Crime Central blog: nice timing from Soca

The fight against organised crime is to be overhauled, in a tacit admission by the Government that the problem is out of control.

In his first speech on crime since becoming Prime Minister almost two years ago, Gordon Brown announced today a new strategy to tackle criminal businesses.

The rethink follows mounting concern in Whitehall at the failure of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and the police to bring multimillion-pound criminal enterprises to justice.

The Prime Minister’s strategy unit at No 10 has been carrying out a review of Soca, which has been criticised for failing to halt the spread of organised crime from the cities to the shires. Soca, which is due to publish its annual report tomorrow, is seeking a new chairman to take over from Sir Stephen Lander, the former head of MI5, who retires in July.

The Government’s new strategy will include a different approach to e-crime and a more aggressive use by the police of powers to shut down businesses run by known criminals.

“We face new kinds of crime – especially knife crime, organised crime, e-crime and identity theft – and now, of course, the new challenge of preventing what happened in previous recessions, where crimes like burglary and robbery went up,” Mr Brown said at a conference on crime.

Mr Brown also announced that league tables were to be published showing the amount of cash and property being seized from drug dealers and other major criminals in each police force area.

The Prime Minister’s decision that there an overhaul is needed comes just three years after Soca was launched by Tony Blair as Britain’s answer to the FBI.

Last month The Times revealed that police have identified 2,800 organised criminal gangs, nearly three times the number previously acknowledged. The report from HM Inspectorate of Constabulary admitted that British law enforcement is ill equipped to deal with the threat that they pose.

The report stated: “The UK law enforcement community now knows more about organised criminality than ever before. Worryingly, though, this increased knowledge has highlighted the need for a more effective response by the police and other agencies.

“The reach of organised criminality is more extensive than previously acknowledged ... from local teams of criminals engaged in drug dealing and acquisitive crime through to international gangs committing acts of large-scale importation, kidnap, fraud and corruption.”

The report contrasted the nationwide spread of organised crime with the disjointed reaction of police and Soca. Britain’s response was described as blighted by a lack of direction, inadequate surveillance and under-investment in intelligence, analysis and enforcement.

Last week Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said that the issue of tackling organised crime had to be addressed again.

“I am disappointed with the progress – or lack of progress – made since 2003 to impact significantly on organised crime in the United Kingdom,” he said.

“We have to increase the national police capability to deal with serious organised crime. I don’t think we have made the progress that we should have done.”

Organised crime is responsible for laundering £15 billion of criminal profits through the economy, putting 30 tonnes of heroin on the streets each year, organising the trafficking of women and children for sexual purposes, carrying out fraud to the tune of £20 billion a year and importing illegal firearms.

The biggest concentrations of crime syndicates are in London and the North West, with criminals in those areas controlling satellite gangs elsewhere in the country.

The budget for Soca is about £400 million, compared with the £2.5 billion a year designated for counter-terrorism, leading to criticism that the Government has never taken organised crime seriously.

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