Gómez Quintero, Juliana;
(2025)
The distribution of crime harm across the cocaine trade in Colombia.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This thesis develops a harm-assessment framework to assess the harms associated with the cocaine trade in Colombia, shifting the emphasis from traditional supply and demand reduction strategies to harm minimisation. The framework incorporates three dimensions: the stages of the trade (cultivation, processing, distribution, and commercialisation), the operational crimes that sustain it (e.g., money laundering, violence, deforestation), and the various types of harm generated (e.g., physical, financial, environmental), across multiple domains, including individuals, institutions, and ecosystems. The thesis is structured around three interrelated studies. First, a crime script analysis maps the stages of the cocaine trade through document analysis of academic literature, grey literature, investigative journalism materials, and expert interviews. Second, expert interviews and a value chain framework are utilised to classify operational crimes, offering a detailed understanding of their role in sustaining the trade. Third, a pilot study employing Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) ranks the stages of the cocaine trade, testing its potential to inform harm assessment. This research advances the study of organised crime by developing a structured, harm-focused framework that synthesises the stages of the cocaine trade, its operational crimes, and their various harms. The findings deepen our understanding of the trade’s complexity and offer methodological contributions by refining crime script analysis and applying a value chain perspective to organised crime. The MCDA-based harm assessment provides a systematic approach to evaluating harm, though it faces challenges in practical implementation, such as difficulties in quantifying harm and accounting for geographical realities. By bridging conceptual, methodological, and practical dimensions, this thesis lays the groundwork towards a harm-reduction approach to drug policy in Colombia and beyond.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | The distribution of crime harm across the cocaine trade in Colombia |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Security and Crime Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10211843 |
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