Part I PUBLICATIONS RELEVANT TO CRIME AND DRUG POLICIES

Most of these books are available for audio download and are well-narrated.

Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones. Quinones is an American Journalist best known for his reporting in Mexico and on Mexicans in the US. Describes the role of the pharmaceutical industry, Mexican drug cartels, prescribing doctors, and economically blighted areas of the US. A highly recognized and award-winning book. 

Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security by Sarah Chayes. One of the most esteemed journalists and writers of the decade, Harvard graduate Sarah Chayes describes the democracy-killing behaviors of corrupt organizations, criminals, politicians and mismanaged government policies at a global level. Our current period of history is exponentially more chaotic due to the globalization of the internet and the related vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure (transportation, water and power companies, military security, computer and media networks, etc.).  Cyber war, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and increasing major weather disasters and fires from climate change are on the rise. Chemical and biological weapons continue to have a place in the arsenals of dictators and terrorists who prey on innocent citizens.

Tim Weiner won the Pulitzer Prize for his work on the Pentagon and CIA––Legacy of Ashes (2007) and a ground-breaking factual history of the FBI––Enemies: A History of the FBI (2012). This is newly released information Weiner compiled from previously secret government files, released through the Freedom of Information Act. His caveat: “No republic in history has lasted longer than 300 years, and this nation may not long endure as a great power unless it finds the eyes to see things as they are in the world.”

These institutions have been through earlier eras of gross mismanagement, and at their core are struggling to evolve in the growing complexity of our current geo-political situation. At present, the FBI is generally well respected, and as Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey attests, the institution strives, under pressure, to stay independent from the interference of changing presidential administrations. and committed to a focus on the rule of law.

The Social Order of the Underworld: How Prison Gangs Govern the American Penal System, by David Skarbek (2014). The United States, China, Russia, and Brazil have the largest prison systems in the world. Prisons in California and Texas house 70% of our nation’s prisoners. This scholarly economic model of prison culture can be extrapolated to other systems outside the US.

Government policies that marginalize and incarcerate poor people instead of educating and employing them, steer them into an underground black-market economy. Of course, the disenfranchised must organize and survive: both in and out of prison. Skarbeck, a brilliant scholar, shows how millions of prisoners govern their gangs’ activities.

British Journalist and Mexico City resident Ioan Grillo has provided an impressive and comprehensive history: El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency (2012) and Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America (2016). Gangster Warlords describes the Latin American   trend    away   from   nation-focused    political   wars   to boundary-defying organized crime wars. Brazil, for example, has the fourth largest prison population in the world, and as in the U.S., and Mexico, incarcerated gang leaders participate in the management of gang activities far beyond prison walls.

Don Winslow authored two highly-crafted historical novels Power of the Dog, (2005) and The Cartel, (2015). Both novels personalize the well-researched interwoven, intricate relationships between Mexico’s organized criminals, US and Mexican authorities, and Mexican journalists. Winslow’s ability to show historical facts through the eyes of one DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) agent, personalizes the plight of many agents and Mexican citizens––those who sacrificed their lives to expose the drug cartels’ rampant terrorism––corrupting Mexican business, military, legal, political, and judiciary institutions. Winslow’s historical chronology across both books spans forty years, from 1970 to 2015.

A report published in 2015 by the Didactic Press, The Los Zetas Drug Cartel, Sadism as an Instrument of Cartel Warfare in Mexico and Central America, was written by George W. Grayson, and originally published by US Army Strategic Studies Institute and US Army War College Press. He is also the author of Bad Neighbor Policy, Washington’s Futile War on Drugs (2003). A 2015 Congressional Research Service Report states “80,000 people have been killed in Mexico due to organized crime related incidents since 2006.” Over 7,273 killings a year. CNN Library (2017)