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Oñat i Socio - lega l Ser ies, v. 6 , n. 4 ( 2 0 1 6 ) – The Polit ics and Jurisprudence of Group Offending I SSN: 2079-5971

Actors, Scr ipts, Scenes and Scenar ios: Key Trends i n Policy and Research on the Organisat ion of Ser ious Cr im es

ADAM EDWARDS∗

Edwards, A., 2016. Actors, Scr ipts, Scenes and Scenar ios: Key Trends in Policy and Research on the Organisat ion of Ser ious Crimes. Oñat i Socio- legal Ser ies [ online] , 6 (4) , 975-998. Available from: ht tps: / / ssrn.com/ abstract= 2875318

Abst ract

The problem of ‘t ransnat ional organised crim e’ has becom e a prom inent issue in internat ional affairs over the past two decades. Official const ruct ions of the problem ident ify threats to public safety result ing from the greater m obilit y of people and goods across nat ional borders and the exploitat ion of this m obilit y by ‘organised crim e groups’ (OCGs) . I n turn, this has led to the generat ion of a new genre of policy-oriented learning, the ‘threat assessm ent ’, which inform s and legit im ises the cross-border co-ordinat ion of prevent ive intervent ions against such groups. This art icle considers argum ents over the conceptual and m ethodological value of these threat assessm ents and their cent ral preoccupat ion with crim inal actors. An alternat ive approach is advanced, concerned with the ‘scripts’ involved in the com m issioning of serious crim es and their facilitat ing condit ions or ‘scenes’. This approach can also ident ify future ‘scenarios’, providing less certain but m ore sat isficing grounds for ant icipat ing and governing the organisat ion of serious crim es.

Key w ords

Transnat ional organised crim e; ant icipatory governance; threat assessm ent ; organised crim e groups; crim e scripts; scenario m ethodologies

Resum en

El problem a de la "delincuencia organizada t ransnacional" se ha convert ido en un tem a im portante en los asuntos internacionales durante las últ im as dos décadas. Las interpretaciones oficiales del problem a ident ifican am enazas a la seguridad pública derivadas de la m ayor m ovilidad de personas y bienes en las fronteras nacionales y la explotación de esta m ovilidad por "grupos de crim en organizado". A su vez, esto ha llevado a la generación de una nueva disciplina de aprendizaje orientada a las polít icas, la "evaluación de am enaza", que inform a y legit im a la coordinación t ransfronteriza de intervenciones prevent ivas cont ra esos grupos. Este art ículo analiza argumentos sobre el valor conceptual y m etodológico de estas evaluaciones de am enazas y su preocupación principal hacia los actores crim inales. Se plantea un enfoque alternat ivo, relacionado con los "guiones" im plicados en la com isión de delitos graves y las condiciones que los favorecen o "escenas del

∗ Adam Edwards is Reader in Polit ics and Crim inology in the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VI I Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WT, UK. [email protected]. His pr incipal research interest is in governance and circuits of power in liberal modes of secur ity.

mailto:[email protected]

http://opo.iisj.net/

https://ssrn.com/abstract=2875318

mailto:[email protected]

Adam Edwards Actors, Scr ipts, Scenes and Scenar ios…

Oñat i Socio- legal Ser ies, v. 6, n. 4 (2016) , 975-998 I SSN: 2079-5971 976

crim en". Este enfoque tam bién puede ident ificar "escenarios" futuros, ofreciendo bases para ant icipar y gobernar la organización de crím enes graves m enos seguras pero m ínim am ente m ás aceptables.

Palabras clave

Crim en organizado t ransnacional; gobierno ant icipatorio; evaluación de am enazas; grupos de crim en organizado; guión crim inal; m etodologías de escenas del crim en



Table of content s

1. I nt roduct ion ........ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 978 2. Policy t rends and their research im plicat ions ........ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 979

2.1. The actor-orientat ion (1) : conspirators ........ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 979 2.2. The actor-orientat ion (2) : illegal ent repreneurs......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 980 2.3. The actor-orientat ion (3) : poly-crim inals ........ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 981

2.3.1. From OCTA to SOCTA ........ .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 982 2.3.2. SOCTA 2013 – 2017 ......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 984

2.4. The organisat ion of serious crim es: com m issioning processes ........ . . . . . . . 987 3. Researching the organisat ion of serious crim es ........ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . 992 4. Conclusion ........ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995 References.......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995



The problem of organized cr im e is the concept of organized cr im e it self, which in turn produces the wrong quest ion for research, which is to ask if “ it ” is organized in a part icular way, whereas the m ore sensible quest ion is to ask what factors over t im e shape the ways in which cr im es of certain types are organized and who [ beyond just the perpet rators] gets involved in them?

(Edwards and Levi 2008, p. 373) .

1 . I nt roduct ion

‘Organised crim e’ is now a m ajor focus for public policy, as exem plified in the United Nat ions’ Convent ion Against Transnat ional Organised Crim e (Edwards and Gill 2003, UNODC 2004) and, in Europe, it s prom inence on the EU’s agenda for creat ing an ‘Area of Freedom , Security and Just ice’ realized through the ‘Tam pere’, ‘Hague’ and ‘Stockholm ’ m ult i-annual program m es and the current ‘European Agenda on Security’ (European Council 1999, 2005, Council of the European Union 2010, European Com m ission 2015) . I n turn, this agenda has generated a whole new genre of policy-oriented learning, the ‘threat assessm ent ’ of organised crim e which endeavours to provide policy-m akers with an understanding of current organised crim e pat terns, in part icular concerns about ‘t ransnat ional’ cr im es result ing from the greater m obilit y of people and goods across borders, and to inform the target ing and co-ordinat ion of efforts at prevent ion (OCTA 2006 and passim , SOCTA 2013, iOCTA 2014) . I n the social science research com m unity, however, the very concept of organised crim e rem ains cont roversial. Som e consider it to be lit t le m ore than a polit ical const ruct , used by policy elites in the liberal dem ocracies to depict t hem selves as prim arily the vict im s of ‘alien’ threats from a fam iliar rogues’ gallery of organised crim e groups (OCG’s) : ‘Cosa Nost ra’, ‘Colum bian Cartels’, ‘Chinese Triads’, ‘Russian Mafiya’ etc. (Woodiwiss 2003, Woodiwiss and Hobbs 2009) . Others ident ify a self- referent ial bureaucrat ic polit ics at play in the const ruct ion of organised crim e threats as problem s of law enforcem ent im plying law enforcem ent solut ions, including innovat ions in confiscat ing the proceeds of crim e (Sheptycki 2003; van Duyne and Vander Beken 2009) .

Counterpoised to the threat assessm ent indust ry and it s crit ics, however, is an em erging field of research which focuses analysis on the organisat ion of serious crim es, including the opportunit ies for their com m ission and the social relat ions which these im ply (Edwards and Levi 2008) . This analyt ical shift has generated an energet ic research program m e concerned with the ‘crim e scripts’ or m odus operandi em ployed by crim inal organisat ions to com m ission different types of crim e (Cornish and Clarke 2002, Levi and Maguire 2004) , the ‘scenarios’ which are m ore or less conducive to the organisat ion of these crim es (Vander Beken and Verfaillie 2010) , the norm at ive, as well as em pirical, inquiry into the ‘social harm s’ that qualify certain types of crim e as ‘serious’ priorit ies for governm ental act ion (Greenfield and Paoli 2010) and the condit ions or ‘scenes’ in which these scripts are played out .

This analyt ical shift has had an im pact on policy t rends, part ly influencing the European Council’s 2006 decision on the rem it of Europol ( the European Policing agency) to shift the scope of it s work from ‘organised crim e’ to ‘serious crim e’ (Dorn 2008) . The prim ary locat ion of this shift in thinking has, however, been in the academ y and it s pressure on policy-m akers, as in the Royal United Services Inst itute’s program m e of research on organised crim e (RUSI 2014) . To place this t rend in context and as a precursor t o discussing it s im plicat ions for the policy-research relat ionship, it is possible to dist inguish three other dom inant policy t rends, each with their own dist inct ive analyt ical focus. Table 1 sum m arises this t rend, point ing to a basic dichotom y in policy t rends between variet ies of actor-oriented thinking on the one hand and a focus on organisat ional and com m issioning processes on the other.



Table 1. Organised Cr ime Policy Trends and Their Analyt ical Focus

Trend Analyt ical Focus Policy Exem plars

The Actor-Orientat ion (1) : Conspirators

Organised Crim e Groups (OCGs)

Kefauver Com m it tee (1950) ;

US President ial Com m issions on OC (1967, 1986) ; RI CO statute (1970)

The Actor-Orientat ion (2) : I llegal Ent repreneurs

I llicit networks Germ an BKA\ LKA definit ion of OC (1986)

The Actor-Orientat ion (3) : Poly-Crim inals

‘Potpourri’ of ‘threat indicators’:

OCGs

SOCs (Serious Organised Crim e areas)

CRFs (Crim e Relevant Factors)

Effect s of OCGs + SOCs on EU society

UN Convent ion Against Transnat ional Organised Crim e (2000) ;

Annual EU Organised Cr im e Threat Assessm ent (2006-2011) ;

EU Serious and Organised Crim e Threat Assessm ent (2013 – 2017)

Organisat ion of Serious Crim es: Com m issioning

Scripts, Scenes and Scenarios

Approach st ill m arginal and prim arily based in the academ y, e.g. RUSI (Royal United Services Inst itute) Organised Crim e Program m e (2014)

2 . Policy t rends and t heir research im plicat ions

All of these t rends cont inue to at t ract support and com pete for priorit isat ion on policy agendas and research program m es. To draw upon a m usical metaphor, we can refer to them as refrains to suggest that whilst they have been coterm inous for m uch of the history of ‘organised crim e’ as a problem for public policy, som e have been louder than others at certain t im es and in certain contexts. This m etaphor helps us understand the content ious qualit y of this policy issue and the part icular cacophony of current policy debate. As indicated in Table 1., it is possible to different iate key policy t rends in term s of t he part icular analyt ical focus they privilege and how this leads to the problem being ‘fram ed’ in ways that priorit ise certain kinds of actors, act ivit ies and contexts for policy responses, whilst down-playing others.

2.1. The actor-orientat ion (1) : conspirators

Histories of the definit ion of ‘organised crim e’ as an official category and focus for policy ident ify it s origins in Am erican law enforcem ent (Woodiwiss 2003) . One of the earliest uses of the concept has been t raced back to the 1896 report of the New York Society for the Prevent ion of Crim e into racketeering, gam bling and prost itut ion. Both here, and in the US Nat ional Com m ission on Law Observance and Enforcem ent ( the Wickersham Com m ission 1929-31) , the problem is defined in term s of the polit ical and econom ic condit ions generat ing racketeering, including the corrupt ion and collusion of public officials in m unicipal governm ent (Woodiwiss 2003, Sm ith 1991) . Post -Second World War, however, historians ident ify a m ajor



shift in policy discourse. ‘What ’ quest ions about the kinds of crim e that were being organised and how they were organised becam e less im portant than quest ions about ‘who’ was doing the organising, in part icular concerns about the influence of foreign career crim inals (Sm ith 1991) . Crit ics of this analyt ical shift refer to the new concept of organised crim e as an ‘alien conspiracy theory’, epitom ised by the proceedings of the 1950 Kefauver Senate Invest igat ing Com m it tee (on ‘organised crim e in interstate com m erce’) which was preoccupied with the organisat ion of crim inal conspiracies around ethnic groups, in part icular those em anat ing from the I talian-Am erican com m unity (Woodiwiss 2003) . I n cont rast to the earlier Wickersham Com m ission, the Kefauver Com m it tee was conspicuously silent about the role of officialdom in the facilitat ion of crim inal enterprises. The now fam iliar dist inct ion between the ‘upper-world’ of legit im ate com m erce and governm ent and the ‘under-world’ of crim inal conspiracies had becom e enshrined in public policy (Paoli and Fij naut 2004) .

The Kefauver Com m it tee popularised the idea of, ‘a nat ionwide crim e syndicate known as the Mafia, whose tentacles are found in m any large cit ies’ (United States Senate 1951, p. 131) . Mafia im agery subsequent ly dom inated policy discourse in the US, com pounded by the notorious test im ony of Joe Valacchi given in 1963 to the US Senate Perm anent Subcom m it tee on I nvest igat ions, in which he discussed his part icipat ion in an I talian-Am erican crime syndicate, ‘La Cosa Nost ra’. The concept of organised crim e as the consequence of ethnically-based syndicates with internat ional connect ions was given academ ic credibilit y through Donald Cressey’s cont r ibut ion to Lyndon Johnson’s 1967 President ial Task Force on Organised Crim e. Cressey’s (1969) landmark text , Theft of a Nat ion, represented organised crim e in the US as a shadow state, m irror- im aging, the hierarchically organised rat ional bureaucracies of the law enforcem ent agencies charged with tackling ‘it ’.

These core aspects of t he Cressey m odel also clarify the purposes of the principal law enforcem ent inst rum ent that cam e out of the Johnson Task Force, the Racketeer I nfluenced and Corrupted Organisat ions (RICO) statute of 1970, to prosecute m em bership of crim inal enterprises involved in predicate offences. The analyt ical preoccupat ion with organised crim e groups (OCGs) received a ‘pluralist ’ revision in Ronald Reagan’s President ial Com m ission on Organised Crim e, which retained a focus on the threat posed by ethnically-based conspiracies but broadened the scope beyond the Mafia to accom m odate the perceived im pact of ‘Colom bian Cartels’, the Japanese Yakuza and Russian groups etc. (Pot ter 1994) .

The lineage of the alien conspiracy theory cont inues through to present representat ions of ‘t ransnat ional’ organised crim e in other regions, part icularly in Europe post -Soviet Union, and can be discerned in the EU’s threat assessm ents (see below) . Within the Am erican ‘hom e’ of the concept of organised crim e, however, this theory has been challenged by those arguing that m uch illegal m arket act ivit y, part icularly in the narcot ics m arkets, operates in a ‘disorganised way’ and is bet ter conceptualised in term s of m arketplace dynam ics (Reuter 1983; Naylor 1997) .

2.2. The actor-orientat ion (2) : illegal ent repreneurs

Conceptualising organised crim e in term s of illicit enterprise has also been a defining characterist ic of m uch European policy act ivit y in relat ion to organised crim e, as epitom ised by the definit ion offered by the Germ an Bundeskr im inalamt in 1983:

‘Organised cr im e const itutes the planned com m ission of cr im inal offences driven by the quest for acquir ing profit s or powers. Such cr im inal offences have to be, individually or in their ent irety, of m ajor significance and involve the cooperat ion of m ore than two part icipants act ing with a com m on intent for a longer or indefinite period of t im e on a dist ributed- task basis:

a) by ut ilisat ion of com m ercial or business- like st ructures



b) by applicat ion of violence or other m ethods suitable for achieving int im idat ion or

c) by exert ing influence on polit ics, the m edia, public adm inist rat ions, just ice system s, or com m erce and indust ry.’

The analyt ical concern with enterprise has the advantage of shift ing policy change and learning away from the blunt , ethnocent ric and potent ially bigoted, focus on ethnically-defined groups (without denying that ethnicity and kinship can be em ployed as resources for organising serious crim es, see below) . I t accom m odates looser partnerships of co-offenders and consequent ly acknowledges the phenom enon of proj ect crim es arranged by networks of illicit ent repreneurs brought together by ‘cr im inal contact brokers’ for the purposes of com m issioning part icular offences (Hobbs 2001, Klerks 2003) . The use of social network analysis to conceptualise and explain such project crim es has becom e a key focus of academ ic research, for exam ple on hum an t rafficking (Cam pana 2016) or gun crim e (Oat ley and Crick 2015) .

Even so, analysis of the st ructural propert ies of organised crim e problem s, in part icular their accom plishm ent through social networks of ent repreneurs, st ill pr ivileges a focus on part icular co-offenders rather than the assem blage of these actors and the necessary resources for organising serious crim es in condit ions that are conducive. As a consequence, there is a danger of repeat ing the reduct ionist explanat ion of conspiracy theorists only this t ime reducing the policy problem to the st ructural propert ies of ‘the network’ of ent repreneurs rather than ‘the syndicate’ of alien conspirators.

I n addit ion, the looser definit ion of organised crim e as illicit ent repreneurship has at t racted crit icism for sim ply adding to the am bivalence of a policy const ruct ion that accom m odates act ivit ies ranging from tax fraud through to drugs t rafficking and terrorist act ivit y and actors as diverse as the I talian Cosa Nost ra through to youth gangs (Fij naut et al. 1998) . Paoli and Fijnaut (2004, p. 41) conclude their history of the concept of organised crim e by arguing:

I t s very pluralit y of m eanings, explaining it s recent success in world public debate, and m aking it a catchy label to signify popular anxiet ies and foster legislat ive changes, hinders the full t ransform at ion of organised cr im e into a clear-cut legal category. Despite the definit ional efforts m ade by several dom est ic governm ents and internat ional organisat ions, organised cr im e is st ill far from meet ing the norm at ive character ist ics of legal categories and its definit ions usually lack both r igorousness and exhaust iveness. I t rem ains a vague and am biguous catchphrase, the applicat ion of which inevitably entails varying – but usually high – degrees of arbit rar iness.

2.3. The actor-orientat ion (3) : poly-crim inals

One response to this definit ional problem has been to replace the search for an all-encom passing definit ion with evolving content definit ions of em erging threats and r isks. This approach can be discerned in the United Nat ion’s Convent ion Against Transnat ional Organised Crim e and, m ore explicit ly st ill, in the European Union’s annual Organised Crim e Threat Assessm ents ( the ‘OCTA’) , which com m enced in 2006 and concluded in 2011 before being replaced by the current EU Serious and Organised Crim e Threat Assessm ent ( the ‘SOCTA’) , first published in 2013 covering the 2013–2017 period.

Reviewing the journey from OCTA to SOCTA provides a m eans of t racing the evolut ion of thinking about organised crim e in elite European policy-m aking circles over the past decade and, within this thinking, the part icular im portance of the threat assessm ent as a new genre of policy-m aking. The replacem ent of the EU Organised Crim e Situat ion Reports (OCSR) by the OCTA in 2006 was just ified on the grounds that t ransnat ional OCGs were outwit t ing and out flanking the capacit ies of nat ional police and intelligence agencies and this warranted both a t ransnat ional



response from European-wide agencies such as Europol and one that aim ed to ant icipate and pre-em pt , not sim ply react to, problem s of t ransnat ional organised crim e. I n these term s the am bit ion of the OCTA was to inform the ant icipatory governance of t ransnat ional organised crim e problem s and to j ust ify pre-em pt ive intervent ions. As such it is a significant shift in governm entalit y from ‘crim inal j ust ice’, the ret rospect ive detect ion and prosecut ion of suspects ‘on the facts’ of offences already com m it ted, to ‘security’ and the just ificat ion of pre-em pt ive intervent ions against suspects yet to offend. Given the gravity of this shift for the polit ics and jurisprudence of group offending it is worth reflect ing on developm ents in threat assessm ent and the fitness for purpose of this policy genre in warrant ing pre-em pt ive intervent ion.

Whilst adding to the range of factors considered in threat assessm ents, this policy t rend has cont inued the tendency in other actor-oriented accounts to t reat organised crim e as a collect ive noun, a singular thing, rather than a variegated process. As a consequence, m ore elaborate content definit ions of this thing have only resulted in a ‘potpourri’ of factors to be considered rather than their assem blage into som ething that realist social scient ists would recognise as resem bling an explanat ion with a clear explanandum ( the thing to be explained) and related explanans ( the prem ises that explain ‘the thing’ and their antecedent condit ions) (Keat and Urry 1981, p. 10, 248-249) .

Adm it tedly there is the privilege in the philosophy of social science, which authorit ies responsible for taking act ion on serious crim es don’t have, of t reat ing the very possibilit y of explaining organized cr im e as an ongoing and content ious issue of epistem ology am ongst realists and interpret ivists (Sayer 2000) . However, the absence of clear explanatory thinking in the policy process for security st rategies prem ised on pre-em pt ive intervent ion ought to provoke considerable concern. I t would be disconcert ing enough if, in Paoli and Fij naut ’s term s, policy-oriented learning about ret rospect ive law enforcem ent cont inued to be ‘arbit rary ’ but in the context of legit im at ing the prej udice of security st rategies it is surely indefensible. I f the building of predict ive m achines to warrant pre-em pt ive intervent ion is to rem ain a possible and desirable policy goal then the m ethodology of threat assessm ent is j ust ifiably a core concern for any interested in the polit ics and jurisprudence of group offending.

2.3.1. From OCTA to SOCTA

The journey from OCTA to SOCTA can be characterised as one in which actors, the OCGs, rem ain cent ral but are represented as m ore sophist icated ‘poly-crim inals’ in that they diversify into a range of crim inal act ivit ies that can com plem ent one another, such as t rafficking in people as well as narcot ics and enabling illegal m igrat ion as well as shipping forced labour into the vice m arkets and sweatshops of Western Europe. Table 2. provides a sum m ary of the key indices of r isk referred to in the first OCTA.

This first threat assessm ent argued that whilst the Organised Crim e Situat ion Reports (OCSR) that preceded the OCTA, provided a descript ive account , the OCTA, ‘puts an em phasis on the qualitat ive assessm ent of this com plex and m ult i- faceted phenom enon’, not ing:

There is a need for a close at tent ion on key cr im inals, their networks, the financial dim ension of the OC groups and their abilit y to comm unicate within and between one another. That is, the funct ional side of OC m ust be at the forefront of the at tent ion, asking the quest ion what they are doing and how, rather than who they are (OCTA 2006, p. 6) .

I n these term s, the OCTA recognizes different kinds of organised groups, including ‘flexible and fluid pat terns of associat ion between individual crim inals’ and em phasises the im portance of understanding, ‘the condit ions under which pat terns of crim inal associat ion and co-offending em erge and exist ’ (OCTA 2006, p. 12) .



Reference is also m ade to the principal act ivit ies of these groups, specifically drug t rafficking, t rafficking in hum an beings and illegal im migrat ion, fraud, Euro counterfeit ing, com m odity counterfeit ing and intellectual property theft , and m oney laundering. The OCTA (2006, p. 17-22) also ident ifies ‘key facilitat ing factors with regards to crim inal m arkets’, which provide OCGs with opportunit ies for com m issioning serious crim es, including docum ent forgery and ident ify theft , m isuse of the t ransport sector, exploitat ion of the financial sector, problem s of globalisat ion and ease of m ovem ent across borders.

Table 2. OCTA Threat Assessment I ndicators, Categories and Pat terns

Key Indicators of OCGs Categories of OCGs Regional Pat terns of OCGs

The Internat ional Dim ension: m eaning, internat ional co-operat ion

• OC Group St ructures: pat terns of crim inal associat ion and co-offending

• Use of Legit im ate Business St ructures

• Specializat ion: providing or recruit ing actors with specialist skills

• I nfluence and Corrupt ion: m isusing ent rusted power for private gain

• Violence

• Counter-m easures: undertaken by OC groups to avoid detect ion and prosecut ion

Territorially based, indigenous OCGs, with extensive t ransnat ional act ivit ies

• Mainly ethnically hom ogenous groups with their leadership and m ain assets abroad

• Dynam ic networks of perpet rators

• OCGs based on st r ict ly defined organizat ional principles without an ethnic com ponent , coupled with a large internat ional presence.

• The south-eastern region of the EU, with a focus on Turkish and Albanian OCGs

• The south-western region of the EU, with a focus on certain Afr ican OCGs

• The north-eastern region of the EU, focusing on the Balt ic States and the influence of Russian speaking OCGs

• The At lant ic region, revolving m ainly around the pivotal t ransnat ional role of Dutch, Brit ish and Belgian OCGs

Source: European Union Organised Crim e Threat Assessm ent 2006 (OCTA 2006, p. 11-17, 24) .

Even so, the assessm ent proceeds from an ident ificat ion of OC actors t o their act ivit ies and their consequences, rather than taking the accom plishm ent of part icular crim inalized act ivit ies as the analyt ical focus, in which the m obilizat ion of different actors is but one part . The adm ixture of the indicators, categories, regional pat terns, principal act ivit ies and facilitat ing factors used to define the threats posed by organised crim e groups has been crit icised for producing a confused analyt ical tool. As van Duyne and Vander Beken (2009, p. 274) argue:

On the one hand, [ the OCTA] seem s a threat assessm ent when it t r ies to m ake statem ents about organised cr im e groups and cr im inal m arkets. On the other hand, it carries elements of an im pact assessm ent since the evaluat ion of the level of threat is som et im es direct ly connected to it s impact on society. Moreover, the analysis of key facilitat ing factors ( like the m isuse of the road t ransport sector) contains elem ents of a vulnerabilit y study.

Mindful of the confused picture em erging out of the OCTA, the first assessm ent notes that , ‘Weight ing crim e areas against one another is inherent ly difficult . This



too, has less to do with analyt ical insights than value statem ents, reflect ing different priorit ies in the MS [ Mem ber States of the European Union] and beyond’ (OCTA 2006, p. 25) . I t is acknowledged that , ult im ately, the intelligence on which the OCTA is prem ised is gleaned from , ‘years of polit ical and law enforcem ent experience’ (OCTA 2006, p. 26) , a dependence that is reinforced by the key m ethodological inst rum ent of threat assessm ents, that of surveys of police forces’ percept ions of organised crim e act ivit y (Gregory 2003; van Duyne and Vander Beken 2009) .

Without wishing to dism iss the relevance of polit ical and law enforcem ent -based assessm ents of threat , there is a danger that these bracket -off other kinds of expert ise about organised crim e. This has at least three possible ram ificat ions (Edwards and Levi 2008, p. 372-374) :

1. Without reference to countervailing analyses, threat assessm ents run the r isk of becom ing self- referent ial, recycling the prevailing values and priorit ies ( the categories and fram es of reference) of the polit ical and law enforcem ent agencies who are surveyed for t he purposes of com posing the threat assessm ents;

2. Privileging law enforcem ent intelligence presupposes law enforcem ent responses, even whilst the very lim itat ions of law enforcem ent as a crim e reduct ion st rategy are recognised. Consequent ly, the first OCTA states both that the internat ional scope of OCG act ivit ies and their infilt rat ion of the upper-world of governm ent and com m erce, ‘gives them a sort of im punity and perpetuity that counteracts law enforcem ent effort s’, but it nonetheless asserts that , ‘when at tacking OC, law enforcem ent is at the heart of polit ical and econom ic life in the EU.’ (OCTA 2006, p. 5, 23) ; and

3. The failure to switch the analyt ical focus from the prosecut ion of actors, OCGs, to the organisat ion of serious crim es inhibits the t ransform at ion of st rategic priorit ies (such as sustainable crim e reduct ion) into detailed operat ional recom m endat ions.

Whilst cataloguing OCG actors and act ivit ies, threat assessm ents rem ain very obtuse and abst ract about the explanat ion of organised crim e problem s and consequent ly how rem ediable they are. There is lit t le sense of how serious crim es are actually organised and what this tells us about the possibilit ies for crim e reduct ion. Whilst subsequent iterat ions of the annual OCTA have refined the discussion of it s core concepts, the ram ificat ions of it s law enforcem ent -cent red st rategy rem ain. The assessm ent for 2011, for exam ple, ident ifies the growing im portance of the internet as a ‘key facilitator ’ of organised crim e, it notes the increased diversificat ion of OCGs into ‘m ult i- com m odity’ and ‘poly-crim inal’ act ivit ies, notes the increased collaborat ion am ongst OCGs in ‘regional hubs’ across Europe and the corrupt ion of experts in t ransport , finance, real estate, law and pharm aceut icals who can facilitate serious crim es (OCTA 2011, p. 5-6) , whilst st ill concluding that , ‘Targeted law enforcem ent act ion is needed to tackle the m ost dangerous crim inal groups operat ing in Europe’ (OCTA 2011, p. 4) .

2.3.2. SOCTA 2013 – 2017

The establishm ent of the EU Serious and Organised Crim e Threat Assessm ent for the 2013 – 2017 period was prom oted by the Director of Europol, Rob Wainwright , as a significant developm ent in thinking that takes policy-m aking about organised crim e beyond the OCTA. He describes it as a st rategic report that , ‘delivers a set of recom m endat ions based on an in-depth analysis of the m ajor crim e threats facing the EU. The Council of Just ice and Hom e Affairs Ministers will use these recom m endat ions to define priorit ies for the com ing four years.’ (SOCTA 2013, p. 5) . I n addit ion to this m ore m edium - term focus, following a decision in 2010 to shift to a ‘m ult i-annual policy cycle’ for responding to problem s of organised crim e, the SOCTA is prem ised on, ‘a new m ethodology’ that was developed over the



course of 2011-2012, ‘by Europol in cooperat ion with the SOCTA expert group com posed of representat ives from EU Mem ber States, Europol’s third partner count ries and organisat ions, the European Com m ission and Council General Secretariat . ’ (SOCTA 2013, p. 42) . The SOCTA m ethodology is represented as developing threat assessm ent beyond the previous OCTA by refining indicat ions of OCGs and augm ent ing these with indices of Ser ious Organised Crim e areas (SOCs) , their Effect s on EU society and the ident ificat ion of various Crim e-Related Factors (CRFs) in the environm ent which can either facilitate or inhibit OCGs and SOCs. These dist inguishing characterist ics of the new m ethodology are sum m arised in Table 3.

I n a novel developm ent , the SOCTA m ethodology is also accom panied by a response from three academ ic researchers interested in organised crim e, Dr Xavier Raufer 1, Professor Dr Arndt Sinn 2 and Professor Max Taylor 3 (SOCTA 2013, p. 44-45) . They congratulate Europol and the SOCTA team on, ‘the product ion of a thorough and com petent analysis’, which helps to develop the kind of approach that is needed to understand ‘the t rans-border character of m uch serious crim e’ (SOCTA 2013, p. 44) . They ident ify a num ber of likely future t rends and issues:

− m aintaining the balance of freedom and security through ‘good law enforcem ent inform ed by sophist icated analysis to inform policy decisions’;

− the changing balance between polit ically-driven and econom ically-driven terrorism ;

− the hybridisat ion of crim inal act ivit y (sim ilar to earlier argum ents about m ult i- com m odity poly-crim inal organisat ions) , for exam ple the use of the internet by OCGs to diversify into m ult iple illicit m arkets from fraud to counterfeit goods, as in the exam ple of ‘Silk Road’4;

− the unintended and current ly unforeseen consequences of general technological developm ents for serious crim e opportunit ies; and

− changes in the dem and for different kinds of drugs am ongst different age cohorts as previously lucrat ive m arkets decline to be replaced by m arkets for new intoxicants including new synthet ic drugs.

1 Director of Studies, Department of Research on Contemporary Cr im inal Threats (MCC), University Par is I I - Panthéon-Assas, France. 2 Director of the Centre for European and I nternat ional Cr im inal Law Studies, University of Osnabruck, Germany. 3 Director of the Centre for the Study of Terror ism and Polit ical Violence, University of St . Andrews, UK. 4 ‘Silk Road’ was a black-market website operat ing in the Dark Net , established in 2011 and closed down in 2013 by the US Federal Bureau of I nvest igat ion.



Table 3. The SOCTA Methodology

Aim and Scope

− Analyse the character or threatening features of organised crim e groups (OCGs) − Analyse the threatening features of serious and organised crim e areas of act ivit y (SOC areas) − Analyse threatening aspects of OCG and SOC areas by region − Define the m ost threatening OCGs, crim inal areas and their regional dim ension

Developm ent from OCSR

− Present and future-oriented, not ret rospect ive, threat assessm ent

Developm ent from OCTA

− The scope and use of indicators for organised crim e groups (OCGs) has increased and indicators have been developed to analyse SOC areas − Horizon scanning has been added to bet ter define future threats − The effects of SOC and crim e- relevant factors are analysed in detail to allow for bet ter and m ore focused prior it isat ion

Data Sources The SOCTA is based on data from law enforcem ent agencies and open sources.

Law enforcem ent data includes:

− data available within Europol − data obtained from MS via quest ionnaires, and − data obtained from third organisat ions and count ries

The open sources m aterial used has been carefully evaluated for the reliabilit y of the source and the validity of t he inform at ion

Threat indicators

Tailored indicators describe and assess the int rinsic characterist ics of OCGs and SOC areas and are used to assign their respect ive level of threat

OCG indicators

− Low: cooperat ion with other groups, expert ise, external violence, counterm easures against law enforcem ent − Medium : adaptable and flexible, level of resources, the use of legal business st ructures (LBS) , act ive in m ult iple crim e areas − High: an internat ional dim ension to their act ivit ies, the use of corrupt ion

SOC indicators

− Low: resource availability, social tolerance, linked crim e areas − Medium : innovat ion, num ber of groups act ive and evolut ion of the crim e area − High: internat ional dim ension and high profit s

Effect indicators

− Measure the effect that OCGs and crim e areas have on EU society

These indicators are key in ident ifying priorit y threats and arriving at substant iated recom m endat ions.

Crim e-Related Factors (CRF) are facilitat ing factors and vulnerabilit ies in the environm ent that have an influence on current and future opportunit ies or barriers for OCGs and SOC areas. CRF are analysed via horizon scanning, which aim s to ident ify future t rends in society and future crim e threats.

Source: European Union Ser ious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment 2013 (SOCTA 2013, p. 42-43) .



These academ ics also ident ify key challenges in the m ethodological conundrum of predict ion in future-oriented approaches to threat assessm ent . As predict ive m odels are invariably prem ised on the ext rapolat ion of historical data, they condem n analysts to fight the last bat t le rather than genuinely ant icipate and effect ively intervene against novel crim inal pract ices. As a response to this conundrum they suggest , but don’t explain, the need for ‘cont inuous crim e t rend scanning, extending the SOCTA approach to support a m ore proact ive approach’ (SOCTA 2013, p. 45) . They also note a conceptual need to recognise the m obilit y of m ult i-com m odity poly-crim inal actors across nat ional and administ rat ive boundaries and the need to avoid the kind of m irror- im aging that has debilitated previous security st rategies (see also, Sheptycki 2003) . They argue that global crim e problem s require global policy responses, otherwise security agencies bound by nat ional and other adm inist rat ive boundaries are dest ined to be out flanked by the increasingly ‘flat ’ networked and dist r ibuted organisat ion of crim inal act ivit y. Finally, Raufer, Sinn and Taylor discuss the im plicat ion of these future t rends for the process, as well as the content , of threat assessm ent , arguing that it will have to be m ore dynam ic, flexible and responsive than previous exercises that were too slow and bureaucrat ised to keep pace with adaptat ions in crim inal organisat ion. The last point echoes a long-established crit icism of the policy response to organised crim e by researchers not ing the ‘prot ieform ’ qualit ies of serious crim e in which adaptat ions are fuelled by an ongoing ‘arm s race’ between perpet rators and preventers to outwit and out flank each other (Dorn 2003; Ekblom 2003) .

Even so, Raufer et al. argue that ‘the SOCTA process and m ethodology we believe to be robust enough to t rack and inform the problem s these [ challenges] m ight im ply for the future’ (SOCTA 2013, p. 45) . I n t his regard, however, it is worth cit ing crit icism of the first UK St rategic Assessm ent of Serious and Organised Crim e by the newly established Nat ional Crim e Agency (NCA 2014) , which adopts a sim ilar conceptual approach to that of the EU SOCTA. Analysts from the Royal United Services Inst itute’s organised crim e program m e argue that :

The way organised crim e is addressed in the UK has undergone a m ajor overhaul in the last few years with the creat ion of the Nat ional Crim e Agency. The first st rategic assessm ent provides a good snapshot of the current state of organised crim e. However, it points to a lack of knowledge about organised cr im e and it s drivers – som e of which could be addressed through research and deeper analysis. I f the NCA is going to have a bet ter record than it s predecessors, it m ust work on get t ing the basics r ight . Knowing your enem y would be a good start (RUSI 2014)

Sim ilarly, it isn’t clear t he indices of OCGs, SOCs, Effects and CRFs defined in the SOCTA m ethodology actually tell us m uch about the drivers of serious crim e or, m ore prosaically, how serious crim es are actually organised. The failure to pose this basic quest ion, let alone ‘get t ing it r ight ’, rem ains the m ost rem arkable characterist ic of the polit ics and jurisprudence of group offending in this policy area. I ndeed it can be argued that it is the jurisprudent ial preoccupat ion with crim inal law enforcem ent rather than crim e and harm reduct ion that explains m uch of this basic theory failure in the policy response to organised crim e. I n this regard, and notwithstanding the preoccupat ion with the flat , networked and dist r ibuted organisat ion of crim inal act ivit y, the actor-oriented legacy of Kefauver and Cressey rem ains st rong in SOCTA 2013. Whilst not wishing to doubt the im portance of the crim inal prosecut ion of serious offenders for heinous crim es, realising the difference between crim inal law enforcem ent on the one hand and the reduct ion of crim e and harm , on the other, rem ains im portant for innovat ions in the future developm ent of the policy- research relat ionship.

2.4. The organisat ion of serious crim es: com m issioning processes

The dist inct ion between law enforcem ent and cr im e reduct ion does not preclude the role of the form er in the lat ter, only the t reatm ent of the two as synonym ous. I f cr im e reduct ion is m ore than law enforcem ent , what else is it? Concepts taken from



volum e crim e reduct ion, of household burglary and autom obile thefts for exam ple, have been used by crim inologists to rethink the organisat ion of ser ious crim es (Cornish and Clarke 2002; Ekblom 2003; Levi and Maguire 2004; Felson 2006; Levi 2007, see also Greenfield and Paoli 2010; Vander Beken and Verfaillie 2010) . From this literature it is possible to ident ify a num ber of core proposit ions and to synthesise them into a novel conceptual fram ework for defining an explanandum ( the processes of com m issioning serious crim es) and it s explanans ( the scripts, scenes and scenarios of these processes and their harm ful effect s) :

1. Reducing serious crim es entails an analyt ical focus on the com m issioning of offences:

a) The at t r ibutes of perpet rators (whether lone offenders or co-offenders in alleged ‘organised crim e groups’ are ‘Albanian’, ‘Chinese’, ‘Russian’ or whatever) are of concern only in so far as they help explain the com m issioning process ( for exam ple the use of ethnicity and kinship as a resource for t rafficking illicit goods and in ways that insulate t rafficking networks from disrupt ion, including interdict ion by law enforcem ent ) but of them selves have no int rinsic analyt ical value;

b) The offence- focus im plies a concern with specific types of crim e and a presum pt ion ( to be corroborated and refined through com parat ive em pirical research) that different types of crim e necessitate different com m issioning processes or, to use a crim inological term , they necessitate different ‘cr im e scripts’5 which break-down any crim e into the part icular sequence of act ivit ies through which it is accom plished ( t rafficking heroin from the Middle East into Western Europe, for exam ple, requires a different script from the sourcing of m aterials for , and the product ion and dist r ibut ion of, counterfeit fashion apparel and so on and so forth) .

2. Understanding the com m issioning of serious crim es entails an analyt ical concern with the interact ions of offenders, vict im s and guardians in specific social contexts:

a) Cont rary to the dram at ic focus on the pursuit and prosecut ion of ‘cr im e bosses’, ‘kingpins’ and ‘core nom inals’, a concern with the com m issioning process also reveals the rout ine interact ions between offenders, their targets and the presence or absence of capable guardians that consequent ly create opportunit ies for serious crim e ( for exam ple the interact ion of illegal drug dealers and consum ers on st reet corners, public parks and other notor ious places that are under-policed or otherwise ‘unm anaged’) ;

b) A concern with the interact ions through which specific crim es are com m issioned needn’t lim it the analyt ical focus to part icular situat ional set t ings (such as st reet corners or public parks) nor t o current or ret rospect ive knowledge about serious crim e. I t can broaden the social contexts of com m issioning to include other kinds of environm ents, such as t ransnat ional m arkets and e-com m erce through the internet , and to ant icipate future ‘scenarios’, including the likely consequences of different policy responses for escalat ing or

5 A concept init ially developed by Cornish and Clarke (2002) to augment rat ional choice analyses of organised cr imes and subsequent ly elaborated and applied by Levi and Maguire (2004) to understand other pract ices in the modi operandi of organising and prevent ing ser ious cr imes. The concept is employed in this paper in this later, broader, sense to include rat ional and other disposit ions in the scr ipts and to connect these to their antecedent condit ions ( ‘scenes’) , their prospects ( ‘scenar ios’) and their consequences ( ‘harms’) . As such, the argument here includes the situat ional circumstances and rout ine act iv it ies that are the analyt ical concern of Cornish and Clarke and of fellow t raveller Felson (2006) but without restr ict ing the concept of cr ime scr ipts to this situat ional focus.



reducing crim e rates (Vander Beken and Verfaillie 2010) . Renowned exam ples include the im pact of law enforcem ent operat ions against drug dealers generat ing violent turf wars for the share of m arkets freed-up by the successful rem oval of part icular dealers or the likely consequences of decrim inalising illicit drug use for public health and safet y.

3. The harm ful effects, the ‘seriousness’, of serious crim e entails norm at ive as well as em pirical analysis and interpretat ion as well as m easurem ent in the priorit isat ion of the policy response:

a) . Another im plicat ion of the dist inct ion between law enforcem ent and crim e reduct ion is to shift the focus of policy outcom es from successes or failures in the prosecut ion of offenders for predicate offences, the volum e of their cr im inal assets that are confiscated or the volum e of illicit goods that are captured, towards reduct ions in the harm ful consequences of these offences. The presum pt ion here is that incapacitat ion or disrupt ion of part icular offenders does lit t le to alter or debilitate the com m issioning process or it s harm ful im pact , part icularly in highly lucrat ive m arkets such as the t rade in narcot ics, where there are m any recruits wait ing to step into the shoes of incarcerated or otherwise incapacitated offenders;

b) . Establishing the relat ive harm of different types of serious crim e is a seriously challenging exercise, beyond the kind of legal criteria favoured by the form er Serious Organised Crim e Agency in the UK, which defined seriousness in term s of an offence which would incur a prison sentence of at least 3 years on first convict ion (SOCA 2006, p. 5n1) . I t entails challenges that are both norm at ive ( ‘what const itutes a harm and from whose perspect ive?’) and em pirical (whether to calculate harm s in term s of gross figures or net of possible benefit s, for exam ple the therapeut ic benefit s that are believed to accrue from cannabis use for those suffering neurological com plaints; whether t o tally harm s over a year, a decade or a lifet im e; and the com m ensurabilit y of different harm ful effect s, say ‘bat tered children and household burglaries’ as harm ful effect s of illicit drugs use, see Greenfield and Paoli 2010, p. 8-9) . Even so, at tem pts are current ly being m ade to develop a ‘r isk assessm ent m at rix’ that ranks harm s according to their ‘severity’ (on a scale from negligible to catast rophic) and their ‘probabilit y’ ( from unlikely to frequent ) . Although not without som e interpretat ive flexibilit y, this m at rix at least provides the analyst with a system at ic start ing point for priorit ising the seriousness of certain act ivit ies relat ive to others from one ext rem e ( frequent and catast rophic) to another (unlikely and negligible) (Greenfield and Paoli 2010, p. 16) .

4. Analysis of the scripts, scenarios and harm ful effects of organising serious crim e im plies a m ore concrete ident ificat ion of weak points or ‘vulnerabilit ies’ in the com m issioning process for specific types of crim e and their priorit isat ion in policy responses:

a.) Em erging work in this field ident ifies border cont rols, shipping routes and visa applicat ions as notable weak points in t rafficking hum an beings and t ransport ing stolen vehicles (Levi and Maguire 2004, p. 428-429) . Other exam ples of weak points ident ified through script analysis include the ease with which paym ent card fraud could be com m issioned (prior to the int roduct ion of ‘chip and pin’ cards) (Levi and Maguire 2004, p. 433-8) , or the ease with which am phetamine-



t ype st im ulants can be m anufactured using legal precursor chem icals procured from pharm acies (Chiu et al. 2011) or the ease with which Vehicle I dent ificat ion Num bers (VINs) could be switched from legal but wrecked autom obiles to stolen vehicles for t he purposes of resale (Trem blay et al. 2001, p. 568) ;

b.) These scripts reveal the im portant role of crim e ‘prom oters’, whether intent ional and corrupted or unwit t ing, in support ing offenders in the com m issioning of serious crim es. Viewed from the perspect ive of com m issioning, the key actors are not only the offenders but the pharm acies providing precursor chem icals, the paym ent card com panies providing credit that can be easily forged and the vehicle licensing authorit ies operat ing licensing regim es open to abuse;

c.) Allied to the harm reduct ion fram ework, the analysis of com m issioning inform s a policy response that can priorit ise the investm ent of resources in target ing weak points and in accordance with j udgem ents about the severity and probabilit y of any given crim e type. This is especially apposite in an ‘age of austere’ public expenditure and lim ited resources for crim e prevent ion, part icularly inefficient and uneconom ical exercises in law enforcem ent .

5. A crim e reduct ion st rategy prem ised on the target ing of weak points in the com m issioning process im plies a broadening of the policy response from law enforcem ent to include other public authorit ies, the involvem ent of private organisat ions and public-private partnerships:

a.) The ident ificat ion of cr im e prom oters, as well as intent ional co-offenders ( conspirators, ent repreneurs and poly-crim inals) , in the com m issioning process broadens the scope of crim e reduct ion beyond law enforcem ent m easures target ing known offenders. Allied to norm at ive and em pirical j udgem ents about the harm s associated with different crim es, this approach begins to suggest a rat ionale for a division of labour am ongst public and private sector ‘preventers’ and opportunit ies for public-private partnerships in which the effort and costs of sustainable crim e reduct ion are shared (Levi and Maguire 2004, p. 417-423) . I n addit ion to charging public authorit ies other than the police (such as vehicle licensing) and private organisat ions (such as solicitors and accountants) with surveillance and enforcem ent dut ies in relat ion to the com m ission of serious crim es, this policy t rend generates a wider repertoire of policy choices. I t m ight , for exam ple, be argued that scarce public resources are bet ter concent rated on crim es that are m ore frequent and m ore crit ical ( if not catast rophic) for a higher proport ion of the public (Greenfield and Paoli 2010) . The exem plar of this harm -based calculat ion being the t rade in class A narcot ics but , it could be argued according to this kind of calculus, also the online t rade in counterfeit prescript ion drugs, the sale of cont raband alcohol and cigaret tes (Hornsby and Hobbs 2007) and the em erging t rade in ‘counterfeit m eat ’, all of which generate high volum e threats to public health. I n turn, it m ight be argued that counterfeit ing of luxury fashion goods (whilst now a sizeable illicit m arket ) is less of a priorit y for public policy, as it is relat ively less severe in it s consequences than other crim es dem anding a public response and that responsibilit y for its reduct ion ought to lie firm ly with private organisat ions, their insurance com panies and private security providers (Wall and Large 2010) ;

b.) Whilst highly cont roversial, not least because of it s explicit priorit isat ion of policy responses and targets, the harm reduct ion



approach provides a norm at ive as well as em pirical fram ework for the polit ics and jurisprudence of group offending. I t enables deliberat ion about the necessary priorit isat ion of alternat ive policy agendas for crim inal, restorat ive and social j ust ice and for r isk m anagem ent and their relat ionship to sustainable public protect ion in contexts of austere public expenditure (Edwards and Hughes 2012; Edwards et al. 2013) .

6. This broadening of the policy response also im plies a concern with the condit ions or ‘scenes’ in which scripts are played out result ing in more or less harm ful scenarios. The concept of scenes alerts us to the im portance of an analyt ical concern with the condit ions that can enable or frust rate scripts and their re-writ ing:

a.) Following the dram aturgical m etaphor, it can be acknowledged that scenes provide possibilit ies for im provisat ion in the script and are not crudely determ inist ic of perform ance. Even so they suggest a certain narrat ive progression in the script which actors are disciplined to follow and do not com pletely re-write each t im e they perform ;

b.) Disam biguat ing im provisat ion and narrat ive in serious crim e scenes is in part a quest ion for ‘concrete’, em pir ical research, requir ing access to the accounts that can be elicited through qualitat ive interviews with offenders, vict im s, cont rol agents and other researchers ( ‘perp talk’, ‘survivor talk’, ‘Don talk’ as well as ‘cont rol talk’) and their const ruct validat ion, including the scripts, scenarios and scenes that em erge from cross-exam inat ion in court proceedings (Levi 2008) . As a precursor to this it is, however, also possible to engage in abst ract research entailing thought experim ents about the necessary and cont ingent social relat ions that render serious crim es possible (Edwards and Levi 2008) . An instance of this kind of thinking has been provided by Felson (2006) , in which im provisat ion around narrat ives is understood in term s of the rout ine act ivit ies enabling the necessary supply of offenders, presence of t argets and absence of capable guardians (or presence of m ore than capable but corrupted guardians) ;

c.) Perhaps this kind of abst ract research is what Raufer et al. m eant through their reference to ant icipat ing serious crim e futures through ‘cont inuous crim e t rend scanning’ although it sounds m ore like som e induct ive exercise in big data m ining rather than the kind of theory-driven research advocated here (see also Edwards 2016a, 2016b; Housley et al. 2014) ;

d.) I t is through the m ore system at ic thinking through of these relat ions in assem bling explanat ions of crim e scripts, scenarios and scenes that social research can influence, not j ust crit ique, the turn towards ant icipatory form s of governing serious crim es.

I n this regard there is a need to challenge the language and assum pt ions of crim e ‘analysts’ allied to the policy process and to rehabilitate an older language of social research that renders explicit the different pract ices necessary at various stages of social scient ific work (Keat and Urry 1981, p. 248-249, see below) . Researching, rather than ‘analysing’, the organisat ion of serious crim es alters the relat ionship between social scient ists and the policy com m unity. This shifts the policy- research relat ionship away from a view that social scient ists ought to be enrolled into agendas set by policy-m akers to service their technical refinem ent or bet ter com m unicat ion to broader publics. Conversely, the language of research locates



social scient ists as const ruct ive crit ics of these agendas inhabit ing a culture of organised scept icism that can pose alternat ive visions of cont rol. These alternat ives m ay, for exam ple, entail counter- intuit ive ( for law enforcem ent agencies) form s of non-enforcem ent such as t r iggering self- regulat ion (Edwards and Gill 2002) .

3 . Researching t he organisat ion of ser ious cr im es

Whilst the policy t rend towards a focus on the organisat ion of serious cr im e rem ains subordinate to the other policy t rends considered above, it is gaining increasing salience am ongst the research com m unity. Policy-oriented learning can be understood in relat ion to the types of research st rategy im plied by this t rend and these can be dist inguished in term s of generalizat ions about ‘organised crim e’ as a singular subject , abst ract ion (or thought experim ents) about the processes or m echanism s through which serious crim es can be com m issioned and concrete research into em pirical cases of how these m echanism s com bine in the organisat ion of part icular types of cr im e in certain social contexts (Keat and Urry 1981, p. 248-249) . Finally, research could consider the prospects for a synthesis of these research st rategies to quest ion whether there are any generic lessons to be drawn from com parat ive case studies of how part icular crim es are organised and any com plem entarit ies or inter-dependencies in the com m issioning of different crim es (cf. Sayer 1992, p. 236-241) . Such a synthesis is, for exam ple, the logical im plicat ion of crit ically test ing assert ions about the em ergence of m ult i- com m odity poly-crim inals. The key com ponents of these research st rategies and their relat ionship to one another are illust rated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Types of Research St rategy

S1 S2 S3 Sn

M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 Mn

E1 E2 E3 E4 En

Source: Adapted from Sayer, 1992: 237

KEY

Generalisation

Abstraction

Concrete research

Synthesis

M6

……………..

……….

………..

E = EffectsM = MechanismsS = Structures

These dist inct ions, taken from m ethodological debates in the social sciences (Sayer 1992, p. 237) are helpful in clarifying how research st rategies steer policy-oriented learning towards certain quest ions and away from others. As a research st rategy, generalisat ion regards the effect s of social relat ions or social events in relat ively sim ple term s, it s m ain purpose being to ident ify regularit ies and com m on propert ies. I t is possible to understand conspiracy theories, illicit enterprise m odels and threat assessm ents as exercises in generalisat ion insofar as they define organised crim e in term s of the at t r ibutes of organised crim e groups ( ‘ut ilising com m ercial or business- like st ructures’, ‘em ploying violence and other form s of int im idat ion’, ‘exert ing influence on public authorit ies through corrupt ion’,



‘ethnically hom ogenous’, ‘terr itorially-based’, ‘having a large internat ional presence’ etc. , etc.) . As suggested in the ‘organisat ion of serious crim es’ paradigm , however, this is a theoret ical failure that reduces organised crim e to a singular, sim ple, thing in order t o ask how ‘it ’ is organised, rather than focussing on specific crim inal act ivit ies and how they are organised through various scripts, in certain scenes with alternat ive scenarios. I n this fram ework, the key quest ions for research, rather than ‘analysis’, becom e: how the interact ion of scripts, scenes and scenarios can evolve over t im e, what they tell us about the actual com m issioning of crim es and what this suggests for the ident ificat ion of vulnerabilit ies that can, in turn, be targeted for the purposes of harm reduct ion?

To understand the organisat ion of serious crim es it is necessary to replace generalisat ions about organised crim e groups with a focus on ‘concrete’ cr im e t ypes and their possible interrelat ionship or hybridisat ion. I n these term s ‘m ult i-com m odity poly-crim inalit y’ are indicat ions of how scripts, scenes and scenarios are evolving but there is st ill a need to build explanat ions of how such scripts are accom plished. As such ‘concrete’ refers to the idea of regarding com m issioning processes as ‘unit ies of diverse determ inat ions’ (Sayer 1992, p. 236) . Analysis of crim e scripts and scenarios seek to capture the m ult ifarious m echanism s (signified in Figure 1., by M1, M2, M3 … Mn) that com bine to generate different com m issioning events (E1, E2, E3 … En) and that can com bine in different ways to produce different crim e outcom es (M1 + M2 = E1; M3 + M4 = E2; M4 + M5 = E3; M6 = E4 etc.) . To take the exam ple of the m anufacture and dist r ibut ion of Am phetam ine-Type St im ulants (ATS) discussed by Chiu et al. (2011) , it is possible to ident ify several m echanism s:

M1: Locat ion of laboratory (house, shed) ;

M2: Get t ing the goods ( legal purchase, illegal purchase, social network) ;

M3: Storage of goods ( laboratory, rental sheds, storage facilit ies) ;

M4: Cooking drug ( test cooks, chem ist experts) ;

M5: Packaging drug;

M6: Dist r ibut ion of drug ( I n person, official courier) ;

M7: Benefit s (personal consum pt ion, m oney) .

(Adapted from Chiu et al. 2011, p. 362) .

These m echanism s can be regarded as the necessary requirem ents of synthet ic drug product ion and dist r ibut ion yet whether and how they actually com e together to successfully com m ission this crim inal enterpr ise is cont ingent on various context -specific factors: the capacity to source and store precursor chem icals ( in sufficient quant it ies at regular intervals) , to recruit the necessary expert ise to com bine these chem icals, to store and dist r ibute the final product in ways that do not at t ract the at tent ion of the authorit ies and so forth. I n turn this crim e script suggests potent ial vulnerabilit ies in the com m issioning process that m ight prove m ore am enable to rem ediat ion than laborious and expensive law enforcem ent st rategies target ing perpet rators for the purposes of crim inal prosecut ion and sanct ioning. For exam ple, a st r icter licensing regim e for the legal sale of chem ical precursors and m onitoring of pharm acies m onthly stocks and sales.

Im plicit in the analysis of crim e scripts and m ore explicit in the concept of crim e scenes and scenarios (which are often less observable) is the im portance of thought experim ents or ‘abst ract ion’ to ident ify possible causal m echanism s. Abst ract ion fulfils two key analyt ical purposes. I t counters self- referent ial thinking, for exam ple, the recycling of current polit ical and law enforcem ent categories and fram es of reference, by encouraging researchers to em ploy other fram es of reference such as fram ing the drug t rade as an issue of public health, addict ion and com pulsive consum pt ion not j ust ‘rat ional choice’ or as an issue of thrill- seeking cultural



pract ices and other ‘notes on the script ’ ( see Hayward and Young 2004; and Wall and Large 2010, on counterfeit ing of luxury fashion goods as a cultural pract ice) . Secondly, it encourages researchers to think about the social st ructures that generate these m echanism s and their possible ways of act ing (signified in Figure 1., by S1, S2, S3 …Sn) . I t encourages researchers to connect social st ructural t rends to crim e com m issioning processes in, for exam ple, the consequences of substant ial sovereign debts for public expenditure on law enforcem ent and other prevent ive effort s; the expansion of the drugs t rade as an alternat ive to reduced em ploym ent opportunit ies in legal econom ies; the increased dem and for cont raband and counterfeit goods given reduct ions in disposable incom e and prices in the form al econom y ( including increasing costs in com m odit ies such as the global m eat m arkets) ; the im pact of civil wars and m ilitary intervent ions on governing capacity and as drivers of serious crim e to fund (para)m ilitary cam paigns; and the im pact of em ergent technologies on the arm s race between organisers and preventers of serious crim es (Edwards 2016a, 2016b) .

Som e advocates of crim e script analysis eschew this kind of st ructural analysis as an unnecessary dist ract ion from ident ifying the situat ional opportunit ies for com m issioning serious crim es and the m ore pragm at ic, feasible, st rategies for prevent ion im plied by a focus on ‘proxim ate’ factors, rather than the ‘distal’ factors that are the concern of polit ical-econom y (Cornish and Clarke 2002) . However, st ructural analysis rem ains im portant for establishing the governing capacity for responding to em erging crim es. What , for exam ple, can ‘capable guardianship’ m ean in the context of m ajor reduct ions in police, m unicipal governm ent and other statutory services within count r ies experiencing severe crises of sovereign debt? What else can capable guardianship m ean in the context of weak states where crim inal enterprises provide what lim ited em ploym ent opportunit ies and welfare services are available to m arginalised populat ions? How sustainable are crim e reduct ions in a context where, to return to the insights of the Wickersham Com m ission, capable guardianship has been captured, if not owned, by crim inal enterprises? (Edwards and Levi 2008, p. 378-381) .

The, as yet , unt r ied synthesis of these research st rategies suggests a future direct ion for the policy- research relat ionship in responding to serious crim es. I t addresses a conceptual problem with the offence-specific focus of crim e script analyses, which is that interconnect ions and interdependencies m ay exist across different crim es, am ount ing to a cum ulat ive problem , the ‘m ult i- com m odity’ and ‘poly-crim inal’ enterprises ident ified in the EU OCTA (OCTA 2011) . These interconnect ions are ‘fram ed-out ’ of an analyt ical focus on the com m issioning of specific crim es, notwithstanding the depth of insight that concrete studies of com m issioning can yield. For exam ple, som e crim es, such as arm ed robbery or, in the digital age, the less r isky enterprise of internet fraud, m ay be com m it ted as an end in them selves or t o fund ent ry into m ore lucrat ive drug m arkets, which m ay in turn fund the t rafficking of people into the sex indust ry or other labour m arkets.

Whether and how these specific crim e types are interconnected is a m oot point for a research st rategy that looks for the m echanism s connect ing the com m ission of different crim e types (signified in Figure 1., by the relat ionship of M4 to both E2 and E3) . A significant pay-off from this synthesis could be the ident ificat ion of part icular m echanism s ( for exam ple, absent border cont rols (M4) ) that if targeted could yield sustainable reduct ions in several serious crim es ( for exam ple t raffic in hum an beings + narcot ics (E2 + E3) ) . Synthesis also encom passes generalisat ions, for exam ple regularit ies in com m issioning processes, which m ight prove im portant for ident ifying those causal m echanism s which are ‘super-weak points’ ( such as border and port cont rols) in the com m issioning of several serious crim e types and which could be em ployed in st rategies aim ed at ‘poly-crim e’ enterprises.

Synthesis also provides a research st rategy for t est ing proposit ions about crim e deflect ion or displacem ent (Barr and Pease 1990) and how these can im pact on the



reduct ion of serious crim es. For exam ple, the m align displacem ent of stable drugs m arkets into violent turf wars is a renowned crit icism of law enforcem ent intervent ions within the field of drugs policy (Edwards and Gill 2002) , less clear is the displacem ent effects of intervent ion against certain serious crim es (e.g. narcot ics t rafficking) for driving the diversificat ion of crim inal enterprises into com m issioning other crim e types (e.g. fraudulent e-com m erce; counterfeit ing etc.) . I n these term s, synthesis supports the norm at ive and em pirical quest ions provoked by the harm reduct ion approach; whether, for exam ple, a st rategic policy ought to be adopted for deliberately seeking to deflect the organisat ion of serious crim es that could be regarded as m ore severe and m ore probable onto those with a lower threshold of severity. The broader point is that as a research st rategy, synthesis bet ter facilitates the kind of st rategic and ant icipatory policy-m aking that is required in ‘austere’ econom ic condit ions where m ot ivat ions for organising serious crim es are fuelled whilst governing capacity is weakened.

4 . Conclusion

I f the aspirat ion for ‘evidence-based’ policy-m aking is retained, these m ethodological considerat ions becom e even m ore significant for public debate. I f the aspirat ion is to escape the self- referent ial narrat ives of law enforcem ent and re-fram e policy responses to serious crim es in ways that are m ore suited to the scenarios presented by the polit ical-econom ic challenges of the present , current t rends in crim inological research present grounds for guarded opt im ism . Although m ethodological innovat ions in the analysis of crim e scripts, scenes, scenarios and their harm s are st ill nascent , they are already beginning to dem onst rate the advantages of broadening policy-oriented learning beyond a preoccupat ion with actor-oriented accounts to the processes through which serious crim es are actually com m issioned and the social st ructures which generate these processes and im ply targets for st rategic intervent ions. The norm at ive dim ension of researching com m issioning processes and their consequences also provides a basis for deliberat ion about dilem m as in the polit ics and jurisprudence of group offending, specifically the evident ial grounds for pre-em pt ive intervent ions in the pursuit of restorat ive and social j ust ice-driven policy responses, relat ive adm ixtures of crim inal j ust ice and r isk m anagem ent .

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