From the legend of the Bandit to today's narcoculture:

Analysis of a criminal reality from a socio-historical approach

Abstract

The phenomenon of narcoculture is not new in Spain; although it has not been sufficiently analyzed yet. Drug trafficking, as well as smuggling, has been traditionally confronted with a policy mainly focused on judicial and police action. These policies, although necessary, can only be part of the solution and they are clearly not sufficient by themselves because they it only actually deal with limited possibilities of reality. Behind drug trafficking networks -or smuggling networks- there is more than a mere criminal company: there is a worldview, a culture, a mythology that not only justifies and feeds back the activity of its components, but also strengthens the gang itself, by providing values, turning it into a way of life, thriving on honest culture, putting neighbors against each other and, above all, questions the very foundations of the system, including the activity of the Security Forces. A similar phenomenon happened more than a century ago with banditry and its legend, although from a different sociocultural and technological parameterization, which may change the whole appraisal: if the determined action of the law enforcers institutions of that period, mainly the Guardia Civil, were able to eradicate banditry and its culture in just fifty years, it does not seem that the same strategy, no matter how many means and resources are available, may be able to address the complex problem of narcoculture today. This article, by rigorously observing the past, tries to delve into the reasons for the case with the intention of offering clues that may serve to a more efficient and targeted future policies.