Guatemala, the most populous country in Central America, is haunted by the legacy of violence, political instability, poverty, corruption, and persisting, relentless inequality. Narco-trafficking routes through Central America became firmly established after air- and sea-based routes were disrupted by U.S. and Mexican drug enforcement efforts in the 1990s. Guatemala and its Central American neighbors were highly vulnerable to incursion by the drug trade, ideally-located between production sources and major consumers, its people and governments weakened by long-standing armed conflict. Evidence shows the drug trade disproportionately impacts Guatemala in comparison to the rest of the region. Its neighbors share similarly well-located geography and the legacy of armed conflicts, but Guatemala lacks the institutional strength and ability to combat the cartels. This paper posits that U.S. prohibitionist policies are ineffective and harmful to Guatemala’s people, based on a supply-reduction model and a review of previous literature and anecdotal evidence. Narco-trafficking and the United States’ drug enforcement efforts, strategies and policies, intensify existing violence, poverty, inequality and corruption within Guatemala, ensnaring its people in a recurring cycle of violence which reinforces barriers to escaping poverty and crime.

The thesis deals with economic theory and research of the drug markets. Analysis of the literature compares individual approaches to theories by present authors, including their conclusions on data for the U.S. Established hypotheses based on the conclusions of analyzed literature are tested mainly using regression analysis on the available Czech data, where data on marihuana markets have high interdependency. The effects of selected variables on the price of drugs, which is a key characteristic of drug markets, are tested on data for the EU-27. The work describes trends in European drug markets and provides evidence on the influence of the variables on the price of drugs.

Drug use is a global pandemic with overdose-related deaths on the rise. Technological advances have made drug markets more commonly located online, indicating that Darknet markets will become the drug markets of the future. While Darknet markets have existed since the year 2010, research on the phenomena is scarce. The Wall Street Market (WSM) was established in 2016 and by 2017 it was the world´s largest international cryptomarket. Flugsvamp 3.0 is the most current Swedish domestic drug market on Darknet. This study examined WSM and Flugsvamp 3.0, regarding available drug types, number of advertisements, prices and countries of origin on WSM. The study also compared prices on these cryptomarkets with the street prices of Stockholm. During the research process, WSM was shut down by law enforcement. Therefore, an additional day of data collecting on Flugsvamp 3.0 was conducted. The study utilized a method of structured simple observation. A descriptive analysis, with uni- and bivariate analyses, was conducted. The most common drug on both markets was Pharmaceuticals, or prescription drugs. The market with the lowest prices was WSM, while street prices in Stockholm were the lowest of all three marketplaces. Germany most commonly shipped drugs to Sweden, via transactions through WSM. After the closure of WSM both number of advertisements and prices increased on Flugsvamp 3.0, in general. There is a pressing need for further research on Darknet drug markets, as the efficiency of law enforcement efforts to combat drug use depends on it.

Research to date has demonstrated significant relationships between the presence of outdoor drug markets and violent crime. Scholars have neglected however, to consider the role of travel distance on the drugs/violence nexus. The current study examines whether features of the distributions of travel distance to markets of drug buyers, drug sellers, or the interaction between the two distributions predicts drug market violence levels net of surrounding community demographic structure. Reuter and MacCoun's (1992) as yet untested model about the connections between drugs and violent crime, predicts that the interaction of drug seller and buyer distance distributions from varying distances more powerfully drug market violence levels than buyer and average distance averages. This suggests that how the travel patterns of the two major participants in drug markets intersect is key to understanding differences. That model is tested here. In addition, for comparison purposes, impacts of buyer and seller travel median distances are modeled separately. This work uses 5 years (2006-2010) of incident and arrest data from the Philadelphia Police Department. Reuter and MacCoun's model will be tested using the following analytical techniques. First, a methodology for locating and bounding drug markets using a nearest neighbor, hierarchical clustering technique is introduced. Using this methodology 34 drug markets are identified. Second, hierarchical linear models examining buyers and sellers separately predict travel distances to drug markets. Arrestees are nested within markets. This technique separates influences on distance arising from arrestees from drug market distance differences. Third, how market level median travel distance affects within drug market violence is considered. Specifically, the main effects of median buyer travel distance and median seller travel distance on drug market violence are captured using separate Poisson hierarchical linear models. Finally, impacts of the interaction between buyer and seller distance, Reuter and MacCoun's (1992) focus, are explored in another series of generalized hierarchical linear models. The main findings from the dissertation are as follows: 1. Results provide partial support for Reuter and MacCoun's drug market-violence model using multiple operationalizations. Public markets--those in which buyers and sellers travel from outside their own neighborhoods--are expected to be the most violent. 2. Separate raw distance measures for buyers and sellers correlate with within-drug market violence, after controlling for community demographics. 3. A negative effect of socioeconomic status and violence holds even when modeled with drug market variables. 4. As the proportion of crack cocaine sales within drug markets increases so too does within-market violence. Conceptual implications highlight the need to investigate social ties as an intervening variable in the travel distance »» drug market violence relationship. It is not clear from this research whether the travel distances of drug offenders in some way explains the amount or strength of social ties in a drug market, which in turn serves to suppress or elevate within-drug market violence. Policy implications suggest that Reuter and MacCoun's drug market types may connect with specific policing responses. Policing efforts may not receive much support from community residents because dense social networks may discourage reporting illicit activity. Markets drawing dealers and customers from farther away, and located around commercial and recreational centers may be amenable to place-based policing initiatives and coordinated intervention strategies with multiple city agencies. / Criminal Justice

Based on six-years ethnographic research, this thesis provides an in-depth account of a contemporary British drug market. The study follows a group of twenty-five friends, termed The Lads, during their transition from late-adolescence (16-22) through to early adulthood (22-28). This was a critical stage in their life course; it was a time when many had begun advancing into the world of work and business entrepreneurship, in search of their chosen career. Yet it was during this time that two key developments occurred: bulk volumes of illicit drugs became available to The Lads through credit and the UK experienced several years of economic recession and stagnation. The economic constraints The Lads encountered during this time prompted many to become involved in the trafficking of illegal drugs. Though their entry into the markets was not necessarily motivated out of absolute need or poverty, the experience of low-paying salaries, the loss of work and income, and the inability to secure legitimate investment capital, all made drug dealing an alluring source of untaxed revenue, available as and when needed. This study assesses the practices of this cohort of closed-market drug dealers, who capitalised on their expansive social networks as a means of trafficking a variety of illegal substances at the time of these two developments. During the course of the research their involvement came to span several stages of the supply chain, including: mid-level wholesale brokerage, import/export, wholesale, and retail (i.e. to the end-users). The study addresses various structural elements of their trade, including drug purchasing and selling, the assessment and mitigation of risks in relation to law enforcement, and the use of informal credit (i.e. ‘fronting’) as one of the principle facilitating factors of The Lads’ various trade networks. A variety of data collection methods were employed over many years to garner a depth of understanding and appreciation difficult to achieve in the study of active offenders. The data comprises of life narratives, observations, interview data and economic data. The findings offer some new insight into: the kinds of people who deal drugs; what characteristics they share; how they function as traders; what motivates them to either enter or exit the trade, and what social structures influence their offending careers?These young men were not the archetypal drug dealer: they were neither predatory nor territorial. They were ambitious and hard working. Drug dealing was simply a shortcut to the lifestyle they aspired to; it was a source of capital; a means of funding their studies; a ‘means to an end’. To these young men, drug dealing was just another form of work: a bad job that paid a good salary.

Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka vad som karaktäriserar personer som döms för narkotikabrott på internet och hur rättssystemet beskriver de dömdas sociala situation och motiv. Uppsatsen använder en mixed-methods metodologi med både kvantitativ och kvalitativ analys. Det empiriska materialet utgörs av dokument i form av domar och förundersökningsprotokoll. Den kvantitativa analysen har bland annat undersökt 222 dömda personers demografi, tidigare brottslighet och vilka påföljder de dömts till. Den kvalitativa analysen har undersökt hur de dömdas sociala situation och motiv beskrivits av rättsväsendet. Pierre Bourdieus teori om olika kapitalformer utgör uppsatsens teoretiska utgångspunkt. Narkotikamarknader kan betraktas som olika fält som i olika utsträckning kräver symboliskt kapital. Utmärkande för narkotikamarknaden på internet är att de inte kräver symboliskt kapital. Resultatet för både den kvantitativa och kvalitativa analysen visar att de dömda köparna är en heterogen grupp utifrån rättsväsendet beskrivningar. De dömda har en stor spridning gällande bland annat ålder, geografi och valet av substanser. En del av de dömda beskrivs som vanliga människor med ordnade sociala förhållanden. Andra dömda beskrivs ha stora problem gällande psykisk ohälsa, missbruk och kriminalitet. Beskrivningarna av motiven till att köpa narkotika på internet är att få tillgång till substanser av viss kvalité, kvantitet, pris eller typ. Men också att få annan typ av relation mellan köpare och säljare av narkotika som inte baseras på personliga kontakter. / The purpose of the thesis is to investigate the characteristics of persons who are sentenced for purchasing illicit drugs on the internet, and how the legal system describes the social situation and motives of the convicted persons. The thesis uses a mixed-method methodology with both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The empirical material consists of documents in the form of judgments and preliminary investigation protocols. The quantitative analysis has examined the demography, previous criminal records and the sanctions of 222 convicted persons. The qualitative analysis has examined how the social situation and motives of the convicted persons are described by the judicial system. Pierre Bourdieu's theory of capital forms constitutes the theoretical starting point of the essay. Drug markets can be regarded as fields which, to varying degrees, require symbolic capital. The characteristic of the drug markets on the internet is that they do not require symbolic capital. The result of both the quantitative and qualitative analysis is that the convicted buyers are described as a heterogeneous group in the documents of the legal system. The convicted are a diverse group regarding age, geography and choice substances. Some of the convicted are described as ordinary people with organized social conditions. Others convicted are described as having major problems with mental illness, drug abuse and crime. The descriptions of the motives for purchasing drugs on the internet are to access substances of a certain quality, quantity, price or type. But also, to access a different kind of relationship between the buyer and the seller of drugs.

Au cours de la dernière décennie, les marchés illicites en ligne sont passés de niches de marchés à plateformes économiques à part entière. L’un des aspects de cette expansion semble reposer dans l’abandon de l’articulation traditionnelle de la relation de confiance entre vendeurs et acheteurs pour l’adoption de transactions régies par les principes d’atomisation sociale et d’anonymat. Se situant au cœur d’une sociologie économique des marchés illicites encore émergente, cette thèse cherche donc à étudier l’élaboration de la confiance au sein des marchés de drogues illicites en ligne. En m’appuyant sur la notion d’institutions en tant que constructions sociales, j'avance la thèse selon laquelle ces marchés illicites modernisent les modalités de transaction des marchés licites traditionnels : des contrats sont proposés ; des tribunaux sont érigés; la sanction est formalisée ; et la gouvernance est transformée. Cette approche permet de révéler un schisme fondamental de la littérature et de ses postulats à l’égard de l'ordre social régnant au sein des marchés illicites en ligne -- rupture qui s’exprime notamment par l’opposition entre 1) une conception de ces marchés comme socialement atomisés et régis uniquement par la réputation ; et 2) l’idée selon laquelle les serveurs restent sous le contrôle des administrateurs. Afin de pallier cette discordance, je propose un modèle d’élaboration de la confiance notamment issu des approches cognitives et comportementales. Premièrement, je soutiens qu'un ensemble de mécanismes actifs de renforcement remplace fonctionnellement les principes sociaux traditionnels de la confiance. Deuxièmement, je soutiens que la confiance, aussi bien interpersonnelle qu’abstraite (à savoir, la confiance accordée aux institutions), est principalement produite selon un processus bayésien d'accumulation d'expériences. Dans cette perspective, l'article « Uncertainty and Risk » examine l'ensemble des mécanismes actifs de renforcement de la confiance -- première composante de ce modèle -- et révèle que les vendeurs ajustent les prix non seulement en fonction de la réputation, mais également des contrats et du statut. Dans les articles suivants, le processus bayésien d'accumulation d'expériences -- deuxième partie du modèle -- est abordé. L’étude menée dans l‘article « Building a case for trust » met ainsi en lumière une association entre les échanges répétés avec le vendeur et une tendance à effectuer des transactions de plus en plus importantes. Le troisième article (« A change of expectations? »), quant à lui, met en exergue le fait qu’un faible nombre d’expériences satisfaisantes suffit à augmenter la certitude de l’acheteur quant à la qualité du produit illicite. Dans leur ensemble, ces deux articles soutiennent l’idée selon laquelle le processus d'accumulation d'expériences favorise la coopération et les attentes. Enfin, ce travail s’achève par l’articulation des deux composantes de ce modèle et, de manière plus générale, par l’articulation de la thèse de la modernisation et d’une conception de la confiance dont l’élaboration repose sur un processus d’accumulation d’expériences sociales. L’apport unique d'une sociologie économique dans l’étude criminologique des marchés illicites est notamment souligné et des pistes de recherches futures sont discutées. / During the last decade illicit online drug markets have grown from niche markets into full-fledged platform economies. It seems that over the course of a few years, sellers and buyers have left the social bases of trust behind preferring to exchange under conditions of social atomization and anonymity. Situated in an emerging economic sociological approach to illicit markets, this work examines the production of trust in illicit online drug markets. Drawing on economic sociology, namely, the notion of institutions as social constructions, I advance the thesis that these markets modernize the premodern exchange modes of traditional illicit markets: Contracts are implemented; courts are erected; sanctions are formalized; and governance transforms. This analysis reveals a fundamental schism in the literature and its assumptions about the social order of illicit online markets. Specifically, a conception of these markets as socially atomized and governed only by reputation, versus the recognition that servers remain under the control of administrators. Building off the modernization thesis and the schism, I propose a model for the production of trust that is sensitive to both cognitive and behavioral approaches to trust. First, I propose that a set of active trust producing mechanisms functionally replace the bases of trust that have eroded as illicit markets move online. Second, I argue that trust is primarily produced through a Bayesian process of accumulating experience, which produces both interpersonal and abstract trust. In the article Uncertainty and Risk I examine the first component, the active production of trust. I revisit a key debate in the literature, the pricing of illicit goods. We find that sellers set prices adjust prices not only with respect to reputation, but also contracts and status. In the following two articles, I examine the second part of the model, the bayesian process of experience accumulation. In the article Building a Case for Trust, I find that repeated exchanges with a seller are associated with a propensity towards larger transactions. In the third article, A Change of Expectations?, I find that even a few experiences increases expectations in the performance of the market institution. Thus, the two articles provide evidence that the process of experience accumulation promotes cooperation and expectation. I conclude the work by reconciling a tension between the two components of the model, the proposition that markets are modernized, but that trust is produced primarily through a process of experience accumulation. On this basis, I continue to highlight the contributions and analytical advantages of the economic sociological approach to illicit markets.