The Differential Association Theory

Paper Summary:

This paper details the extent of drug trafficking today and explains how it has major consequences on the entire country. The paper describes the various US policies on drugs and on drug trafficking and shows the weaknesses in them. The author continues by saying that international cooperation is necessary to really control offenders. The paper quotes the criminologist of the time Edwin Sutherland's theory 'Differential Association.' This theory states that criminal behavior is learned behavior and that it is generally learned through social interaction with others. The author explains that a drug abuser learns from his environment and thus by correcting the surroundings of an offender, the behaviour can be affected.

From the Paper:

"The problem of drug trafficking in America today is indeed an enormous one, with severe repercussions and ramifications for the future of the entire country. When the retired General Barry McCaffrey, the Director of the White House's Office of drug Control Policy was on an official visit to Peru, Peru was in the midst of a long string of scandals that were having an adverse impact on the Peruvian administration. Facts and figures revealed that there had been discovered a shipment of about one hundred and seventy kilograms of the drug cocaine, on board the air force plane that Fujimori, the President of Peru normally used on his travels to and from his country. Soon afterwards, about forty-five kilograms of cocaine were again found on board a ship that belonged to the Peruvian navy, in Vancouver, in Canada. When accusations were flung at each other, it was eventually decided that it was the Peruvian Montesinos who had been protecting an entire drug clan, named 'Lopez Paredes' which was engaged in drug trafficking on a large scale. This organization was supposedly dismantled in the year 1995, but amazingly, in the middle of August, the accused individual, called Demetrio Chavez, also known to some as 'El Vaticano', revealed in a Court that he had in fact been paying the Peruvian Montesinos the sum of $ US 50,000 every month so that he would be protected from inquiry of all his various drug trafficking operations."

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