Incarceration of Minority Women

Incarceration of Minority Women
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Institution
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Abstract
The minority groups in America and the larger Latin American region have had to deal with the issue of discrimination for quite a while. Police profiling has not been soft towards them, where they have been the subject of police brutality. Though the groups are generally vulnerable, the women are at the blunt end. Drug traffickers have also found a way of involving the minority women in the drug trade, and this has increased their vulnerability, as discussed in this essay.
Incarceration of Minority Women
Drug trafficking has been one of the major vices affecting the larger American continent. Most of the dealers in the trade have been believed to be drug lords and cartels operating mainly in Mexico. The trade has been believed to be a man`s territory, with few women involved. Most of those involved in the trade are believed to be the minority groups, who are marred by poverty (Shaw et al, 2007). Due to their condition, they are easily lured to the drug trade, with the promise of attaining affluent lifestyles within no time. However, the risks associated with the trade are equally dangerous, ranging from death due to violence between different cartels, to long terms in jail should one be apprehended.
With time, women have found their way into the trade. Most of them join due to the poverty pressure, where they are promised that they can acquire much wealth within a short while (Shaw et al, 2007). Since the minority women are the ones most prone to poverty, they have a higher likelihood of being adopted into the drug trade organizations (DTOs). Others join not out of will, but because they are associated with members of the drug cartels. For instance, take the case of a woman whose husband was a drug dealer. Due to the rivalry between cartels or due to the natural causes, the husband dies. The woman is left with the sole responsibility of providing for the family. With time, and due to the prior experience with the groups, they join the trade and pick from where the deceased left. It is through such associations that women find themselves tied in the trade.
In some other instances, the drug lords seek to recruit the women as mules since they have a higher likelihood of passing unsuspected by the security officers. This trick also made women join the trade not just as mules, but as organizers who would scout for women to use as drug traffickers. To illustrate this, Mares 920110 cites the case where DTO officers started attending beauty pageants in Latin America with the motive of wooing the attractive women to become traffickers, with the promises of a handsome pay. One example of such a case was the successful Colombian beauty queen, Angie Valencia. It is believed that she recruited and used other young, beautiful models to deal in the international cocaine ring.
Women involvement in the drug trade has direct and indirect harmful effects to them and to the society. Mares (2011) observe that the introduction of women in the drug trade has given it a new dimension. It has become coined together with the sex trade, where women porters are also used for sex trade, earning the DTOs quite a lot of money. The unfortunate thing is that the minority women are at a higher risk of falling victims to these activities for two major reasons: one, they are subjected to poverty. The drug trade promises them that they can make much in a short while, and they end up being assimilated into the trade. Secondly, the women are quite vulnerable physically, which makes them an easy prey. To some extent, their vulnerability also makes them victims of human trafficking, another vice that is closely related to drug trafficking...