Women, Drug Policies, and Incarceration: A Guide for Policy Reform in Colombia

Abstract

The war on drugs has been a failure: even though more people have been incarcerated, accused of drug crimes, the consumption of substances hasn’t reduced, the narcotic traffic keeps growing and the violence associated to it has increased.

The drug policy in Colombia has focused on criminalizing and imprisoning the lowest-ranking members of the drug trade, who are mainly poor people that occupy a marginal relationship with the business and with society. And there is a particular tendency for single mothers, who haven’t been able to find a formal job, to get involved in the illegal drug trade networks, developing high-risk tasks which are poorly remunerated.

This document, on the one hand, makes a diagnosis about the situation of women linked with drug crimes in Colombia and the impact that has in their lives and families. On the other hand, It also offers public policy recommendations aimed at mitigating incarceration’s disproportionate effects on these women, with an eye toward preventing such effects in the future.