Victoria A. Greenfield

Tajikistan: the rise of a narco-state

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tajikistan has experienced an extraordinary and devastating expansion of opiate trafficking and consumption. While heroin was virtually unknown in the country up to the mid-1990s and opium was produced and consumed locally only to a modest degree, in less than a decade Tajikistan has become a key transit country for Afghan opiates bound north- and westwards, at the same time as it has witnessed a rapid growth of domestic heroin use. Tajikistan now rivals Afghanistan for the unenviable title of the country most dependent on the illicit drug industry, with the opiate industry adding at least 30% to the recorded gross domestic product. The opiate trade is so important economically that it corrupts the whole political system. This article therefore argues that since the mid-1990s Tajikistan has become a narco-state, in which leaders of the most powerful trafficking groups occupy high-ranking government positions and misuse state structures for their own illicit businesses.

The global diversion of pharmaceutical drugs India : the third largest illicit opium producer?

AIMS This paper explores Indias role in the world illicit opiate market, particularly its role as a producer. India, a major illicit opiate consumer, is also the sole licensed exporter of raw opium: this unique status may be enabling substantial diversion to the illicit market. METHODS Participant observation and interviews were carried out at eight different sites. Information was also drawn from all standard secondary sources and the analysis of about 180 drug-related criminal proceedings reviewed by Indian High Courts and the Supreme Court from 1985 to 2001. FINDINGS Diversion from licit opium production takes place on such a large scale that India may be the third largest illicit opium producer after Afghanistan and Burma. With the possible exceptions of 2005 and 2006, 200-300 tons of Indias opium may be diverted yearly. After estimating Indias opiate consumption on the basis of UN-reported prevalence estimates, we find that diversion from licit production might have satisfied a quarter to more than a third of Indias illicit opiate demand to 2004. CONCLUSIONS India is not only among the worlds largest consumer of illicit opiates but also one of the largest illicit opium producers. In contrast to all other illicit producers, India owes the latter distinction not to blatantly illicit cultivation but to diversion from licit cultivation. Indias experience suggests the difficulty of preventing substantial leakage, even in a relatively well-governed nation.

The Harms of Cocaine Trafficking: Applying a New Framework for Assessment

Seeking to fill a substantial gap in analytical infrastructure, this article lays out a summary of a newly developed framework for systematically assessing the harms of criminal activities and presents findings from an initial application to cocaine trafficking in Belgium. The application is based on a substantial data collection, which included an analysis of records in the Organized Crime Database of the Belgian Federal Police, 52 criminal proceedings, and interviews with 18 experts, and 12 convicted traffickers. First, we construct a business model for cocaine trafficking in Belgium to characterize the key operational phases and “accompanying” and “enabled” activities. On this basis, we identify the possible harms associated with cocaine trafficking and related activities, evaluate the severity and incidence of those harms, prioritize the harms, and establish their causality. The application demonstrates the merits of the approach and the conceptual and technical challenges confronting it.

Harm: a Neglected Concept in Criminology, a Necessary Benchmark for Crime-Control Policy.

Despite the centrality of harm to crime and criminalization and increasing interest in harm as a basis for crime-control policy, there has been little systematic reflection within criminology on criminal harms or their identification, evaluation, and comparison. In this paper, we review the literature on the harms of crime and related concepts, i.e., the perceived seriousness and cost of crime, impact of criminal victimization, and drug-related harm. Each of these related bodies of work suggests either a reason, by way of inadequacy, or a means, by way of insight or analytical method, to advance a harm-based approach. We then identify substantial challenges in assessing the harms of crime and conclude that, despite these challenges, a systematic empirically-based assessment of the harms of criminal activities can serve important roles in policy analysis.

How old is too old? An economic approach to replacing military aircraft

The US Air Force is asking when to replace its aging aircraft. We develop a framework to identify economically optimal replacement strategies that recognizes cost trade-offs and incorporates age effects. We also preview a stochastic methodology. We use the framework to identify an optimal strategy, defined by the replacement age, for a generic fleet and conduct a sensitivity analysis. Quantitative illustrations show that the range of strategies that provides close-to-optimal outcomes widens as the operating and support (O&S) cost growth rate decreases and the ratio of the acquisition price to the initial O&S cost increases. A wider range implies more decision-making leeway.

Change is Possible: The History of the International Drug Control Regime and Implications for Future Policymaking

The article, based upon an extensive literature review, reconstructs and analyzes the parallel evolution of the international drug control regime and the world opiate market, assessing the impact of the former on the latter until the rise of present-day mass markets. It shows that, since its inception, the regime has focused almost entirely on matters of supply. However, that focus has not always meant “prohibition”; until 1961, the key principle of the regime was “regulation.” Given the different forms drug control policy has taken in the past, the authors conclude it may be amenable to new forms in the future.

Starting from the End: A Plea for Focusing on the Consequences of Crime’

Since its institutionalization as an autonomous discipline in the late 19th century, criminology’s main project has been identifying the causes of crime. The project began when Cesare Lombroso, the “father” of criminology, applied the methods of the natural sciences to explain why some individuals commit crime (e.g., Fijnaut, 2014). Building on L’Uomo Delinquente (Lombroso, 1876), the ensuing literature has greatly enhanced our understanding of the problem of crime, its causes, and its links to the broader societal context (e.g., Merton, 1938; Hirschi, 1969; Sampson, 2013; Wikstrom et. 2013). Nonetheless, it is fair to say that the “Lombrosian project” (Garland, 2002) remains unfulfilled. A quick skim of any criminological handbook aptly demonstrates a lack of consensus on the causes of crime (e.g., Newburn, 2007; Cullen, Agnew and Wilcox, 2013 and Fijnaut, 2014).

The harms of human trafficking: demonstrating the applicability and value of a new framework for systematic, empirical analysis

This article uses human trafficking in Belgium to test a newly developed framework for assessing the harms of crime that has been applied previously to cocaine trafficking in the same country. We chose this criminal activity because of its policy relevance and to address apparent needs for systematic, evidence-based analysis. The framework uses quantitative and qualitative evidence to assess harms to individuals, private-sector entities, and others and to establish crime control priorities. The assessment process models the activity, evaluates the severity and incidence of harms, ranks priorities, and considers causality. We highlight three findings. First, trafficking victims can experience catastrophic harms, but the overall dimensions of human trafficking in Belgium appear to be modest. Second, the evidence suggests significant recent declines in the degree of exploitation and use of violence. Third, most harms to individual victims result directly from the activity, which sets it apart from other forms of trafficking.

Competing Explanations of U.S. Defense Industry Consolidation in the 1990s and Their Policy Implications

Was the consolidation of defense industry in the 1990s driven by U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) directives, or was it driven instead by the same forces that drove consolidation in many other sectors of the U.S. economy in the 1990s? To better understand the roles of DOD policy and economy-wide forces in shaping the U.S. defense industry, we test for structural breaks in defense industry and spending data and compare our findings to those relating to other sectors and the general economy. We identify structural breaks in the defense-related data in the early 1980s and throughout the 1990s, roughly consistent with changes in the U.S. economy, including broader merger trends. Overall, our results are more consistent with the view that economy-wide factors drove defense industry consolidation, largely independent of the DOD policy changes that occurred early in the 1990s.

Harm: A Substitute for Crime or Central to It?

This chapter argues that harm is central to crime, as reflected in early legal doctrine, ongoing scholarly debate, and contemporary criminal policy, but not a substitute for crime. It describes a systematic, evidence-based approach to operationalising ‘harm’ in criminal policy and criminology, namely, a harm assessment framework; shows how harm assessment can serve criminal policy and criminology; and proposes using ‘harmfulness’ as a criterion for establishing criminality and to inform decisions about law enforcement priorities, sentencing, victim assistance programs and restorative justice, all with the potential to advance social justice. On that basis, the chapter supports the zemiological perspective, without abandoning criminology.