When not engaged in blogging, I sometimes teach, and do actual policy analysis. I just visited El Salvador for the second time (courtesy of the United Nations Devlopment Program’s Sociedad sin Violencia project to talk to officials and citizens there about how to modify drug policy to reduce the violence incident to drug trafficking and drug (especially alcohol) consumption.
It turns out that El Salvador has a big gang problem (apparently imported from Los Angeles). That I hadn’t known before my travels, so it’s not reflected in what I wrote. I’m hoping to go back this summer with a team including David Kennedy to plan an initiative to reduce gang violence, on the model of Boston’s Project Cease-Fire.
In the meantime, though, I thought I might as well show you what I’d been up to. Perhaps readers who know more of Salvadoran conditions than I do can provide some useful advice.
Controlling Drug-related Violence (Speech text from 2002
Reducing the Contribution of the Drug Problem to Violence in El Salvador (Report from 2004)