Risk terrain modeling for monitoring illicit drugs markets across Bogota, Colombia

Abstract

Colombia has gone from being a producer and exporter of illicit drugs to becoming a country where consumption also plays an important role. In Bogota, as result of specific policies adopted by the authorities that hit illicit drugs hot spots, the sale has gradually become more dispersed. Exacerbated by the emergence of new neighborhoods due to unplanned population growth, monitoring such markets becomes difficult for local authorities, which appeal to global statistics and surveys to design public policies. This work proposes a new methodology for monitoring the markets of three illicit psychoactive substances (cocaine, marijuana and basuco) while also providing insights into the spatial behavior of such markets. To estimate traded quantities and market values for each substance in Bogota, specific information is collected through surveying exercises with the police force making use of social mapping. Afterward, GIS techniques are applied to analyze such information along with crime data related to drug markets. Risk terrain modeling is applied to estimate the risk of existence of retail sale points and to clean the data for latter estimation of traded quantities and spatial distribution of drug markets.