Cops Across Borders: The Internationalization of U.S. Criminal Law Enforcement [Paperback]

Ethan A. Nadelmann (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0271010959 | ISBN-13: 978-0271010953 | Publication Date: December 1, 1993

Cops Across Borders is the first book to examine the policies and issues that lie at the intersection of U.S. foreign policy and U.S. criminal justice. Drawing on interviews with nearly 300 U.S. and foreign law enforcement officials in nineteen countries as well as extensive historical and contemporary materials, Ethan Nadelmann examines how and why U.S. law enforcement officials have extended their efforts beyond American borders, how they have dealt with the challenges confronting them, and why their efforts have proved more or less successful. Nadelmann's analysis traces the evolution of U. S. law enforcement activities abroad since the nation's founding. During the nineteenth century, U.S. customs agents collected information on smuggling operations, naval officers tracked illegal slave trading vessels, slave owners tried to recover fugitive slaves who had fled to Canada and Mexico, Pinkerton detectives pursued fugitives and investigations around the world, and federal, state, and local authorities chased cattle rustlers, Indians, bandits, and revolutionaries across the border with Mexico. Today, U.S. federal law enforcement agents target an even greater array of crimes and criminals. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), with agents stationed in about 70 foreign cities, is the principal nemesis of transnational drug traffickers. FBI agents abroad investigate terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens and interests as well as white-collar and organized crime. Customs agents focus on money laundering, high-tech smuggling, and a wide variety of frauds against the customs laws. Secret Service agents target counterfeiting. And attorneys in the Departments of State and Justice supervise the rendition of fugitives and the collection of evidence in criminal investigations. Cops Across Borders examines how U.S. law enforcement officials have responded to the challenges of internationalization: how DEA agents have adapted to the constraints of operating in civil-law countries that prohibit many U.S.-style investigative techniques, how DEA agents have worked with and around the widespread police corruption in Latin America, and how Justice Department officials have improved their capacity to secure evidence and fugitives from foreign countries that operate according to very different legal and social norms. Like other studies of comparative law, policing, and criminal justice, this book compares the approaches and behavior of law enforcement officials in different countries; but it also goes a step beyond those studies in its analysis of how criminal justice systems interact with and are influenced by those of other states. Nadelmann argues that the internationalization of U.S. criminal law enforcement has contributed to the "Americanization" of criminal justice systems around the world. Cops Across Borders demonstrates conclusively that the interpenetration of U.S. foreign policy and criminal justice institutions and concerns has become too substantial to be ignored by scholars any longer. It thereby breaks new ground in the study of both international relations and criminal justice. The even broader contribution of Cops Across Borders lies in its analysis of how systems devised for dealing with domestic crime respond to the demands of internationalization.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nadelmann, who teaches politics and public affairs at Princeton University, has written a thorough history of the way U.S. law enforcement--in areas such as drug trafficking and securities violations--has spread abroad. After surveying the first 150 years of such involvement, he explains how, after WW II, the increased global presence of the U.S. government and the growth of industrial and other non-governmental international activity led to a greater enforcement role. Perhaps most illuminating are the chapters in which, based on interviews, Nadelmann explains how the Drug Enforcement Administration helped modernize European criminal justice systems and how the DEA copes with corruption in Latin America and the Caribbean. He also surveys progress in agreements regarding evidence-gathering and the evolution of rules regarding the capture of fugitives. He concludes that while the impact of the United States' increased capacities in these areas is hard to judge, law enforcers are much better now at capturing individual criminals. An advocate of drug legalization, Nadelmann states in a preface that his research confirmed his skepticism about U.S. drug policies.

Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Ethan Nadelmann, who has become widely known as an advocate of drug legalization, proves in this book that he is an important scholar of international law enforcement. By casting his study of law enforcement across the borders, he has broken new criminological ground. Nadelmann's study of the development of the tangled, tight, and problematic relationship between U.S. foreign policy and U.S. law enforcement will enlighten, and even fascinate, students in both areas. --Jerome H. Skolnick, University of California, Berkeley

Like a meteorite Ethan Nadelmann has burst upon the academic scene bringing light, heat, and deep impressions. Cops Across Borders opens up a new field of inquiry and must be read by anyone concerned with U.S. foreign policy and criminal justice. --Gary T. Marx, University of Colorado

Nadelmann's outstanding book illuminates with impressive detail a dimension of security policy about which we know far too little, the international activities of national police forces. This book opens up a new area of research for students of international relations. --Peter Katzenstein, Cornell University

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Product Details

• Paperback: 524 pages
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr (Txt) (December 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0271010959
• ISBN-13: 978-0271010953
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,472,357 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Truth about Fiction, November 2, 2004

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James P. Mock "jpmock" (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cops Across Borders: The Internationalization of U.S. Criminal Law Enforcement (Paperback)

Ethan Nadelman is a pro-drug legalization advocate and director of the Drug Policy Alliance. If ever you want to read a biased view of law enforcement from the perspective of the ultra-left wing, then you'll probably like this book. He passes himself off as a drug policy change advocate, a think tank, an unbiased non-aligned opinion. Not hardly. Nadelman views the police as the suspects, and criminals as perpetual victims of the police. He is a genious, and did once go to Princeton. But this book and his other work is pretty far out there.