Violent Drug Markets: Relation between Homicide, Drug Trafficking and Socioeconomic Disadvantages: A Test of Contingent Causation in Pereira, Colombia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I'm not a quantitative researcher, so will not comment on the model, however, I thought the paper was well written and interesting, and provides a very useful addition to the international literature. I enjoyed reading the paper. My suggested minor changes are that the paper needs a light proofread, especially the first two sections, and the data needs further information. There needs to be some indication of what the chosen data entails and its limitations. 

Author Response

We would like to thank you for your recommendations. Comments enhance the quality of the manuscript.

According to the comments, we made the following changes:

• We change the title to: {Violent Drug-Markets: Relation between homicide, drug trafficking and socioeconomic disadvantages. A test of contingent causation in Pereira, Colombia}
• We define the data we collect in Table 1. However, on lines 221-224, we include the following paragraph.
  • Data collected were number of homicides, amount of cocaine-heroin-basuco seized, number of people arrested for drug possession, number of socioeconomically disadvantaged households, and number of people in the country who arrested for possession of drugs.
• In lines 225-230, we mention the limitation of the data.
  • We select these data because of their availability and the way the competent authorities collected and processed them. Data Set has limitations such as being subject to the systematic error of the agent, person or employee who enters the data on topics such as geographic location, age, gender, schedules. The scaling of the information guaranteed the validity of this data at the national level by other information operators, such as the National Administrative Department of Statistics.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

The article is an important contribution for the studies on drug trafficking and violence in the Americas with concrete methodological development considering the available literature. 

I would suggest, tough, some elements to improve the paper:

1) it is important to highlight the city and the country you are analyzing. The reader is informed about the city/country only in page 5. The city of Pereira and Colombia should be named on the paper's title, in the abstract and in the introduction.

2) you take for granted the relationship between the global drug prohibitionist regime and the violence of the drug illegal market. The reference of the 100-year history of drug prohibitionism and the 50-year history of US sponsored 'war on drugs' are vastly studied by critical authors (such as Zaffaroni and Desmond Arias, both in your references) as one of the main sources of violence concerning the illegal market of psychoactive substances. Although it is not the focus of the article, it is important to acknowledge that the prevalence of highly intensive repressive models of public safety in Colombia cannot be ignored as a variable to be considered for a more comprehensive analysis. 

3) In the abstract you mention the intention of contributing for more evidence oriented policy making. Later on, this intention does not come back. If it is your intention to intervene in policy making, it is crucial to emphasize it along the article.

Author Response

We would like to thank you for your recommendations. Comments enhance the quality of the manuscript.

According to the comments, we made the following changes:

Point 1. it is important to highlight the city and the country you are analyzing. The reader is informed about the city/country only in page 5. The city of Pereira and Colombia should be named on the paper's title, in the abstract and in the introduction.

Response 1. On lines 4, 265, 337, 388, 407, we include: Pereira, Colombia

Point 2. you take for granted the relationship between the global drug prohibitionist regime and the violence of the drug illegal market. The reference of the 100-year history of drug prohibitionism and the 50-year history of US sponsored 'war on drugs' are vastly studied by critical authors (such as Zaffaroni and Desmond Arias, both in your references) as one of the main sources of violence concerning the illegal market of psychoactive substances. Although it is not the focus of the article, it is important to acknowledge that the prevalence of highly intensive repressive models of public safety in Colombia cannot be ignored as a variable to be considered for a more comprehensive 

Response 2. We modify lines 341-344

“This study examined the connections between homicides, drug trafficking, and socioeconomic disadvantages in Pereira, Colombia, which have a strategical role in an internal and global market of cocaine. Two theoretical frameworks informed this study. Goldstein's framekwork informed the conceptualization of the drugs/violence victimization \citep{Goldstein1985}. Zimring´s framework informed the influence of socioeconomic disadvantages in the drugs/violence relationship \citep{Zimring1997}. The theoretical frameworks and findings of this study are contextualized whitin macro-political factors such as the global anti-drug strategy \citep{Zaffaroni2015, Zaffaroni2008} or Colombian anti-drug policies that have been characterized by very violent repressive securitized models, which are responsible for the violence \citep{Thoumi2012, Franz2016, Arias2010}.”

Point 3. In the abstract you mention the intention of contributing for more evidence oriented policy making. Later on, this intention does not come back. If it is your intention to intervene in policy making, it is crucial to emphasize it along the article.

Response 3. This correction seems very pertinent to us, but after reviewing the whole article again, we consider that we would have to apply changes in the structure of the paper that would imply making it longer. That is why we decided to delete the elements in this paper that indicate its potential for public policy, and we will dedicate ourselves to publish another paper that deals exclusively with the potential for public policy of these findings.