Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation

POLICING CHALLENGES
Tackling organised
crime
Petty crime and organised crime groups tend to
flourish in austere times, while budget cuts mean
that police increasingly have their hands tied.
Dr Felia Allum explains what can be done
Dr Felia Allum is a lecturer
in Politics and Italian in the
Department of Politics,
Languages and International
Studies at the University of Bath
Editor’s introduction
Much of the focus in the reforms of the police under the Coalition government
has been on the local police force, its governance and its workforce. In a sense, for
most citizens, these are the most immediate and most understood and personally
experienced aspects of policing. However, as we move into 2013 and the arrival of
a new National Crime Agency, the more complex problems of organised crime will
move centre stage. This raises some crucial issues about the public and political
understanding of the nature and seriousness of the issue.
What is organised crime?
Is this the right question to ask? Because
from an academic’s and a practitioner’s
point of view, defining organised crime
is a major problem. It is a problem both
in terms of how to analyse it and how
to combat it because it is invisible and is
considered ‘victimless’.
If we ask the question: who are the
organised criminals? We can then answer
this question by stating that organised
crime is the activity of organised
criminals. For example, they undertake
drug importing and cybercrime;
the production and distribution of
counterfeit goods the trafficking
of human beings; the smuggling of
contraband cigarettes; the production of
counterfeit money/documents, the list
goes on.
This means that by analysing the
‘invisible’ network of criminals and not
the commodity we can understand the
phenomenon more fully.
Organised crime covers a whole
variety of different criminal acts. It is
sometimes more useful to think of it in
terms of a continuum with organised
crime at one end that challenges the
notion of legality, crime syndicates in
the middle and Mafias at the other end,
which challenge the state.
So, we can define organised crime as a
group of individuals who come together
to commit crimes (robberies, drug
pushing, selling fake goods, etc).
Crime syndicates are more structured,
with different hierarchical roles seeking
to make a profit through their illegal
activities. And at the other end, there
are Mafias, like those in Italy, who seek
to control the activities (social, economic
and political) in a set territory to make
a profit.
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