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Cocaine down but murders up
Most of the cocaine now goes through Central America
The United Nations has said that a decline in drug trafficking through the Caribbean has created market instability that may have led to a spike in violent crime.
The annual world drug report of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime cited the cases of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and the Dominican Republic.
The report said a number of other Caribbean countries have very high murder rates that are difficult to explain except in terms of the drug trade.
<span style="font-weight: bold">The UN also gave an insight into the development of the cocaine trade in Jamaica, which has one of the highest murder rates in the world. </span>
<span style="font-style: italic">Excerpt from the UN report:</span>
"As a conduit for cocaine imported into the United States, the Caribbean has greatly diminished in importance over the past 15 years.
During the early days of the trade, traffickers preferred the Caribbean corridor and it was used preferentially from the late 1970s.
In the 1980s, most of the cocaine entering the United States came through the Caribbean into the southern part of the state of Florida.
But interdiction successes, tied to the use of radars, caused the traffickers to reassess their routes.
As a growing share of cocaine transited the southwest border of the United States, Mexican groups wrested control from their Colombian suppliers, further directing the flow through Central America and Mexico.
<span style="font-style: italic">Flow dropped</span>
Unfortunately, this decline has not necessarily led to increased stability or lowered violence in the transit countries.
On the contrary, it seems that once the drug is introduced, instability in the market can drive violence. Jamaica provides a case in point.
Estimates of the cocaine flow through Jamaica dropped from 11% of the US supply in 2000 to 2% in 2005, and 1% in 2007.
This is reflected in declining seizures in Jamaica and declining arrests and convictions of Jamaican drug traffickers in the United States.
It is also negatively reflected in the murder rate, which rose from 34 per 100,000 in 2000 to 59 per 100,000 in 2008.
There are historical reasons for this paradoxical effect.
The importance of Jamaica as a transit country in the cocaine trade really rose after the violent 1980 elections in that country.
<span style="font-style: italic">Organised crime</span>
A large number of important crime figures (including some so-called 'area dons' and their enforcers) left Jamaica for New York, where they became key suppliers in the crack cocaine boom.
This period of growing criminal opportunities represented a time of relative calm in Jamaica.
When this market died out and cocaine flows began to shift westward, these men returned to Jamaica to find a much less well organized crime scene, where 'neighbourhood dons' had turned to more direct means of income generation: violent acquisitive crime, including extortion and robbery.
The Jamaican cocaine trade suffered another blow when cooperative efforts between Jamaican law enforcement and the United Kingdom sharply reduced the air courier traffic to Europe around 2002.
Street-level competition for diminishing returns has fuelled growing homicide rates; the highest in the Caribbean and among the highest in the world.
<span style="font-style: italic">Murder rate</span>
A similar, but more compressed, effect could also have occurred in the Dominican Republic.
The share of the US cocaine supply that transited Hispaniola dropped from 8% in 2000 to 2% in 2004, before rising again to 4% in 2005 and 9% in 2007.
Around this time, the murder rate in the Dominican Republic doubled, from 13 per 100,000 in 2001 to 26 per 100,000 in 2005.
It has remained at high levels, and the drug trade in the Dominican Republic is still volatile.
Dominican traffickers have grown in importance in Europe since about 2005, and today are second only to the Colombians among foreign cocaine traffickers arrested in Spain, the primary point of entry.
Another shift that may have affected local stability is the reduction in air courier traffic though the Netherlands Antilles.
<span style="font-style: italic">Remarkable surge</span>
In 2000, 4.3 tonnes of cocaine were seized at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands, much of it originating from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, via the Netherlands Antilles.
A '100% control' strategy was introduced at the end of 2003,20 targeting the drugs rather than the couriers. As a result, this flow was almost entirely eliminated by 2006.
These interventions may have displaced some of the flow coming from Venezuela through the Caribbean to Trinidad and Tobago, which saw a remarkable surge in seizures from 2000 to 2005.
At the same time, that country's murder rate tripled. Seizures have declined today, but the murder rate has remained high: 40 per 100,000 in 2008.
In addition, a number of other Caribbean countries have very high murder rates that are difficult to explain except in terms of the drug trade, particularly given
relatively low rates in neighbouring countries."
Most of the cocaine now goes through Central America
The United Nations has said that a decline in drug trafficking through the Caribbean has created market instability that may have led to a spike in violent crime.
The annual world drug report of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime cited the cases of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and the Dominican Republic.
The report said a number of other Caribbean countries have very high murder rates that are difficult to explain except in terms of the drug trade.
<span style="font-weight: bold">The UN also gave an insight into the development of the cocaine trade in Jamaica, which has one of the highest murder rates in the world. </span>
<span style="font-style: italic">Excerpt from the UN report:</span>
"As a conduit for cocaine imported into the United States, the Caribbean has greatly diminished in importance over the past 15 years.
During the early days of the trade, traffickers preferred the Caribbean corridor and it was used preferentially from the late 1970s.
In the 1980s, most of the cocaine entering the United States came through the Caribbean into the southern part of the state of Florida.
But interdiction successes, tied to the use of radars, caused the traffickers to reassess their routes.
As a growing share of cocaine transited the southwest border of the United States, Mexican groups wrested control from their Colombian suppliers, further directing the flow through Central America and Mexico.
<span style="font-style: italic">Flow dropped</span>
Unfortunately, this decline has not necessarily led to increased stability or lowered violence in the transit countries.
On the contrary, it seems that once the drug is introduced, instability in the market can drive violence. Jamaica provides a case in point.
Estimates of the cocaine flow through Jamaica dropped from 11% of the US supply in 2000 to 2% in 2005, and 1% in 2007.
This is reflected in declining seizures in Jamaica and declining arrests and convictions of Jamaican drug traffickers in the United States.
It is also negatively reflected in the murder rate, which rose from 34 per 100,000 in 2000 to 59 per 100,000 in 2008.
There are historical reasons for this paradoxical effect.
The importance of Jamaica as a transit country in the cocaine trade really rose after the violent 1980 elections in that country.
<span style="font-style: italic">Organised crime</span>
A large number of important crime figures (including some so-called 'area dons' and their enforcers) left Jamaica for New York, where they became key suppliers in the crack cocaine boom.
This period of growing criminal opportunities represented a time of relative calm in Jamaica.
When this market died out and cocaine flows began to shift westward, these men returned to Jamaica to find a much less well organized crime scene, where 'neighbourhood dons' had turned to more direct means of income generation: violent acquisitive crime, including extortion and robbery.
The Jamaican cocaine trade suffered another blow when cooperative efforts between Jamaican law enforcement and the United Kingdom sharply reduced the air courier traffic to Europe around 2002.
Street-level competition for diminishing returns has fuelled growing homicide rates; the highest in the Caribbean and among the highest in the world.
<span style="font-style: italic">Murder rate</span>
A similar, but more compressed, effect could also have occurred in the Dominican Republic.
The share of the US cocaine supply that transited Hispaniola dropped from 8% in 2000 to 2% in 2004, before rising again to 4% in 2005 and 9% in 2007.
Around this time, the murder rate in the Dominican Republic doubled, from 13 per 100,000 in 2001 to 26 per 100,000 in 2005.
It has remained at high levels, and the drug trade in the Dominican Republic is still volatile.
Dominican traffickers have grown in importance in Europe since about 2005, and today are second only to the Colombians among foreign cocaine traffickers arrested in Spain, the primary point of entry.
Another shift that may have affected local stability is the reduction in air courier traffic though the Netherlands Antilles.
<span style="font-style: italic">Remarkable surge</span>
In 2000, 4.3 tonnes of cocaine were seized at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands, much of it originating from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, via the Netherlands Antilles.
A '100% control' strategy was introduced at the end of 2003,20 targeting the drugs rather than the couriers. As a result, this flow was almost entirely eliminated by 2006.
These interventions may have displaced some of the flow coming from Venezuela through the Caribbean to Trinidad and Tobago, which saw a remarkable surge in seizures from 2000 to 2005.
At the same time, that country's murder rate tripled. Seizures have declined today, but the murder rate has remained high: 40 per 100,000 in 2008.
In addition, a number of other Caribbean countries have very high murder rates that are difficult to explain except in terms of the drug trade, particularly given
relatively low rates in neighbouring countries."
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