Saxakali Magazine 3:1 Minority Women Couriers: At the bottom of the global narcotics economy

Saxakali Magazine V3N1
Gender Issues:

at the bottom of the global narcotics economy:
Minority Women Couriers

Violence Against Women & Drug Trafficking: Case Studies

Verna agreed to visit her boyfriend's family in Jamaica. On their return the guy gave Verna a longline brassiere with tape wrapped around it containing drugs which she refused to wear. They argued back and forth until she submit to the threat of a small handgun. Verna's family found her at Rikers jail in nyc after making frantic calls and hiring a private attorney. When she refused to plea bargain, the attorney got upset and said he needed US$15,000 to continue representing her.

Marie was visiting her mother in Haiti when the police chief of her mother's village asked her to take back a statue filed with drugs. She refused his offer of payment and he retaliated by threatening to shoot her. His violence escalated with her repeated refusal so he threatened to grenade her mother's house. After a not guilty plea and a year in jail in New York City Marie was acquitted at trial.

Abused Victim, Criminal or ‘Mule’?

These ‘illegal’ drug couriers are clearly 'battered' women of color, although they are not popularly identified as such. If not beaten into submission, poor, minority women are often threatened with violence to act as drug ‘mules’ in the international drug trade. More often they are not drug dealers but often exploited by suppliers and dealers. Alluding to the racial and class dimensions one finds more ‘black and hispanic’ women are convicted as drug couriers. Most are single and have children. They have been labeled as 'drug mules.'

These are women beaten into submission by patriarchs at home, in the streets, in industry, or in policing our communities, in and outside of the usa. They are often the victims of brutalization by criminal justice officials in the form of invasive searches and custodial rape by prison guards, physicians and others. The sexual exploitation and harassment of women in prison goes on without impunity although many advocate that it should be treated as a form of custodial rape. This is the nightmare that awaits many of these women convicted and condemned as drug couriers despite mitigating circumstances, the threat of violence, or their innocence.

Gender Bias in the International Drug Economy

Women of color who act as couriers in the underground, ‘informal’ drug economies, are economically discriminated against, as in the mainstream, formal economies. Just as male counterparts, female couriers are small time players in economy controlled by narco dictators, drug lords and barons, military and intelligence agencies, the police, organized crime, and so on. In a male dominated industry, male couriers are able to realize a greater share of profits, unlike females who are paid a flat rate, tricked or simply coerced into trafficking in drugs. Some drug-dealers have suggested that these women are used as decoys for smugglers on their flight who pass easily through customs with large quantities of cocaine or heroine.

Far from being perceived as victims, society views poor, abused women of color who allegedly act as illegal drug couriers, as criminals and sentences them as major drug dealers. This criminally racist and sexist policy is representative of the typical scapegoating of the most vulnerable groups for society's ills.

Drug Arrests: Profile of Prejudice

It was recently revealed that during the 1980s, decisions were made at the highest levels of american political, intelligence, military and drug enforcement administrations to trade in narcotics as a way of funding military campaigns, and to deal drugs to poor children of colors in order to destabilize minority communities. When it becomes known that the CIA imported a ship load of cocaine from venezuela, the vice president held pot parties in congress, and the president smoked ganja, no one is ever charged, much less tried.

Instead of targeting the real criminals who are importing illegal narcotics by the ton, drug enforcement sources have said that they often target black and latino women traveling alone, or with other women, from the caribbean, africa, and south america. However, if such profiles exist, they should not discriminate, based on the bias or underlying prejudices of mostly white custom agents. Such profiles should be reliable indicators that apply to all.

Of women arrested at JFK airport in New York, some say they don' even know how much or what kind of drug was found; as a matter of fact in several cases they never saw the alleged drugs which were searched for in another room from their belongings. No evidence, which includes the drugs, are required for a woman's conviction.

Importation of the drugs involves dangerous and humiliating searches by customs and criminal justice agents for women detained may have their genitals searched for narcotics, undergo X-rays, a urine test, and kept longer (7-8 days) to confirm or deny that drugs were expelled after being swallowed in a condom, balloon or other container. There were several cases of drug couriers for whom the contents leaked leading to medical complications and several deaths. Some women are imprisoned for more than a year without being convicted of a crime.

Apartheid Rockefeller Drug Laws

Women of color are victimized by drug dealers and by laws as well. Analysis shows that the most distinctive difference between low-level and high-level drug offenders imprisoned in the usa is that the low-level group is disproportionately female and foreign.

Rockefeller drug laws sentence women couriers as if they compete with major drug dealers, to a minimum of 15 years to life in state prison. Even in cases where it is known that the victim is innocent the judge must sentence that woman to a life term. Currently the court has no power to consider mitigating circumstances, the character, or criminal histories of a person convicted of Class A drug felonies.

Possession of four ounces or more of a narcotic drug is a class A-I felony; a crime which carries a mandatory sentence of 15 to 25 years to life. Rape, sexual abuse of a child, armed robbery and other violent crimes carry lesser sentences. These cases are treated as street level felony drug cases. Yet, 96% of women arrested at JFK airport for drug smuggling, charged with A-I drug felonies, and sentenced to life terms in prison had nor prior criminal record.

International Abuse and the Law

Unlike the privilege of ‘insanity’ claimed by criminals of elite society, many poor women can't afford to hire expert witnesses and investigators to develop a defense in a drug case. Women coerced or tricked into importing drugs (who claim coercion or lack of knowledge), should be given interviews, and their cases should be subject to in-depth review by a special team of experts. Verification of a foreign national defendant's background gives greater credibility to relief procedures and counters inaccurate stereotypes.

Yet, investigations proceed as if the interstate and international settings do not exist, In cases where women have information to prosecute a drug dealer, it is often refused or dismissed by defense and prosecuting attorneys.

Plea Bargaining the Innocent

Plea bargaining essentially means one must not only plead guilty but provide information that leads to the arrest of a drug dealer to receive a lesser punishment. Plea bargaining is used for penalties faced by murderers, arsonists, and kidnappers, and is one of few options made available to poor women of color who are alleged drug couriers. However, many are unaware of the plea bargaining process itself or the trial and defense options available to them.

Women who speak languages other than english may not have adequate communication with their lawyer. Many of them who are traveling for the first time to north america or europe, experience culture shock and many fear violence in the prison or from the police. Foreign nationals often misunderstand their lawyers or are told little information about their circumstances. The use of plea bargaining in these cases is a mockery of the justice system and puts innocent people at risk of unjust imprisonment. A guilty plea plus conviction, however, allows the system and many attorneys to wash their hands of any further responsibility while the innocent victims rot in jail.

Safety of family members is the decisive factor in whether a mother/defendant consents to inquiries that may place family members at risk for retaliation, harassment or intimidation. The majority of women arrested are incarcerated; most do not get lifetime parole, because they cannot provide information that would lead to the arrest of a drug dealer.

Crimes Against Minority Families

Over 10,000 children in new york state have a mother who is incarcerated. Almost 80% of all women in prison are mothers, and 70% of these women were living with and caring for their children prior to their incarceration. The imprisonment of these primary caretakers has a devastating social and emotional influence on their children and extended families.

When minority women are imprisoned, families are fractured/devastated across different shores. Because of their obligations as mothers and caretakers; the stress of separation from their children is horrifying to women facing apartheid jail terms. Studies have show that the incarceration of a primary caretaker often puts children at extremely high risks of involvement with the criminal justice system, substance abuse, school dropout, and other self-destructive behaviors. However, current policies pose many obstacles for mothers in lockdown to maintain family ties.

Very often, children do not visit their incarcerated parent because the parent is placed in a facility too far from the children’s residence. Feelings of guilt and shame, as well as lack of information and practical barriers to communication, may prevent mothers behind bars from utilizing their rights to stay actively involved in their children’s lives. Mothers can remain

involved through telephone contact with the children, their guardians, foster care agencies, schools, and therapists. However, prisoners can only place collect calls, and many service providers will not even accept the phone charges. Yet, if an incarcerated parent does not have contact (visits or communication) with their child for as little as six months, they can be charged with "abandonment" and a foster care agency can move to terminate their parental rights.

Crimes Against Minority Females in Lockdown

The sexual exploitation and harassment of female inmates in new york state correctional facilities by staff members is widespread. Female prisoners regularly complain of sexual solicitation by male staff and being spied upon while taking showers and using the bathroom. Women also complain of guards kneading and caressing their breasts, vaginal and rectal areas during routine pat frisks. A number of women have become pregnant by staff while incarcerated.

Women and girls of color in lockdown with 90% white male guards are incapable of consenting to sexual activity with their captors. All sexual activity by these women should be considered as statutory rape. Women often feel that they cannot refuse to have sex with male guards because of the power they have over all aspects of their daily lives. Guards often reserve gifts and privileges for sexual favors.

Yet, ‘correctional’ officers are not corrected when they rape female inmates. On the contrary, women who are found to have sexual relationships with staff may be punished for this activity. Women also risk retaliation and harassment from staff if they come forward or try to end a relationship. Some women will not report abuses because they feel it may result in their transfer to a prison far away from their families and children.

Deterrence, Legalization and Survival

Such apartheid methods as Rockerfeller drug laws do not act as a deterrent to crime by capturing its major offenders, the major manufacturers, suppliers and dealers. Harsh prison terms for drug mules mules

neither reduce drug traffic nor deter others from acting as mules. Indeed, so far, the amerikkka’s drug-war strategies, adopted by many other countries, have resulted only in the re-victimization of many people already suffering under grinding poverty and corrupt political regimes. Women like Verna and Marie are the conscripts and prisoners of a drug war america has shipped around the world. Battered latino, african and asian women and mothers are made more disposable in their further exploitation as prisoners.

There is no rational in criminalizing poor, abused female couriers. What sense is there in focusing a drugs control strategy around the long term imprisonment of people of color who are carriers of drugs when western demand for illegal substances, prohibition, third world underdevelopment, and powerful vested interests ensure a continuation of the drug trade. All ‘illegal’ drugs, readily available and used by large segments of the population, should be legalized as soon as possible. All women and men in lockdown on minor drug related, non-violent offenses should be released immediately.

All legal and illegal drug use are potentially toxic. Andrew Weil and other doctors who study drug use across various societies over time, suggests that there is a rational and humane point at which a given society have to find ‘its peace’ with a drug, like alcohol and cigarettes. They recommend legalization of all drugs as prohibition does not work. Such views of drug use from health and civil rights perspectives, are opposite to the purely criminal justice approach.

No Justice, No Peace

Law enforcement will not admit the possibility that a person could be duped or coerced into carrying drugs. For example, Sister Marion Defeis at the women's jail on Riker's island, said that no one seemed to care that these women might be innocent.

Structural adjustment and economic crisis in developing countries have thrust the poor and suffering into the trafficking, growing, dealing, etc., of illegal drugs. Poverty and class issues intimately link third world countries like columbia, peru, bolivia, jamaica, hati, nigeria, pakistan, afghanistan, burma, and thailand, to name a few, to the oppressive circumstances in the homes of violent consumers on the homeless streets, the barrios and ghettoes of america.

Communities of color have been sabotaged and alternately flooded with drugs as part of the CIA's (the new global narcotics mafia) international and local involvement in the drug trade. Narco dollars rule as mothers, sons and daughters are being sacrificed for consumption by, or alternatively to curb the addictions of, mostly white crack, cocaine, and pot users.

Poor women and men of color caught in these circumstances of dehumanization and criminalization just don't have the resources to fight back. Yet this is exactly what many do, everyday in lockdown. Their strength lies in their very resistance to gender, race and class injustices. Those of us on the outside ought to organize for their immediate release, while we are still ‘free’ to do so.

Fight the Power