An Application of the Framework to Cocaine Trafficking in Belgium (with Comparisons to other Applications to Drug and Human Trafficking in Europe)

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter presents an empirical application of the harm assessment framework to cocaine trafficking in Belgium and, for insight to the framework’s reliability and robustness, compares the results to those of two other applications in Europe. The principal application, the first of its kind, employed data from criminal justice sources and interviews from 2003 to 2011. Trafficking involved air, sea, and land import, export, and wholesale distribution, accompanied by violence, corruption, and money laundering and enabling cocaine dealing and cocaine use, the latter of which was outside the scope of the assessment. The results across all interests and bearers suggest cocaine trafficking generated a small set of notable harms in Belgium in our period of analysis, mostly deriving from policy and involving perpetrators. This and the comparative applications shed new light on the consequences of trafficking activities, but, while suggesting the reliability and robustness of the framework, they also highlight some remaining analytical challenges.