Administrative and legal support for the development of safe settlement infrastructure as an instrument for countering illicit drug trafficking
Author(s): Maryna Susak*, Anatolii Dietochka, Serhii Bostan, Khrystyna Prykhodko and Yevhen Shcherbyna
Abstract
Aim: The article examines administrative and legal support for the development of safe settlement infrastructure as an instrument for countering the illicit trafficking of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and precursors. It is substantiated that a properly designed, well-maintained and controlled settlement environment is not merely a background to anti-drug policy but a self-standing administrative and legal instrument of situational prevention that reduces the availability of urban space for drug distribution.
Methods: The study applies the comparative-legal, systemic, formallegal and logico-semantic methods, as well as analysis and synthesis, the statistical and functional methods and modelling. The comparativelegal method made it possible to compare doctrinal approaches to administrative and legal support in different spheres of public administration; the systemic method allowed safe infrastructure to be considered as an integral object; the formal-legal method ensured a correct interpretation of the current legislation on landscaping, urban planning, critical infrastructure and drug control.
Results: The concept of administrative and legal support is delimited from administrative-legal regulation and public administration, and its four structural elements are identified: Subjects, subject matter, norms of administrative law and administrative procedures. Safe settlement infrastructure-public lighting, landscaping, video monitoring, transport and critical infrastructure and digital monitoring of the environmentis characterised both as the subject matter of such support and as a preventive instrument that eliminates the concealment opportunities exploited for dead-drop caches and darknet-linked hand-offs. The instruments of support are systematised in a table according to their antidrug function and level of effectiveness.
Conclusion: It is concluded that the highest preventive effect is achieved only through a comprehensive combination of environmental-design, organisational, digital and control instruments, secured by consistent norms of administrative law and clear administrative procedures, and coordinated with law-enforcement and public-private partnership mechanisms of post-war reconstruction.
