The dark side: The drug business is a blight on societies

Economist

ASK community activists in Neza what their main problem is and the answer comes instantly: crime. This mostly involves “express kidnaps”, in which the victim is required to hand over all his cash, or extortion from small businesses. The perpetrators often claim to be from La Familia or the Zetas, two drug gangs notorious for their violent methods. The other threat, says María Elisa Solís of Fundación Estrella, an NGO, is “the authorities themselves”, who rarely investigate crimes but demand bribes.

Powerful mafias who derive massive profits from the rich world’s demand for drugs, especially cocaine, have exploited the weakness of the rule of law in many parts of Latin America. This organised crime has brought increased violence (see chart 5), though not everywhere. In Mexico, for instance, the murder rate has probably doubled since 2006, when Felipe Calderón cracked down on the trafficking mobs, but officials stress that many parts of the country are peaceful.

The profits generated by cocaine exports to the United States and Europe have allowed drug gangs to turn themselves into illegal armies. In some places, such as Mexico and Central America, this has turned a problem of policing into one of national security that becomes a drag on development and deters investment.

The same used to apply to Colombia, where drug money allowed the communist FARC guerrillas to outlast the end of the cold war. But that country offers an example of how the threat can be tackled. Álvaro Uribe, the country’s president until earlier this year, vastly increased spending on security. Thanks partly to foreign aid, prosecutors are backed by a fairly effective force of detectives and a witness-protection programme. Between 2002 and 2008 the murder rate halved and killings of human-rights activists and trade-union leaders abated. To match Colombia’s relative success may take a decade or more in Mexico, which is a federal state and lacks Colombia’s national police.

Controlling crime is even harder in weak Central American states such as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Although politicians point the finger at youth gangs (maras), it is the drug trade that is the main cause of the rising violence, according to the World Bank.

Brazil has come up with some answers. In the decade to 2008 the murder rate in São Paulo state fell by 70%. Economic growth helped, but so did better police management. The police gave priority to catching murderers, with the clear-up rate for killings rising from 20% in 2001 to 65% in 2005, according to Tulio Kahn, a criminologist who advises the government. Upgrading slums with things like better streetlighting and keeping young people at school or in job training also helps to cut crime. In Mexico City the local government offers scholarships to encourage youngsters to stay at school. Marcelo Ebrard, the mayor, says that in Mexico 7m young people neither study nor work: “They can organise an army.”