Presents new findings into the most mythologised and least understood area of crime and law enforcement, describing the world of drug trafficking in the words of traffickers and detectives.

This book analyzes the operation of illegal drug markets and explores the implications for prevention policy. Topics include crack distribution and abuse in New York, how young Britons obtain drugs, the impact of heroin prescription in Switzerland, the consumer behaviour of female drug users, heroin use and dealing in an English Asian community, Swedish drug markets and drug policy, performance management indicators and drug enforcement, connecting drug policy and research on drug markets. Contributors to this book are drawn from the UK, Europe and the USA.

This book challenges the quasi-consensus that Latin American countries dominate global homicide rankings mainly due to the illegal nature of drug production and trafficking. Building on US scholarship that looks at the role of social exclusion and discriminatory policing in drug violence, the authors of this volume show that the association between illegality and violence cannot be divorced from the inequality that prevails in those countries. This book looks in detail at the functioning of drug markets in Recife, the largest metropolitan area in Brazil’s North-East and, over the last 25 years, the heart of the country’s most violent metropolitan area. Building on extensive interviews and field work, the authors map out the city’s drug markets and explore the reasons why some of those markets are violent, and others are not. The analysis focuses on the micromechanics of each market, looking at consumption patterns and at the workings of retail sales and distribution. Such a systematic micro-level comparative analysis of the workings of Latin American drug markets is simply not available elsewhere in current literature. These findings point to significant gaps in current understandings of the link between illegal markets and violence, and they illuminate the need to factor in the way in which those markets are nested in exclusionary social contexts.

Despite efforts to reduce drug consumption in the United States over the past 35 years, drugs are just as cheap and available as they have ever been. Cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines continue to cause great harm in the country, particularly in minority communities in the major cities. Marijuana use remains a part of adolescent development for about half of the country's young people, although there is controversy about the extent of its harm. Given the persistence of drug demand in the face of lengthy and expensive efforts to control the markets, the National Institute of Justice asked the National Research Council to undertake a study of current research on the demand for drugs in order to help better focus national efforts to reduce that demand. This study complements the 2003 book, Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs by giving more attention to the sources of demand and assessing the potential of demand-side interventions to make a substantial difference to the nation's drug problems. Understanding the Demand for Illegal Drugs therefore focuses tightly on demand models in the field of economics and evaluates the data needs for advancing this relatively undeveloped area of investigation.

Robbery can be planned or spontaneous and is a typically short, chaotic crime that is comparatively under-researched. This book transports the reader to the streets and focuses on the real-life narratives and motivations of the youth gang members and adult organized criminals immersed in this form of violence. Uniquely focusing on robberies involving drug dealers and users, this book considers the material and emotional gains and losses to offenders and victims, and offers policy recommendations to reduce occurrences of this common crime.

This book makes a contribution to understanding the structure of markets on which such illegal transactions occur. The authors apply the tools of economic sociology to develop conceptual frames allowing to understand the organization of such markets and present case studies that provide insights into the illegal side of the economy.

Third party policing represents a major shift in contemporary crime control practices. As the lines blur between criminal and civil law, responsibility for crime control no longer rests with state agencies but is shared between a wide range of organisations, institutions or individuals. The first comprehensive book of its kind, Third Party Policing examines this growing phenomenon, arguing that it is the legal basis of third party policing that defines it as a unique strategy. Opening up the debate surrounding this controversial topic, the authors examine civil and regulatory controls necessary to this strategy and explore the historical, legal, political and organizational environment that shape its adoption. This innovative book combines original research with a theoretical framework that reaches far beyond criminology into politics and economics. It offers an important addition to the world-wide debate about the nature and future of policing and will prove invaluable to scholars and policy makers.

DEA Agent Jack Riley, "[Chicago's] most famous federal agent since the days of The Untouchables" (-Rolling Stone)tells the inside story of his 30-year hunt for the drug kingpin known as El Chapo, and reveals the true causes of the American opioid epidemic. Jack Riley, grandson of a Chicago cop known for using his fists, was born to be a drug warrior. Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, who farmed marijuana and opium poppies as a teenager in Mexico, was born to be a drug lord. Their worlds collided when Riley, a career special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, was promoted to lead the fight against Chapo on the border at El Paso. Drug Warrior is the story of Riley's decades-long hunt for the world's most wanted drug lord, set against the rise of modern international drug trafficking, and America's spiraling opioid epidemic. Jack Riley started his career as an undercover street agent in Chicago busting small-time dealers. By the time he worked his way up to second in command of the DEA-a post few field agents ever reach-he had overseen every major mission to capture foreign drug kingpins since the 1990s, and had witnessed first-hand how El Chapo changed the game. As brilliant as he was lethal, Chapo not only decimated his competition, he foresaw Americans' dependence on opioids and heroin, and manipulated supply to increase demand. Riley's story culminates as he and the DEA win their greatest victory-the capture and extradition of his long-time nemesis-and Chapo faces his darkest fear: U.S. justice. A riveting memoir of life inside the drug wars, and a never-before-seen glimpse of the inner-workings of the DEA, Drug Warrior is a critical examination of how America's opioid crisis came to be, and the extraordinary people fighting it.

Bribes, Bullets, and Intimidation is the first book to examine drug trafficking through Central America and the efforts of foreign and domestic law enforcement officials to counter it. Drawing on interviews, legal cases, and an array of Central American sources, Julie Bunck and Michael Fowler track the changing routes, methods, and networks involved, while comparing the evolution and consequences of the drug trade through Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama over a span of more than three decades. Bunck and Fowler argue that while certain similar factors have been present in each of the Central American states, the distinctions among these countries have been equally important in determining the speed with which extensive drug trafficking has taken hold, the manner in which it has evolved, the amounts of different drugs that have been transshipped, and the effectiveness of antidrug efforts.