Summary
Serious and organised crime is increasing, with at least 4,500 organised criminal groups active in the United Kingdom, costing the economy at least £37 billion a year. Serious and organised crime is difficult to tackle. It is broad and varied in nature, hidden from view and causes considerable harm to individuals and communities. Despite launching a new strategy for dealing with serious and organised crime in 2018, government does not yet fully understand the threats from serious and organised crime. It does not have the right data to measure success or the performance of the government and law enforcement bodies tackling serious and organised crime. These bodies are focused on pursuing criminals after the crime has been committed, but this has been at the expense of doing work to ‘prevent’ crime from happening in the first place.
The Home Office is currently not using all the levers it has at its disposal to ensure that law enforcement bodies at local, regional and national levels prioritise work to tackle serious and organised crime. Without a better system, police forces will continue to focus most of their resources on local priorities, which will not necessarily reflect or help address the national priorities for serious and organised crime. There is still confusion over the role law enforcement bodies at each level should play in tackling serious and organised crime. As we have previously found, funding mechanisms are complicated and short-term—a problem compounded by uncertainties surrounding the delayed 2019 Spending Review.
Published: 27 September 2019