Illusions Clouding Decision-Making: How the Justice System Fails to Understand the Illicit Drug Market

Abstract

This paper reviews some of the main research on drug law enforcement in Brazil since the 2006 Drug Law came into force, noting a clear and constant pattern of police and judicial focus directed at retail drug trafficking, decisively impacting current incarceration rates. It then examines the lack of understanding of the actual functioning of illicit drug markets by the criminal justice system, leading to judicial decisions not only ineffective for its declared purposes, but also counterproductive in terms of controlling illicit economies.