NCJ Number
226596
Journal
Criminology and Criminal Justice Volume: 8 Issue: 4 Dated: November 2008 Pages: 483-507
Date Published
November 2008
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This article examines a decade of developments in the organization of organized crime policing, particularly within the international context.
Abstract
The policing of organized crime can be characterized by the strengths of flexibility and innovation, with opportunities to achieve successful prosecutions, and reduce harm within a transnational context. But the organization of organized crime policing suffers a number of weaknesses: significant differences in capacity and capability between jurisdictions; different and indifferent attitudes towards treaty negotiations, ratification, and implementation; and different attitudes and agenda in relation to mutual legal assistance and international law enforcement co-operation. Over-arching these issues is the threat to the legitimacy of organized crime policing (particularly in an international context) arising from the lack of overall organization around which to structure an effective governance framework. Whereas the past decade of developments has been characterized by progress in the tactical practicalities of organized crime policing, which has defined how the wider organization of such activity has developed, the next decade needs to be characterized by creative and evidence influenced conceptualizations of the threat, and what is threatened in order to better understand how organized crime will feed off the variant state-types now being identified; this will inform the organization of policing and its governance. Notes and references