NCJ Number
154320
Date Published
1988
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This opening presentation at a symposium on narcotics enforcement focuses on the selection of goals in such enforcement so that organized criminal enterprises involved in drug trafficking are eliminated.
Abstract
Drug law enforcement requires the use of resources according to the prioritization of people who should be arrested, based upon intelligence information. The drug market consists of independent entrepreneurs who are selling drugs without any attempt to gain monopolistic control, territory, corruption of the police, or the elimination of competitors. It also consists of highly organized drug enterprises that aspire to monopolistic control of the drug market by eliminating the entrepreneur and gaining ever-expanding control of the drug market by eliminating competitors and corrupting police. If police focus on arresting independent entrepreneurs, they help the criminal organizations by eliminating their competitors. Such a police strategy will lead to less competition in the drug market, higher drug prices, less indiscriminate violence, but more systemic public corruption. If enforcement focuses on criminal organizations, competition and violence are likely to increase among drug dealers, and drug prices should decrease; on the other hand, there will be less systemic corruption. Failure to address criminal organizations will lead to a totalitarian, powerful criminal control of the drug market that will lead to manipulation of the criminal justice process, the political process, and the economic process. Each law enforcement agency must select its narcotics enforcement goals according to the structure and particular threats posed by drug-marketing dynamics in its jurisdiction. 3 figures