The COPOLAD Programme seeks to improve the results and reduce the negative impact on sustainable development of supply reduction policies based exclusively on drug interdiction, arrest and prosecution of illicit market actors. The objective is to support public policies that offer comprehensive solutions, combining solid intelligence work and impact on the finances and power of criminal organisations with strategies and interventions for citizen security and development, decent employment, social protection, legality and trust in institutions, also prioritising the interests of the most vulnerable groups and women.
Specifically, the programme promotes a working group that starts on 20 December 2022 and will be aimed at contributing to the improvement of the proportionality of criminal law on drugs and the development of alternatives to arrest or imprisonment in the case of minor drug offences, through various methodological tools that will be applied by a set of institutional and technical actors that support the Programme.
Working Group
The main result sought by this activity is the establishment of a multi-country working group, with the participation of public policy decision-makers, on the proportionality of criminal law on drugs, and the development of alternatives to arrest or imprisonment in the case of minor drug offences.
Activities that will accompany the working group include webinars for the exchange of best practices between Latin American, Caribbean and European countries, support for the prior analysis of the feasibility of developing alternatives to arrest/incarceration in interested countries, national innovation laboratories for the design of innovative proposals, and scholarships for exchange and learning with other countries, which will be funded by the programme.