Vulnerability Discourses and Drug Mule Work: Legal Approaches in Sentencing and Non‐Prosecution/Non‐Punishment Norms

Published date01 September 2017
AuthorNAYELI URQUIZA‐HAAS
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12217
Date01 September 2017
The Howard Journal Vol56 No 3. September 2017 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12217
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 309–325
Vulnerability Discourses and Drug
Mule Work: Legal Approaches
in Sentencing and
Non-Prosecution/Non-Punishment
Norms
NAYELI URQUIZA-HAAS
Lecturer in Law and Director of the Kent Centre for Criminal Justice, Kent
Law School, University of Kent
Abstract: This article analyses the meaning of vulnerability in discourses about drug
mules and couriers at a national and international level, particularly the cases of Costa
Rica and England and Wales. Drawing on policies, legislative reforms and court cases,
it examines how vulnerability mobilised claims for more proportionality in sentencing
practices for drug offences. Vulnerabilitydiscourses also underpin claims that drug mules
are traff‌icked persons whose culpability should be extinguished, or at least, diminished.
Yet,this article suggests vulnerability discourses can also reinforce neoliberal governance
mechanisms rather than expose and critique the ways in which gender and racial histories
of oppression intersect with the international drug control system, contributing to the
precarity of drug mule work.
Keywords: death penalty; drug mules; gender; human traff‌icking; sentencing;
vulnerability
Introduction: Vulnerability and Gender in Drug-Traff‌icking Offences
Women who traff‌ic drugs, or so-called ‘drug mules’, are often described as
vulnerable offenders by legal, policy,and academic discourses. Concern for
the increasing numbers of low-level drug offenders, including drug mules,
imprisoned across Latin America, has been ref‌lected in various reports
and resolutions drafted by international and regional intergovernmental
organisations such as the United Nations and the Organisationof American
States (Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission 2011; UN Com-
mission on Narcotic Drugs 2011). Critics blame international drug control
for the high levels of incarceration of vulnerable populations. Drug suppli-
ers are incentivised by a highly-lucrative market valued at USD $300 billion
per year (UN Off‌ice on Drugs and Crime 2005), in which drug mules
309
C
2017 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol56 No 3. September 2017
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 309–325
are ‘hired’ to transport drugs across international borders, usually for a
f‌ixed fee. Research across jurisdictions describes them as under-employed,
semi-employed, single parents with caring responsibilities, indigenous and
black women, and/or with a precarious legal status (Del Olmo 1990;
Giacomello 2013; Huling 1996). However, convicted drug mules have his-
torically received high sentences despite their limited role in the drug
trade.
Although drug mules are described as vulnerable individuals or per-
sons belonging to marginalised groups, the concept of vulnerability itself is
a vague and ubiquitous term in legal discourse (Peroni and Timmer 2013),
complicated by social practices around gender. Recent legal developments
regarding drug mules on sentencing and defences exemplify the intersec-
tion of vulnerability and gender discourses. England and Wales and Costa
Rica have ref‌ined and reformed sentencing procedures for drug offenders
who carry drugs for others, signalling a turn away from deterrent polices
adopted in the 1980s. Meanwhile, isolated cases of vulnerable drug offend-
ers have surfaced in recent times, testing the theory that some drug mules
are traff‌icked persons who would have access to the ‘emerging norm’ on
non-prosecution/non-punishment.
The f‌irst section of this article maps the academic discourses on gen-
der and vulnerability in the context of drug mule work and explains the
different approaches to vulnerability in the literature. The second section
examines the legal developments in Costa Rica and England and Wales
regarding drug mules, and the ways in which vulnerability is articulated in
these legal changes are mapped. My suggestion is that there are two diver-
gent interpretations underpinning the legal discourses on drug mules. On
the one hand, the legal discourse reinforces the position of drug mules as
victims of organised crime by those who take advantage of their precarious
socio-economic circumstances. On the other hand, they are also consid-
ered as drug mules who could not ‘manage’ their personal circumstances.
The article shows how certain discursive strategies import the logic which
legal, policy, and academic discourses on drug mules may try to contest,
and avoid potential discursive conf‌lations of vulnerability and neoliberal
forms of governance. In order to improve the application of the concept
of vulnerability with regards to drug mules, this article adopts, instead, the
concept of precarity as a framework which contrasts the individualisation
of vulnerability in criminal justice practices with regards to drug mules.
Drug Mules and Gender
Contrary to perceptions of the stereotypes of female drug mules, 70% of
detected traff‌ickers who move drugs across international borders are men
(UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs 2011). But information on gender/sex
of traff‌ickers is not consistently collected (Fleetwood and Haas 2011) and
‘traff‌icking’ has a very wide meaning (European Monitoring Centre for
Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) 2003, 2012; Gottwald 2006). With-
out a common def‌inition for the variety of roles carried out by people in the
international drug trade, it is hard to say how many drug mules are women,
310
C
2017 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT