The Real Politics of Responding to Organised Crime

While organised crime groups are adapting to resource scarcity, insecurity and declining economic opportunities, the response to organised crime is also affected. Whereas organised crime groups are leveraging opportunities to expand their business model, upstream responses to organised crime that have been deployed by the UK, EU member states and the European Commission need to be justified and rationalised in light of increased attention on geopolitical threats and tightening budgets. The breakdown of longstanding norms of international cooperation, essential for addressing transnational threats such as organised crime are resulting in an increased focus on national security. Government action upstream is prioritising threats and locations where a direct line can be drawn to domestic threats, and countries without their own domestic resources to tackle organised crime are being largely left to grapple with the threat alone. This paper traces the political pressures that are influencing government and intergovernmental responses to organised crime, focusing in particular on the upstream activities of the UK and the EU, and how these activities have changed as a result over the preceding 18 months, considering the implications for organised crime. During this time, the UK and many EU member states have committed to increase their defence spending, often at the expense of official development assistance. There has also been pressure from electorates to address immigration, which is drawing resource from wider organised crime responses. Accordingly, a focus on the UK and EU provides a case study to explore how responses to organised crime are affected by political pressures, and how they fit within the emerging political settlement. Rather than just admiring the problem and acknowledging that tackling organised crime has become harder, the paper seeks to engage in a dialogue with the other papers presented on the panel, identifying opportunities and entry points to make the case for organised crime responses within the political context. Accordingly, it is forward looking, acknowledging that the global system has changed, and our response to organised crime will need to change with it.