Researchers: Professor Ieva Jusionyte, Veronica Dickstein, Jack Zarate, and Jude Farley

 

This research project is part of a larger study on extraditions from Latin America to the United States. In the past four decades, the U.S. government has requested the extradition of thousands of foreign nationals from Colombia, Mexico, Honduras, Panama and other Latin American countries to be prosecuted in the United States. Although some of them are known organized crime leaders, the majority are less important figures. All of them, however, are only charged with crimes that matter to the United States, primarily drug trafficking and money laundering conspiracies as well as homicide involving U.S. citizens. According to preliminary analysis of the data on extradition cases, acts of violence and human rights violations abroad almost never come up in criminal prosecutions in the U.S. If they plead guilty and agree to cooperate with U.S. prosecutors, extradited individuals receive reduced sentences and can start new lives in U.S. witness protection program. Meanwhile, the crimes they committed abroad - extortion, kidnapping, disappearance, and murder in Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, and elsewhere – remain unsolved, obstructing justice and the search for truth. 

 

Extradition is a form of outsourcing justice that comes with profound implications for Latin America, worsening already deep distrust that citizens have towards their governments and national criminal justice systems. Although legal scholars have analyzed certain dilemmas that extradition presents, such as disparities in punishment (unlike most of Latin America, the U.S. practices death penalty), little is known about extradition’s broader social effects. This study seeks to collect, systematize, and analyze data on extraditions from Latin America to the United States since the 1970s. The research team, consisting of Prof. Ieva Jusionyte and three Brown undergraduate students - Veronica Dickstein, Jack Zarate, and Jude Farley - is currently creating a database of extradition cases (drawing on public records, government press releases, media coverage, and other open sources) and doing analysis of collected data in preparation to publish research results.