Drugs, Victims and Race

Description

Examines the ‘drug problem’ in the context of UK strategies and as a global phenomenon. Set against the backdrop of race and the politics of drug control, it looks at a range of events and issues from the supply end of the drugs chain through enforcement and court proceedings to treatment approaches re addicts and other drug users. Anita Kalunta-Crumpton also goes beyond myths, stereotypes and assumptions to look at the real life issues and social characteristics that affect the trafficking, supply and use of drugs. A book that offers a fresh perspective on discourse around the ‘drug problem’ – in which Anita Kalunta-Crumpton explores common but frequently misleading themes concerning an aspect of criminal justice that knows no racial, ethnic, gender, class, age, geographical or other barriers. She also provides an outline of UK drugs strategy from its class-oriented beginnings in the nineteenth century – through later expansion and pre-occupation with explanations based around race – up until the present day, causing her to ask: Who are the real victims of drugs, drug trafficking and drug supply? A must for anyone interested in drugs, drug trafficking and the ‘drug problem’.

Reviews

‘Presents the drug problem as a cancerous disease that has claimed and continues to claim numerous victims regardless of location, class, gender, race, ethnicity and age. This book employs a critically constructive approach to address the drug problem in Britain and the rest of the world. It provides an outline of UK drugs strategy from its beginnings in the nineteenth century through to the more recent later pre-occupation with explanations based around race. Kalunta-Crumpton asks who the real victims of drug use and drug trafficking are, and argues that drugs impact on everyone, either directly or indirectly. She also demonstrates that West Africans, Caribbeans, South Americans and Asians are prime targets of indiscriminate western law enforcement drug controls at both external and internal borders’: Sage Race Relations Abstracts

‘A fascinating study of the relationship between race and drugs’: Thames View (Journal of Thames Valley Police Service)

‘The analysis presented in this book is essential to anyone wanting to get behind the headlines, initiative and scare stories, and try to recapture an approach based on rational analysis to one of the biggest challenges facing law enforcement today’: Vista

Author

Anita Kalunta-Crumpton is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Roehampton University , London . She is the author of Race and Drug Trials: The Social Construction of Guilt and Innocence (1999), editor (with Biko Agozino) of Pan-African Issues in Crime and Justice (2004) and guest editor of ‘Race, Ethnicity and Community Safety’, special edition of Community Safety Journal, vol. 4, issue 2, April 2005.