞争程度。结果显示:美国在华专利申请保持年均10%的快速增长并呈现明显的阶段性攀升,形成了一批以生物技术和信息技术为代表的稳定优势技术领域。美国企业更加重视在科学密集型子领域的专利布局,通过这些领域的技术优势支撑了美国在高技术产业重点领域对我国的贸易顺差。以技术相似度指数测算,美国在华技术布局与中国自主技术布局的整体相似程度呈"V"型演化关系,从技术互补逐渐转向技术竞争,2010年后两国技术相似度维持高位,技术竞争呈常态化白热化局面。     

On ‘Organized Crime’ in the illicit antiquities trade: moving beyond the definitional debate

The extent to which ‘organized crime’ is involved in illicit antiquities trafficking is unknown and frequently debated. This paper explores the significance and scale of the illicit antiquities trade as a unique transnational criminal phenomenon that is often said to be perpetrated by and exhibit traits of so-called ‘organized crime.’ The definitional debate behind the term ‘organized crime’ is considered as a potential problem impeding our understanding of its existence or extent in illicit antiquities trafficking, and a basic progression-based model is then suggested as a new tool to move beyond the definitional debate for future research that may help to elucidate the actors, processes and criminal dynamics taking place within the illicit antiquities trade from source to market. The paper concludes that researchers should focus not on the question of whether organized criminals- particularly in a traditionally conceived, mafia-type stereotypical sense- are involved in the illicit antiquities trade, but instead on the structure and progression of antiquities trafficking itself that embody both organized and criminal dynamics.