Tackling Serious and Organised Crime: Assessing What a Comprehensive Strategy for Tackling Organised Crime Should Look Like Under a New Labour Government
(Ended 5th Dec 2024)

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Date of Event: Thursday, December 5th 2024
Time of Event: 9:30 AM — 1:00 PM GMT
Place of Event: Webinar

Key Speaker
Professor John Coxhead, Professor of Policing at the Institute of Policing, Staffordshire University

The National Crime Agency estimate that there are at least 59,000 people in the UK involved in serious and organised crime (SOC), an increase from 36,600 in 2013; and that SOC costs the UK at least £47 billion each year, up from £24 billion in 2013. These figures are viewed by many as an underestimate, with the potential scale of money laundering impacting the UK alone being estimated at over £100 billion annually.

The Labour party have committed to creating a new Border Security Command, with hundreds of new investigators, intelligence officers, and cross-border police officers, in order to tackle the criminal gangs who are smuggling asylum seekers across the English Channel in small boats. The party have also said that they will ensure the service is organised so as to enable investment in specialist capabilities to more effectively tackle cross-border issues such as serious organised crime. Labour have also said that they will introduce a new offence of criminal exploitation of children, as a means of tackling gangs who are luring young people into violence and crime. The government have also promising to “take down rural crime gangs” as part of a new rural crime strategy. In December 2023, the previous Conservative government announced a new strategy aimed at tackling the growing threat of serious and organised crime, including via further action to eradicate complex criminal networks through the NCA, empowering local forces to tackle these illicit crimes in their communities, and working overseas to prevent exploitation, such as modern slavery and human trafficking.

Failings identified by experts in the UK’s approach to tackling organised crime include: a failure to make serious inroads in tackling money-laundering; a lack of government outreach engagement with researchers, analysts, and experts; and a lack of updated research priorities, with the UK government having not published updated research priorities since April 2018–March 2021. RUSI highlight that “there is little evidence of such a partnership-based approach to the refresh of the government’s strategy” and describe UK approach hitherto as one of “uncertain future strategic direction”. Jürgen Stock, Secretary General of Interpol, meanwhile, has highlighted “the explosive growth of transnational organized crime” around the world. Stock argue that “[t]his epidemic can only be tackled by urgent, coordinated global action, greater cooperation between countries and regions and by investing in shared technology.”

Programme

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