Three essays on crime and security policies in Colombia's recent history

• Main Author: Valbuena, Gerson Javier Perez
• Published: University of Essex 2012
• Subjects: 364.177
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.558973

The purpose of this thesis was to analyze the socioeconomic impact of the two most important security policies in Colombia's history. The highest levels of crime took place between the late 1990s and the early 2000s as a result of an increase in coca cultivation, with the corresponding effect of strengthening not only drug traffickers but also the other two main criminal organizations, guerrillas and paramilitaries. As a consequence, Plan Colombia (PC) first, and the Democratic Security Policy (DSP) later, were the policies adopted under two different governments in order to tackle the security issues. This thesis consists of a historical background (Chapter 2) plus three empirical studies, one based on PC and the other two on the DSP. Chapter 3 introduces PC and the measures adopted with the purpose of reducing the supply of cocaine. Causal effects of the program on homicides and violent deaths' rates were computed and analyzed. The results provide no evidence of any causal relation between the implementation of PC and the dynamics of homicides and violent deaths' rates. Chapter 4 is based on the DSP, and focuses on the effects on crime in both urban and rural areas. The results showed a set of differentiated effects depending on the type of crime and the type of perpetrator: negative and significant for crimes typically committed by nationwide organized criminals (drug-traffickers, guerrillas and pararnilitaries), and IV estimates from zero-to-positive, and mostly not significant, for crimes committed by small urban gangs. Chapter 5 analyses for the rural areas how the improvements in seizures' related legislation under the DSP, affected labour market and education outcomes. Results revealed socioeconomic losses in terms of reductions in both labour participation and income for adults, whereas for children and youths there are differentiated results by gender, positive for boys and negative for girls, with no significant effects on education.