Posted: September 6th, 2022

Drug Law

Drug Law

There are four major activities in drug law enforcement:

Source Control – activities targeting cultivation, manufacturing and production of controlled dangerous substances in foreign countries
Interdiction – preventing the successful smuggling of controlled dangerous substances (drugs) into the United States. Interdiction operations focus on the smuggling methods of sea, air and land which include aircraft, vessels, personnel (body carry, swallowing) and parcel shipments among others.
Street-level enforcement – undercover and informant driven investigations targeting the retail sales level of drug trafficking. The text identified the following tactics:
Reversals – Undercover operations where law enforcement officers pose as drug traffickers.
Controlled buy – Undercover operations where confidential informants are used to make purchases of contraband under the direct supervision and direction of a law enforcement investigator
Undercover buy – Direct purchase of controlled dangerous substances by the undercover police officer from the target
Knock and Talk – overt investigational tactic where fully identified law enforcement makes contact with individuals at a location, usually a residence, and consent to search the residence is obtained
Correctional system – this could also be described as prosecution or courts. Once the defendants are in the correctional system, they have been convicted. The penalties for drug trafficking are often times much higher at the federal level as opposed to the state. Also, the effectiveness of federal prosecutions is usually much higher than state prosecutions.
These areas of drug enforcement are all challenging and important tactics in the criminal justice approach to the drug issue. Of the four tactics: source control, interdiction and corrections occur primarily in the federal arena (although some state jurisdictions can effectively prosecute cases, federal prosecutions are much more effective). For members of the community, drug enforcement means the buy-busts (controlled and undercover operations), search warrants and reversals that provide the greatest impact to our quality of life.

For this discussion question, please address the following:

How do the different levels of the criminal justice system (federal, state and local) interface to accomplish these “street level enforcement” objectives? Give examples of how this would work and please search the library database, internet NEWS sources or web sites for criminal justice agencies (hint: DEA is a good one!) to provide examples to support your position. Be sure to cite your sources
Date

Drug Law
The federal, state and local criminal justice systems strive to accomplish street-level enforcement objectives. The two strategies that slaw enforcement uses to minimize illegal drug use are to prevent drugs from entering the country and states and establishing laws against domestic drug trafficking and use. At the federal level, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is the lead drug enforcement agency, and its effectiveness evident through factors like the availability of around 85, 00 employees where over half of them are special agents (Heing, 2019). The agency enforces drug laws through scrutinizing and prosecuting cartels and individuals who distribute or manufacture drugs in the United States and others who import the substances from other nations. Additionally, the Coast guard agency monitors shore borders to prevent people from illegally entering drugs in the states. The agency is valid because, in March 2017, it seized approximately sixteen tons of cocaine worth around $450 million at the Pacific Ocean on the coasts of south and central America (Rosen, 2017).
The law enforcement officials from federal, local, and state departments conduct covert investigations to limit entities of crime in the US. For instance, the County Sheriff’s Department in Warren performed an undercover operation for two years to investigate drug operations and identify means to shut them down (Rosen, 2017). The mission was successful because the officials issued around thirty warrants and made over forty arrests, and locked down methamphetamines laboratories which stopped the making and supply, and use of the drugs. The central governments’ role in controlling drugs is utilizing its resources to identify and take actions against significant drug suppliers. The state police and local authorities enforce laws and legal actions against more prominent drug dealers and minor buyers and sellers in the streets, respectively.
References
Heing, B. (2019). Inside the DEA. Enslow Publishing, LLC. Retrieved From: https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=pavXDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=illegal+drug+the+dea&ots=gSwyK37x8w&sig=RDmKTG9MK-GnwcTMCTg5MDDx6jI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=illegal%20drug%20the%20dea&f=false
Rosen, J. D. (2017). Understanding Drug Policy in the United States: Sub-national Trends. Voices of Mexico. Retrieved From: http://ru.micisan.unam.mx:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/19602/VOM-0103-0119.pdf?sequence=1

Order | Check Discount

Tags: Drug Law