Glamorization of Criminality

If you're interested in the border or Mexico's drug war or drug culture or drug economy, or in drug law enforcement, we've got a book you need to read. University of Texas-El Paso sociologist and anthropologist Howard Campbell provides a vivid, rich, and nuanced portrayal of drugs and the drug war in El Paso-Juarez that couldn't be more timely.

Mexico's drug war took a strange turn last week as authorities took the battle to a pair of folk saints. Shrines to Santa Muerte and San Malverde were destroyed in Tijuana and on the highway south from Texas to Monterrey.

President-elect Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderón on Monday. Mexico's drug wars were high on the agenda, but it seems unlikely, given Obama's list of pressing issues, that Mexico will get any higher priority than it has in recent years.

Harvard-trained sociologist Peter Moskos was interested in police socialization, so he joined the Baltimore PD and hit the mean streets of the city's Eastern District for more than a year as a uniformed officer. The book he wrote based on his experiences is an illuminating gem.

Faced with rising levels of violence as Mexican drug traffickers, police, and soldiers engage in a multi-sided struggle for supremacy, Mexico's left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party may be about to call for legalization of the drug trade -- in both the US and Mexico.

Author Ethan Brown examines the rhyme and reason of the controversial "stop snitching" movement, and the abuses in drug law and enforcement that caused it to come to be.

With the summer season now underway, the drug czar's office has released a scary new report linking youth marijuana and other drug use to gang membership and violence. Critics say there is less there than meets the eye.

Alcohol prohibition tempted young people into lives of crime back then. Drug prohibition is tempting them again the same way now.

A Mexican folk saint who supposedly protects outlaws and drug traffickers as well as the poor and defenseless has a new shrine in Mexico City.