Is Latin America punishing nonviolent drug offenders too harshly?
(Read article summary)A new report reveals that punishments in Latin America for drug-related crimes – cultivation, use, or trafficking – have become as severe as those for violent offenses.
Mexico City
If Latin American justice systems struggle with terribly high impunity rates, if penal systems are so often plagued with problems of severe overcrowding, why do countries in the region frequently punish nonviolent drug possession and trafficking harsher than even rape or murder?
A new report reveals that punishments in Latin America for drug-related crimes – cultivation, use, or trafficking – have become as severe as those for violent offenses. Sometimes even more so.
The maximum sentence for drug trafficking in Bolivia is 25 years, compared with 20 years for homicide. Colombia’s maximum sentence for drug trafficking is 30 years, while the maximum punishment for rape stands at 20 years. And minimum sentences for drug-related crimes in Peru climbed from 2 years in 1970 to 25 years today.
The report, “A Punitive Addiction: The Disproportionality of Drug Laws in Latin America,” produced by the Bogotá-based Center for Law, Justice, and Society (Dejusticia), tracks the path of seven Latin American countries in creating anti-drug legislation.
