Good Cop, Bad War

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He points to Portugal where simple possession of drugs has been decriminalised (not possession with intent to supply, e. The powers that be saw little difference between an addict dealing to fund their habit and the gun-toting thugs a rung above and would charge them both just as happily. I did find myself in a juxtaposition on whether I liked his personality at times throughout the book with some of the tough decisions he made. Throughout his deployments in towns and cities across the UK he dealt with psychopaths and villains who preyed on addicts, torturing, maiming and killing those who crossed them. Neil Woods, author of this book, is chairman of the organisation LEAP UK, this stands for 'Law Enforcement Against Prohibition', and consists of policemen and detectives who want to encourage the decriminalization of drugs.

I enjoy books like this and found it an excellent read, the undercover work was exciting and at times unputdownable. Can't believe so many people don't see this bigger picture that says one simple things - nothing, fucking nothing comes from out nowhere. Good Cop, Bad War is the memoir of an undercover detective who successfully infiltrated some of the nastiest criminal gangs in England during the 1990s and 2000s. The violence these people displayed was gratuitous and ugly, the contempt they showed their victims heartless and inhumane.The trouble is that after this has happened a few times in a few cities, the big time dealers start to get very paranoid about their little street dealers introducing anyone new to them, because their experiences now tell them that the new person could easily be an undercover policeman. I’ve read numerous police biographies, not a few by undercover officers, and none show such sensitivity to the people they met. As an undercover police officer with the drugs squad Neil Woods regularly risked his life on the streets dealing with some of the most violent and unpredictable criminals in Britain. Neil Woods spent fourteen years (1993-2007) infiltrating drug gangs as an undercover policeman – befriending and gaining the trust of some of the most violent, unpredictable criminals in Britain.

A painfully honest and touching memoir, this books is a must read for anyone even remotely concerned by the issues raised. But, inevitably, having swords thrust against his jugular, witnessing beatings, stabbings, and gangsters burning suspected rats with acid took its toll. This is a man with real empathy for the people he was trying to help, an outlook that is seriously at odds with most books penned by former police officers. Good Cop, Bad War' is a unique story about a man with a striking ability to infiltrate and extinguish drug gangs, but who, as the success of his operations grows, becomes disillusioned with the 'War on Drugs', as he sees how it demonises those who need help while empowering 'the very worst elements in society'. His experience and life as an undercover police officer really is gripping and chilling at the same time.Good Cop, Bad War is an intense account of the true effects of the War on drugs and a gripping insight into the high pressure world of British undercover policing.

I have read enough narco books and educated myself to know that this ‘War on Drugs’ is a total sham.

At some point they will wire up their agent so he can record some transaction, thus implicating the dealers. But herein lay the problem: no matter how often he knocked a villain off his perch (I say “he” for they most often were men), no matter how many he took down, there was always another to take their place. In Switzerland they created a series of official injection centres in major cities, supplying clean equipment, medical advice and a space where addicts could inject safely. Good Cop, Bad War is probably one of the most absorbing reads I've had in terms of a non-fiction memoir I've experienced.

I hope that within my lifetime we will see changes in these policies like some of the cannabis legalisation that has taken off in some of the U. However, as the senior criminals responded to the threat from the police with escalating brutality and fear towards the drug pushers and addicts who they used to shield themselves from prosecution, he began to question the whole point of his work. Neil spent fourteen years infiltrating drug gangs as an undercover police officer; he put his life on the line many a time, he was responsible for the capture, prosecution and conviction of numerous dangerous criminals. And this is coming from a guy who never did drugs (well, a little pot), but spent a lot of time living in the community. Woods gives a telling description of the Manchester Police Force, where a special task force of 12 men is set up to investigate drugs (amongst a police force of about 11,000 men), as it cannot be guaranteed that amongst the general force there aren't several policemen or detectives being paid by drug dealers to leak them information.

I read this after hearing the author interviewed on a podcast so I was aware of some of the stories and the thrust of the book but I actually stayed up until two or three and finished it in one evening. What sets it apart is the author's compassion for the addicts he had to blend in with and his gradual realisation that the 'war' he was involved in was having the opposite affect to what he joined up to. An important part of the book is about how the police catch big drug dealers - inevitably members of powerful gangs - by getting undercover agents to start getting drugs from these dealers. Having lived in the city myself, I couldn't believe that such visible drug use and abuse with substances as hard as it gets, heroin and crack, were so plentiful. On a personal level I understand the need to justify past behaviour, about which he is now sceptical, but this is less interesting for the reader.