Crime

OPINION: Following the publication this month of Australia’s National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program, which shows a surge in consumption across every major drug type in every region of the country, Dr John Coyne, Director of National Security Programs at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, argues that Australia’s national drug strategy is “in freefall”, and that law enforcement resources should be refocused on disrupting the infrastructure of illicit drug markets.

ANALYSIS: As protests around hotels housing asylum seekers look set to grow in the wake of the recent court decision involving Epping, and supporters of Palestine Action continue to adopt a protest policy of mass arrests, Policing Insight’s Graham Wettone, a former Metropolitan Police officer and public order specialist, looks at the background and implications of the public order challenges facing policing this summer.

FEATURE: A new report from Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner Eleanor Lyons into how the UK policing response to modern slavery has changed over the past 10 years warns that the Whitehall rhetoric and political focus on organised immigration crime has left forces under resourced and officers with ‘one hand tied behind their backs’ in the fight against modern slavery – despite the significant impact on victims and the economy – as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INNOVATION: Operation Yellow Card, an innovative scheme launched by Cambridgeshire Police and local football clubs to tackle youth offending at matches, has already significantly reduced reoffending among youngsters and could soon be rolled out across other forces, as scheme founder and Cambridgeshire PC Mike Price – the Dedicated Football Officer (DFO) for Peterborough United – explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

OPINION: County lines drug dealing was defined in the UK by the National Crime Agency in 2015, and has evolved considerably over the last 10 years, with some believing the term itself is now outdated; University of Liverpool Graduate Teaching Fellow and PhD Candidate Jenna Carr, a former county lines caseworker, argues that the evidence of the past decade suggests policing-led crackdowns on county lines are largely ineffective, and that public health and addressing the demand for drugs should be the priority.

FEATURE: New research highlights how organised crime groups and long-term corporate actors are increasingly involved in a range of waste crime, attracted by the significant profits as well as the relatively low level of deterrents and punishments, as Policing Insight’s Dr Chris Allen reports.

ANALYSIS: Recent horrific events and the accompanying media headlines have led some to believe Australia is in the grip of a knife crime epidemic; in this final article in a series from The Conversation on weapons and violence in Australia, Bond University Associate Professor Terry Goldsworthy explores the statistics around violent crime and weapons offences across Australia, and how the public perception in some quarters of a significant rise in crime is not reflected by the data.

FEATURE: Organised crime groups (OCGs) are driving a significant increase in UK vehicle thefts, with international and online market places and criminals stealing to order, against a backdrop of dwindling detective numbers and a lack of specialists, says a new study from the Royal United Services Institute, which calls for a new national co-ordination body to tackle the “complex, cross-jurisdictional and international threat”, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: Recent horrific events and the accompanying media headlines have led some to believe Australia is in the grip of a knife crime epidemic; in this third article in a series from The Conversation on weapons and violence in Australia, Griffith University Professor Janet Ransley warns that while police and politicians are focusing on tackling weapons in public, current approaches have little effect, with stronger efforts to target knife use in domestic violence likely to have greater impact.

INNOVATION: With the ‘Internet of Things’ – that vast network of physical objects embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies to connect and exchange data – continuously expanding, the cyber threat landscape and the level of opportunities for criminals and bad actors grows with it; Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the recently introduced Cyber Resilience Act, one of the first pieces of legislation aiming to improve the cybersecurity of products or software with a digital component.

ANALYSIS: In the second in a series of articles exploring the links between sport and organised crime – from street level to international syndicates – Policing Insight’s Chris Dalby looks at the issue of modern slavery in football across the UK and Europe, where young players from Africa and Asia are trafficked thousands of miles from home on the promises of opportunities that don’t exist, often to end up broke and abandoned, or further exploited through illegal labour, drug dealing and the sex trade.

ANALYSIS: Recent horrific events and the accompanying media headlines have led some to believe Australia is in the grip of a knife crime epidemic; in this second article in a series from The Conversation on weapons and violence in Australia, Macquarie University lecturers Professor Alex Simpson and Dr Vince Hurley argue that the latest crime data suggests the use of weapons and violent crime in the country is decreasing, and that compared to many other others, Australia fares well on these issues.

FEATURE: A new report from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has found that most countries have gaps in their understanding of terrorism financing trends, with terrorist organisations exploiting vulnerabilities both in traditional financial systems, and increasingly through online opportunities; the FATF is calling for greater international collaboration and the harmonisation of legal frameworks, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: In the first in a series of articles from The Conversation on weapons and violence in Australia, Griffith University Principal Research Fellow Dr Samara McPhedran looks behind claims by the media and politicians that the country is in the middle of a violent crime crisis to explore the statistics and the real picture when it comes to the use of weapons and violent crime rates in Australia.

FEATURE: As daily life for many people moves increasingly online, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at the recent Europol report exploring how law enforcement can deliver community policing in the digital age, the “capability and relevance gap” that police urgently need to address, and how the work of the EU’s Koban project could help to build the future capabilities of community policing in both the physical and virtual domains.

FEATURE: The latest World Drug Report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime suggests that while the cocaine market continues to boom, the collapse of heroin production – due largely to the Taliban-enforced opium ban in Afghanistan – could lead to organised crime looking at alternative drug markets such as fentanyl and crystal meth, as Policing Insight’s Dr Chris Allen reports.

INNOVATION: The Offending 2 Recovery (O2R) programme pioneered by West Midlands Police is credited with life-saving support to get addicts off of drugs, while also significantly reducing the shoplifting crimewave faced by retailers; Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to the officer who first created O2R, the police and crime commissioner who funds it, and the former addict who stole more than £30m of goods to feed her habit and who believes O2R saved her life.

ANALYSIS: Prevent training – particularly the duty-to-refer protocol – as part of the UK’s anti-terrorism provision does not serve its purpose; a study at one university in England identified issues faced by those lecturers currently charged with the responsibility to implement it, explains Nicole Lees, a Lecturer in Security, Intelligence and Investigative Practice at the University of Cumbria.

FEATURE: Despite many initiatives to tackle the high volume and harm of domestic abuse, victim-survivors are still being failed, says a new report, with a definition of domestic violence that is “too broad for effective operational policing”, a lack of resources to deal with growing and increasingly complex demand, and a risk assessment system that is “not fit for purpose” among the main barriers to improving service delivery, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: The rapid advancement of drone technology – as highlighted by their growing and impactful use in conflict zones such as the Ukraine war – is also expanding the potential threat posed by terrorist organisations, raising concerns for both law enforcement and defence agencies alike, as Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth reports.

INNOVATION: New Zealand’s Resilience to Organised Crime in Communities (ROCC) initiative – a community-based, multi-agency initiative in which NZ Police are taking a lead role – is combining enforcement against drugs and gangs while also working to provide pathways for youths to avoid being drawn into gang culture, building trust with the public, and supporting communities to make their own decisions, as NZ Police ROCC Manager John O’Keeffe explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

ANALYSIS: Baroness Casey’s latest review was pounced upon as proof the authorities have suppressed uncomfortable truths around the ethnicity of grooming gangs, and while her findings don’t quite confirm that, she is critical of the lack of action to protect vulnerable girls during the past decade; the Government has committed to implement her recommendations – but Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett examines whether they will really make a difference.

ANALYSIS: In the first in a new series of articles exploring the links between sport and organised crime – from street level to international syndicates – Policing Insight’s Chris Dalby looks at the growing impact of match-fixing and spot-fixing, which are influencing the outcomes of sporting events from the lower leagues to the largest stage in the UK and globally, and driving an illegal betting industry worth more than a trillion US dollars.

OPINION: Despite data showing an overall fall in most crime over the last 30 years, the public perception in Britain is one of an increasingly lawless country; the public’s concerns matter, and Patrick Olajide, a Senior Researcher in Crime, Justice and Security at the National Centre for Social Research, believes that how the press report on crime is one factor worsening those fears, by painting an incomplete, distorted and – at worst – dishonest picture of crime and justice in the UK, which has a damaging impact both on communities and those working within the criminal justice system.