abstract: This thesis examines the Mexican federal judiciary and the problem of corruption in this institution, particularly related to cases of drug trafficking. Given the clandestine nature of corruption and the complexities of this investigation, ethnographic methods were used to collect data. I conducted fieldwork as a "returning member" to the site under study, based on my former experience and interaction with the federal judicial system. I interviewed 45 individuals who work in the federal courts in six different Mexican cities. I also studied case files associated with an important criminal trial of suspected narco-traffickers known in Mexico as "El Michoacanazo." My study reveals the complicated nature of judicial corruption and how it can occur under certain circumstances. I conclude that the Mexican federal judiciary has become a more professional, efficient, and trustworthy institution over the past fifteen years, though institutionalized practices such as nepotism, cronyism, personal abuse of power, and gender inequalities still exist, tending to thwart the full professionalization of these courts and facilitating instances of misconduct and corruption. Although structural factors prevent full professionalization and corruption does occur in these courts, the system works better than it ever has before. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Justice Studies 2012

In this dissertation, I argue against the idea that literary works that portray drug-trafficking, or “narconovelas,” are mere apologias for drug-trafficking and governing failures unique to Colombia and Mexico. In order to problematize that statement, it is necessary to understand how drug-trafficking and its policies started, changed over time, and came to shape our contemporary practices of citizenship and our sense of justice. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of “governmentality”, I argue that a political reading of narconovelas will help us to rethink categories of governmentality such as governed subjectivities, governed bodies and inhabited spaces. In narconovelas, these categories reveal the construction of a criminal otherness, which is portrayed as antagonistic to an ideal middle-class model of citizen. In other words, readers of “narconovelas” do not learn about “narcoculture” or drug-trafficking but paradoxically about the markers of a middle-class citizen: “well spoken,” educated, able to control his/her own pleasures, conservatively dressed, and responsive to the disciplining of security dispositifs. In the first part of this dissertation, I explain how the opium policies and wars in China during the 19th century as well as the colonialist efforts of the United States established a precedent for the governing of drugs on a global level. Colombian and Mexican governing of drugs is linked not only to that precedent but also to the neoliberal ways of the governing of drugs. The second part of this work contains the literary analysis. I found that feminine subjectivities are constructed by highlighting the differences between a middle-class woman and a subaltern woman, and the body of the criminal is constructed based on distinctions of social class; in addition, the micro-politics for the representation of bodies derive from the colonial assumption that bodies can be owned, abused and disposed. I also found that narconovelas reverse our understanding of the center and the periphery; some novels even depict a transforming sense of citizenship by reimaging the inhabited spaces. With this work, I demonstrate that cultural production and in particular the narconovelas reinforce, challenge or remain ambiguous to the various biases that shape contemporary categories of governmentality such as gender, body and space. This dissertation is written in Spanish.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / O tema desta tese é compreender trajetórias de indivíduos que atuaram no tráfico de drogas e de armas na região metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro. Discuto as motivações que ensejaram a entrada destes indivíduos na atividade criminosa e os efeitos que a passagem pelo sistema prisional causou na constituição de suas identidades pessoais. O objetivo principal é examinar as condições que propiciaram o abandono do tráfico e detectar as mediações que serviram de suporte na tentativa de reinserção no mundo formal e lega. Procurei analisar as atividades do tráfico de drogas a partir das diversas interações entre seus participantes, reconstituídas por entrevistas com indivíduos que exerceram tal atividade. As formas sociais de conexão entre o lícito e o ilícito é examinada neste trabalho a partir das motivações individuais face à forças estruturais que induzem a produção de um jogo de identidades que não toma o indivíduo como um "locus " empírico dotado de encerramento da análise sociológica.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / O tema desta tese é compreender trajetórias de indivíduos que atuaram no tráfico de drogas e de armas na região metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro. Discuto as motivações que ensejaram a entrada destes indivíduos na atividade criminosa e os efeitos que a passagem pelo sistema prisional causou na constituição de suas identidades pessoais. O objetivo principal é examinar as condições que propiciaram o abandono do tráfico e detectar as mediações que serviram de suporte na tentativa de reinserção no mundo formal e lega. Procurei analisar as atividades do tráfico de drogas a partir das diversas interações entre seus participantes, reconstituídas por entrevistas com indivíduos que exerceram tal atividade. As formas sociais de conexão entre o lícito e o ilícito é examinada neste trabalho a partir das motivações individuais face à forças estruturais que induzem a produção de um jogo de identidades que não toma o indivíduo como um "locus " empírico dotado de encerramento da análise sociológica.

This master thesis deals with policies of United States of America in combat against Mexican drug cartels, which are responsible for overwhelming majority of drugs flowing into USA. Although huge demand for drugs by U.S. citizens is crucial aspect in a long-term, this work put emphasis on immediate solutions, which would weaken the general position of cartels and therefore limit the flow of drugs into the country. Drug cartels are perceived as transnational criminal organizations a research aims to find out whether USA acknowledge this fact and whether they adapt their policies. The subjects of this research are two documents - cooperation with Mexico under the Mérida Initiative and U.S. Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime. Threats of organized crime and goals in fight against it presented in these two documents serve as reference points and basis for evaluation of U.S. actions.

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International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The Defense Evaluation Support Activity (DESA) is an independent Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) activity that provides tailored evaluation support to government organizations. DESA provides quick-response support capabilities and performs activities ranging from studies to large-scale field activities that include deployment, instrumentation, site setup, event execution, analysis and report writing. The National Guard Bureau requested DESA's assistance in the development and field testing of the Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) Sensor Suite (LSS). LSS was integrated by DESA to provide a multi-sensor suite that detects and identifies ground targets on foot or in vehicles with minimal operator workload. The LSS was designed primarily for deployment in high density drug trafficking areas along the northern and southern borders using primarily commercial-off-the-shelf and government-off-the-shelf equipment. Field testing of the system prototype in summer of 1995 indicates that the LSS will provide a significant new data collection and transfer capability to the National Guard in control of illegal drug transfer across the U.S. borders.

The United States, the number one consumer of drugs in the world, since 1969, has made it their goal to decrease the supply of drugs to a global zero. However, the vast supply of US drugs consumed do not originate in the US. To understand the impact of US anti-drug policy, mainly interdiction, eradication, and the targeting of DTO’s abroad, I conducted three case studies of three states with which the US has participated with in the drug war: Colombia, Honduras, and Mexico. What I found is that in each situation, each state approaches their own domestic drug war (with US support) as a COIN. However, given the unique nature of DTOs, this COIN strategy has failed, weakening the state institutions of the countries.

Drug trafficking and smuggling is an ongoing challenge for law enforcement agencies. Cocaine smuggling is a high-value pursuit for smugglers and has been attempted using a variety of concealment methods including the use of bottled liquids, canned milk, wax and suspensions in cans of beer. In particular, traffickers have used clothing impregnated with cocaine for smuggling. Handling, transportation or re-packaging of drugs of abuse and explosives will inevitably leave residual material on the clothing and other possessions of the involved persons. The nails and skin of the person may also be contaminated through the handling of these substances. This research study describes the development of Raman spectroscopic techniques for the detection of drugs of abuse and explosives on biomaterials of forensic relevance including undyed natural and synthetic fibres and dyed textile specimens, nail and skin. Confocal Raman microscopy has been developed and evaluated for the detection and identification of particulates of several drugs of abuse and explosives on different substrates. The results show that excellent spectroscopic discrimination can be achieved between single particles and substrate materials, giving a ubiquitous non-destructive approach to the analysis of pico-gram quantities of the drugs and explosives in-situ. Isolating the particle in this way corresponds with an analytical sensitivity comparable with the most sensitive analytical techniques currently available e.g. the highly sensitive, yet destructive ionization desorption mass spectrometry. With the confocal Raman approach, this work demonstrates that definitive molecular-specific information can be achieved within seconds without significant interference from the substrate. The potential for the application of this technique as a rapid preliminary, forensic screening procedure is obvious and attractive to non-specialist operators as it does not involve prior chemical pretreatment ii or detachment of the analyte from the substrate. As a result, evidential materials can be analysed without compromising their integrity for future investigation. Also, the applications of benchtop and portable Raman spectroscopy for the in-situ detection of drugs of abuse in clothing impregnated with the drugs have been demonstrated. Raman spectra were obtained from a set of undyed natural and synthetic fibres and dyed textiles impregnated with these drugs. The spectra were collected using three Raman spectrometers; one benchtop dispersive spectrometer coupled to a fibre-optic probe and two portable spectrometers. High quality spectra of the drugs could be acquired in-situ within seconds and without any sample preparation or alteration of the evidential material. A field-portable Raman spectrometer is a reliable instrument that can be used by emergency response teams to rapidly identify unknown samples. This method lends itself well to further development for the in-situ examination by law enforcement officers of items associated with users, handlers and suppliers of drugs of abuse in the forensics arena. In the last section of this study, a portable prototype Raman spectrometer ( DeltaNu Advantage 1064) equipped with 1064 nm laser excitation has been evaluated for the analysis of drugs of abuse and explosives. The feasibility of the instrument for the analysis of the samples both as neat materials and whilst contained in plastic and glass containers has been investigated. The advantages, disadvantages and the analytical potential in the forensics arena of this instrument have been discussed.