Crime in Puerto Rico: Drug Trafficking, Money Laundering, and the Poor

1997 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 533-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfredo Montalvo-Barbot
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Violent Crimes ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Government ◽  
Drug Economy ◽  
The Military

Echoing the federal “war on drugs,” the government of Puerto Rico has implemented a series of aggressive law enforcement policies aimed at dismantling the underground drug economy of the island. This article examines three main Puerto Rican law enforcement operations: “Greenback” (in 1985), “Lucky Strike” (in 1990), and the military invasion of public housings (in 1993). The data suggest that governmental attempts at disrupting the drug-based underground economy in Puerto Rico may have been responsible for the increase in violent crimes on the island during the past two decades. Policy implications of the anticrime operations also are discussed.

They Don’t Care if We Die: The Violence of Urban Policing in Puerto Rico

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 1066-1084 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisol LeBrón
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Public Housing ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Premature Death ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Limited Life ◽  
Drug Economy

In this essay, I trace how punitive policing in Puerto Rico has deepened existing racial, spatial, and class-based inequalities and further limited life chances for some of Puerto Rico’s most vulnerable citizens. To demonstrate how policing intensified forms of violent exclusion, I focus on mano dura contra el crimen, or iron fist against crime, a law enforcement initiative that sought to eliminate drug-related crime and violence by targeting public housing and other low-income spaces around the island for joint military and police raids during the 1990s. I argue that mano dura promoted an uneven distribution of risk, harm, and death by tacitly allowing the proliferation of violence within economically and racially marginalized communities. Although law enforcement agents engaged in acts of intimidation, harassment, and brutality during mano dura operations, it is perhaps the measures they implemented to concentrate violence in low-income communities that most contributed to the premature death and proximity to harm that barrio and public housing residents experienced. Furthermore, police and other state officials positioned the alarmingly high levels of drug-related violence and death occurring within the confines of these classed and racialized urban spaces as a necessary by-product of the island’s “war on drugs.” Ultimately, police intervention under the auspices of protecting el pueblo puertorriqueño, or the Puerto Rican people, as well as those moments when police deliberately “failed” to prevent violence related to the informal drug economy resulted in greater exposure to harm and death for marginalized communities on the island.

Explaining Country Heterogeneity in E-Government Evolution Based on Longitudinal Analysis of Nations

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 83-95
Author(s):  
Prakrit Silal ◽  
Debashis Saha
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Analysis ◽  
Clustering Analysis ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
The Past ◽  
Country Level ◽  
The Government

E-government (EGOV) has emerged as an important innovation disrupting the government-citizen relationship in the past two decades. It has attracted wide attention from scholars across varied domains. However, most of these scholarly works, while richly contributing to this evolving domain, assume homogeneity and uniformity in its design, implementation, and impact. This “one size fits all” approach fails to account for the contextual richness, often culminating in a “design-reality” gap. Also, the existing literature lacks adequate investigation of EGOV heterogeneities along time. To address the lacuna, this study attempts to uncover country-level heterogeneities inherent in EGOV longitudinal evolution. Using a dataset over 2008-2018, the study performs a longitudinal clustering analysis and identifies four distinct cohorts with varying EGOV trajectories. Further, the study uncovers variations in EGOV's influence on country-level development indicators across the four cohorts. The findings help derive theoretical and policy implications while identifying avenues for future works.

Puerto Rican shutdown would increase default fears

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
Federal Intervention ◽  
Congressional Vote ◽  
General Obligation Bonds ◽  
General Obligation ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Government

Significance Puerto Rico is facing a severe fiscal crunch; its general obligation bonds are rated junk status and the government has said that a 2.9 billion dollar bond issuance -- at risk because of the congressional vote -- is required to prevent a shutdown in the next three months. Impacts There is little-to-no prospect of Puerto Rican statehood while Republicans control the US Congress. Puerto Rico would gain five representatives and two senators, likely to vote Democratic. However, this may encourage some Republicans to back federal intervention on debt, to ward off calls for statehood.

scholarly journals COVID-19 WILL LEAD TO INCREASED CRIME RATES IN INDIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 72-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pradyumna Uppal
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Opportunity To Learn ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
World Health ◽  
The Past ◽  
Economic Recessions ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Bounce Back

The first ever Coronavirus outbreak was identified in Wuhan, Hubei, China in December 2019 and was recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020. The cases of COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) are increasing exponentially around the globe. Various measures like Social Distancing, Complete lockdown and Curfew are seen in the likes of India, China, Italy among others. India, as a nation, got an opportunity to learn from their experiences and initiated a complete lockdown in the whole country until the end of April. The economies around the world got hit by such lockdowns due to which, as many economists predict, a recession seems inevitable. The unemployment rate will likely increase and people will be left with less disposable incomes, paving the way for an economic crisis. With the experience of major crisis in the past, we have noticed that the crime rates in and post such situations tend to increase. The situation with the law enforcement organization needs to be handled with care and caution if India and other countries hope to bounce back strongly. This paper has studied the past economic recessions and changes in crime rate during and post economic recovery. It also aims to enlist a variety of measures that the government of India is taking to fight the crisis arising due to COVID-19 along with some suggestions to control the situation afterwards.

Ethiopia's government will enforce order

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
External Pressure ◽  
Amhara Region ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
Initial Wave ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Town ◽  
Important Shift

Subject Implications of recent protests. Significance The past two weeks have seen a significant increase in protests against the government. Residents in towns across the Oromiya region have demonstrated sporadically since late 2015 after an initial wave of dissent in early 2014. Protests in the Amhara region, including in the town of Gondar, appear to signal an important shift in dynamics. The protests are the most significant challenge the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has confronted since the death of former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in 2012. Impacts External pressure is unlikely to influence the behaviour of the government, despite its reliance on aid. Attacks on ethnic Tigrayans and the ethnic characterisation of the protests as 'Oromo' or 'Amhara' will deepen polarisation in society. The military may take a more front-line role in politics if its leaders perceive politicians as being unable to maintain order.

ICT4D in China and the Capability Approach

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Ting
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Capability Approach

For more than a decade, the Chinese government has poured copious resources into rural informatization as a means to increase agricultural productivity and rural economic growth. Such efforts so far have not produced definite results in rural areas, but increasing economic inequality and rising environmental threats have already forced the government to rethink its growth-centered development policy. Indeed, recent government releases clearly state the resolve to departure from the “GDP obsession” of the past. Meanwhile, the past three decades saw the rise of a powerful alternative development approach—the Capability Approach (CA), which focuses on empowering individuals and sees economic growth as one element of well-being. Given that the CA can potentially help devising a more coherent and holistic framework for Information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D), this paper examines the compatibility between the Capability Approach and the top-down socialist approach towards rural informatization in China. Built on two case studies of rural informatization in rural China, the present paper identifies potential obstacles to the adoption of the Capability Approach and discusses policy implications and suggestions.

scholarly journals Forestation in Puerto Rico, 1970s to Present

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fei Yuan ◽  
Jose Javier Lopez ◽  
Sabrina Arnold ◽  
Anna Brand ◽  
Jonas Klein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Forest Cover ◽  
The United States ◽  
Forest Growth ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Detection Analysis ◽  
The Government ◽  
Landsat Satellite

It is important to monitor the trend of forestland changes, as forests are vital sources and sinks of carbon on the earth. One of the most densely populated jurisdictions of the United States, Puerto Rico, has experienced significant transformations in the past century. This study examines forestation in the main island of Puerto Rico during the past four decades using feature extraction and change detection analysis in multitemporal Landsat satellite imagery. The results of the study show that forest cover in Puerto Rico had almost tripled from 15.7% to 45.7% between 1972 and 2014. Moreover, the forestation trend and pace in abandoned coffee plantations and pastures continued after 1990, driven by continuous socioeconomic transformation. Natural forestation and conservation efforts from the government and nongovernment organizations have also contributed to the forest growth on the island. The information gained and lessons learned during the process may be applied to other densely populated tropical insular territories. 

scholarly journals Doom to Disaster? Industrial Pollution in Sidoarjo 1975—2006

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 204
Author(s):  
Ronal Ridho'i
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Industrial Pollution ◽  
New Order ◽  
Government Regulations ◽  
Pollution Regulation ◽  
The Government ◽  
History Approach ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Military

Massive industrialization causes various pollutions (water, air, land and noise). Until early 2000s, facts proved that the environmental condition of Sidoarjo getting worse because of the high level of pollution in this area. This paper aims to explain industrial pollution, regulation of pollution and the debate of pollution cases in Sidoarjo since 1975-2006. Author uses an environmental history approach to analize this phenomenon, and peruses archival sources, newspapers, magazines and interview. This research finds out that industrial pollutions in Sidoarjo still continuously happen until today. Meanwhile, the govenrment regulations were not effectively decrease industrial pollutions because of collusion practice between industrialists and local government, and even with the military personnel particularly during the New Order. This paper proves that the government regulations and law enforcement about the environment were not resolving the pollution problems in Sidoarjo.

scholarly journals Current issues of international law in regulating counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mária Bordás
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
International Law ◽  
Public Security ◽  
Legal Regulations ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Military Literature ◽  
The World ◽  
Practical Reality ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military

The study sheds light on the current tendencies if the international law on warfare can successfully be applied in the practical reality in the progress of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism efforts. There have been two phenomena identified recently in the warfare which are endangering public security and public safety of the democratic states of the world: terrorism and insurgency. Both of them mean a threat and violation to the population and the government authorities. It has been queried in the military literature whether these new forms of warfare should be handled by military engagements or law enforcement. This is, nevertheless, not just a dilemma of the strategy how to combat against it, but should be, at the same time, in accordance with the international legal regulations, too

scholarly journals The evolution of drug trafficking and organized crime in Latin America

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Bagley
Keyword(s):  
Organized Crime ◽  
Drug Trafficking ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Control Policies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Criminal Groups ◽  
Drug Economy ◽  
Illicit Drug Trafficking

This article analyses the evolution of illegal drug economy in the Americas over the past two decades. It identifies eight key trends that have characterized illicit drug trafficking and organized crime as of mid-2011. They are: (1) The increasing globalization of drug consumption; (2) The limited victories and unintended consequences of the U. S. -led ‘War on Drugs’; (3) The proliferation of cultivation areas and of drug smuggling routes; (4) The dispersion and fragmentation of organized criminal groups; (5) The failure of political reform and state-building efforts; (6) The inadequacies U. S. domestic drug and crime control policies; (7) The ineffectiveness of regional and international drug control policies; (8) The growing support for legalization debate.

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