Study Casts Doubt on Efficacy of Mexico's Drug Laws Geoffrey Ramsey - InSight
go to original October 13, 2012

According to a study published on October 3 by Mexico’s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE), the vast majority of drug offenders in the country are small-time dealers and consumers of drugs, and the threat they present to society is disproportionate to the penalties they receive. Catalina Perez Correa, the report’s main author, points to Mexican federal law enforcement statistics, which show that in 2010, 74 percent of arrests were for drug-related crimes, and 41.9 percent were for small-scale drug dealing.

"These drug dealers are usually street corner vendors, and the time of their arrest had not committed other crimes. They did not have, at least proven, links to organized crime," said Perez Correa.

Despite this, many of these individuals received prison sentences for possession and distribution charges that are greater than those generally reserved for violent criminals. For instance, the study notes that the maximum sentence reserved for adults convicted on drug charges (25 years in prison) is 11 years more than those convicted of rape (14 years) and 10 years more than those convicted of armed robbery or illegal possession of automatic weapons (15 years).

"We are using law enforcement resources to prosecute and punish consumers and small-scale sellers of marijuana and cocaine. This means fewer resources to investigate and punish crimes that are so hurting Mexican society, " said Perez Correa.

InSight Crime Analysis

Such strict drug laws are more than a human rights issue, they are directly contributing to a crisis in Mexico’s prison system. In 2011, the country’s 430 penal facilities were capable of housing 184,193 inmates. Today the prison population numbers 224,246. Overcrowding has contributed to deadly riots, and has allowed many criminal structures to manage their businesses directly from prison. According to a September report by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), some 60 percent of prisons in the country are out of state control and effectively governed by criminals. Reforming drug laws which penalize small-scale dealers, as well as reducing the emphasis on pre-trial detention in the country’s legal system, would likely prove an important step in improving prison conditions in Mexico.

But while Mexico’s drug laws should be streamlined to more proportionally reflect the violence they cause to society, Perez Correa’s premise that small-scale drug dealers are not a threat to the country’s internal security may not be accurate. Officials and analysts in Mexico have become increasingly concerned about the potential for smaller, localized drug gangs to become the main drivers of violence. As authorities focus law enforcement efforts on large cartels like the Zetas or Sinaloa Cartel, the theory goes, these larger groups fragment, breaking into splinter gangs who fight among themselves in local and regional turf wars. In a January report forecasting the future of citizen security in the country, Southern Pulse predicted that these smaller gangs would be the main cause of violence in Mexico by 2014, arguing: "at the hyper-local level, super-powered street gangs, armed with Twitter, You Tube, the weapon of fear, and an enviable armory, will man-handle local politicians and municipal police."

Even President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto has recognized the potential for this, and vowed that his administration will focus more on the violent activities of smaller gangs like La Linea and La Resistencia.

There is already evidence of this occurring in Tijuana. In September, Bajo California Attorney General Rommel Moreno announced that shootouts between rival small-scale drug gangs had become the main form of drug-related violence in the city, accounting for some 80 percent of murders in 2011 and 2012.

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