Drug Trafficking CRJ101

Drug Trafficking and The Criminal Justice System
Hassan Omar Jr.
CRJ101 - DB1CJP21
Professor Alfred Leverette
September 7th, 2009

The United States Criminal Justice System is a vital portion of the judicial system. The Criminal Justice system today faces many issues. Many of these issues include border patrol, drug trafficking, corrupt officers, police brutality, and racial injustice to name a few. Drug trafficking is the biggest issue facing the criminal justice system today. The United States has been fighting a war on drugs for many years now and the war on drugs has been a losing battle.
The war on drugs in America has been going on officially since 1971 when President Richard Nixon declared America’s War on Drugs. From this point forward the United States has seized, arrested, and convicted thousands of people since 1971. “Since the 1980s 20% of all inmates behind prison walls are offenders of drug related crimes. The one issue with this is that many people are starting to see it in a negative light. The reason being is that out of all inmates contained by the United States the majority of inmates are African American.(Bureau of Justice Statisitics, 2008)”
Many people see the only reason that police officers patrol in minority neighborhoods because that is the only place that the police can find illegal drugs. The war on drugs, to some people, is a war that is wasting money and filling up prisons with drug offenders who are taking up room for people who have done more violent crimes. Many people see that most offenders who do get convicted of drug related charges go to jail for longer than what they deem reasonable. “According to Eric Schlosser a well renowned journalist claims that 1 out of every 6 inmates in federal prison is there because of marijuana related charges. In fifteen states you can get a life sentence without parole for a non-violent marijuana offense. The average sentencing for murder in this country is 6 years. (Public Broadcasting Corporation, 1997)”
The police see things in a different light however. “In 1986 the Presidents Commission on Organized Crime reported that forty percent of all organized crime within the country was drug trafficking related. This illegal industry profited almost one hundred and ten billion dollars in 1986. (President's Commission on Organized Crime, 1986 , 1986)” In 2004 the United states Drug Law Enforcement Agencies released this statistic “Each year, according to the U.S. Customs Service, 60 million people enter the United States on more than 675,000 commercial and private flights. Another 6 million come by sea and 370 million by land. In addition, 116 million vehicles cross the land borders with Canada and Mexico. More than 90,000 merchant and passenger ships dock at U.S. ports. These ships carry more than 9 million shipping containers and 400 million tons of cargo. Another 157,000 smaller vessels visit our many coastal towns. Amid this voluminous trade, drug traffickers conceal cocaine, heroin, marijuana, MDMA, and methamphetamine shipments for distribution in U.S. neighborhoods. (U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, 2004)” With all these people moving in and out of the United States controlling the substances that enter the United States is a very big Challenge. According to the National Drug Threat Assessment of 2007 “Coca cultivation is higher than previously estimated, and cocaine availability and use in the United States has not significantly changed despite record interdictions and seizures. Demonstrable progress in disrupting Colombia coca cultivation since 2001, particularly through aerial eradication,
has forced growers to cultivate coca in nontraditional growing areas of Colombia. As a result, intelligence agencies are now challenged to expand their survey areas and reexamine cultivation and production estimates for previous years. Aerial eradication resources will be stretched to cover wider growing areas in Colombia. A lesser concern is the potential for drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) to significantly increase coca cultivation in Bolivia and Peru, where cultivation is much lower than mid-1990s levels but has increased recently in both countries. Recent success in greatly reducing domestic methamphetamine production has also resulted in new challenges for law enforcement. Following a sharp decrease in methamphetamine production nationally (laboratory seizures decreased 42 percent from 2004 (10,015) to 2005 (5,846), and preliminary
2006 data show continued declines), most production and distribution were consolidated under the control of Mexican DTOs producing and distributing higher purity ice methamphetamine, supplanting local independent powder methamphetamine producers and dealers. As a result, Mexican DTOs gained considerable strength and greatly expanded their presence in drug markets throughout the country, even in many smaller communities in midwestern and eastern states. These stronger, more organized, and insulated distribution groups have proven to be much more difficult for local law
enforcement to detect and disrupt than the local dealers that they have replaced.
As Mexican DTOs and criminal groups have expanded their control over methamphetamine distribution, many such groups have introduced Mexican black tar and brown powder heroin in southeastern and midwestern states, where Mexican heroin was never or very rarely observed as recently as 2005. Although South American heroin is still the predominant type in most eastern drug markets, Mexican DTOs’ ability to advance Mexican heroin beyond traditional western state heroin markets presents new challenges to law enforcement as more groups make the drug consistently available to
individuals even in smaller, more rural eastern communities.Marijuana potency has increased sharply. The production of high potency marijuana in Canada and the United States by Asian criminal groups has been a leading contributor to rising marijuana potency throughout the United States. In fact, average potency of seized marijuana samples hasmore than doubled from 2000 through 2005, since trafficking by Asian DTOs has increased significantly.Recently, however, Mexican DTOs have also begun producing higher potency marijuana (derived from cannabis cultivated in outdoor plots in California), most likely in an effort to compete with Asian DTOs for high potency marijuana market share. The result may be furtherincreases in average marijuana potency in the United States in the near term. (National Drug Intelligence Center, 2007)”
The drug threat to the United States is without a doubt the biggest issue facing the Criminal Justice System today. The drug threat has only gotten worse and more organized over the years. The battle is no doubt a war we are losing. The main thing tat many officals will say is communities also need to help in this effort to fight this war on drugs in our homes, communities and in our country.



Bibliography
Bureau of Justice Statisitics. (2008, june 30). Prison Statistics. Retrieved august 29, 2009, from usdoj.gov: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm
National Drug Intelligence Center. (2007). National Drug Threat Assessment 2007. JOHNSTOWN, PA: National Drug Intelligence Center.
President's Commission on Organized Crime, 1986 . (1986). Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime. Retrieved august 29, 2009, from DrugLibrary.org: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Govpubs/amhab/amhabc3.htm
Public Broadcasting Corporation. (1997, december). Frontline: Busted-America. Retrieved august 29th, 2009, from pbs.org: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/interviews/schlosser.html
U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. (2004, may). Drug Trafficking in the United States. Retrieved august 29, 2009, from Policyalmanac.org: http://www.policyalmanac.org/crime/archive/drug_trafficking.shtml