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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:13 pm
Time: 8:13 pm
Results for law enforcement (guatemala)
1 results foundAuthor: Lopez, Julie Title: Guatemala's Crossroads: Democratization of Violence and Second Chances Summary: This paper is part of the ongoing work of the Latin American Program on citizen security and organized crime in the region and their effects on democratic governance, human rights, and economic development. This work is carried out in collaboration with the Mexico Institute, which has worked extensively on security and rule of law issues in Mexico. Our goal is to understand the sub-regional dimension of organized crime, focusing on the ways in which the countries of the Andean region, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, the United States, and Canada play central and inter-connected roles. This essay represents one of three papers commissioned by the Woodrow Wilson Center on the nature and dynamics of organized crime in Central America and its connections to broader criminal networks in Mexico and the Andean region. This paper, along with the others in this series, is a working draft. The State of Guatemala is embarked in two wars. On the one hand, it’s fighting organized crime; on the other, it’s at war with itself. While significant portions of its resources are used to fight drug trafficking and extortions, and an explosion of other organized crime activities, the State seems to be imploding from corruption and insufficient professional personnel in the public sector. After a 36-year internal conflict, this stage in Guatemala’s history is often desceribed as the key time to decipher the origin of the country’s current maladies. But the answer is not so clear cut. Security and political analysts attribute the proliferation of organized crime to the Intelligence Structures and Clandestine Security Apparatuses (CIACS, their acronym in Spanish) that were not dismantled after the peace accords were signed. They also attribute it to scores of men left unemployed after the end of the conflict, whose main skill was knowing how to fire a gun. The origin of organized crime and the elements contributing to its growth are broad and complex. Criminal structures can be seen as a three-legged stool, where the three legs are the local crime lords or capos, foreign criminal networks, and local corrupt authorities—which, throughout history, have involved civilians and the military. Some analysts trace the first signs of these structures back to the 1940s, beginning with the strengthening of local criminal networks that worked with foreign contacts on a regional level. Other origins are traced backed to contraband networks dating back to colonial times and the 18th century. Details: Latin American Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2010. 59p. Source: Working Paper Series on Organized Crime in Central America: Internet Resource: Accessed March 13, 2012 at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Lopez.Guatemala.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Guatemala URL: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Lopez.Guatemala.pdf Shelf Number: 124470 Keywords: Corruption (Guatemala)Drug Trafficking (Guatemala)Law Enforcement (Guatemala)Organized Crime (Guatemala)Violent Crime (Guatemala) |