Casualties of War: An Analysis of the Increase Violence in Puerto Rico and Its Relation to the Drug Business (original) (raw)

Abstract

Puerto Rico has had a violent-crime increase in recent years. Its murder rate today is 23 per 100,000 1 people, about five times that of the United States. In 2011, the number of murders was 1,136, a record number for the relatively small Caribbean island. The government report that 35% of this murders are related to the drug trafficking business. But criminologist, sociologist, social psychologists and other academics argued that this number can be as high as 75% of the cases. Since 1985, there has been concern in the academia about the increasing number of murders related to the drug trafficking business. But the government of Puerto Rico in the last decades has adopted, consistently with the 'war on drugs' approach of the United States, a punitive and persecutory approach to deal with the drug business problem. Rather than reduce the murder rate, this 'strong hand' perspective against crime is responsible for the proliferation and increment of murders in recent years. Using the Police and the National Guard, the government clamps down on the drug selling points, typically located in the public housing projects, limiting the space of the business, forcing the drug dealers to compete violently for a limited market. This chapter will analyse; 1) how this so called 'strong hand' approach have contributed to the increment of the murders in the last decades instead of reducing it; 2) why there was no real concern from the government or lack of public opinion when the escalation of murders began in the 1980s; 3) who are the victims or casualties of conflict when the government assumed a war like approach to deal with the drug trafficking business problem; and 4) the chapter examine the alternatives to deal with the drug business problem and the benefits related to this alternatives.

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References (10)

  1. Sheilla Rodríguez Madera and Salvador Santiago Negrón, La violencia: opcionespara su mitigación (USA: Terranova Editores, 2012), 19.
  2. El Nuevo Día. Poca cooperación para esclarecer caso de asesinato de niño y su tío en Cupey. December 18, 2012.
  3. Rodríguez Madera and Santiago Negrón, La violencia, 118.
  4. Hannah Arendt, On Violence (San Diego: Harvest Book, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1970), 64.
  5. Ibid., 77.
  6. Ibid., 80.
  7. Slavoj , Violence: Six Sideways Reflections (New York: Picador, 2008), 64.
  8. Arendt, Hannah. On Violence. San Diego: Harvest Book, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1970.
  9. Rodríguez Madera, Sheilla and Salvador Santiago Negrón. La violencia: opciones para su mitigación. USA: Terranova Editores. 2012. , Slavoj. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. New York: Picador. 2008.
  10. Alexis Rodríguez-Ramos is a PhD candidate in Social Psychology and a Research Assistant at the Social Research Center at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. Also, he is currently a lecturer at Sacred Heart University in San Juan, Puerto Rico.