Citation
King, C. (2013), "The National Crime Agency", Journal of Money Laundering Control, Vol. 16 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMLC-07-2013-0028
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
The National Crime Agency
Article Type:
Editorial
From:
Journal of Money Laundering Control, Volume 16, Issue 4
According to a 2011 UNODC report, the total value of all criminal proceeds is approximately 3.6 percent of global GDP, or US$2.1 trillion (UNODC, 2011, p. 9). While there are no general estimates of the size of criminal profits in the EU, a European Commission Memo from 2012 points to individual examples such as Italy (where organised crime revenues were an estimated EUR150 billion in 2011) and the UK (where organised crime revenues were estimated at £15 billion in 2006) (European Commission, 2012a, b). A joint paper from the Cabinet Office and the Home office (2009, p. 8) suggests that the economic and social costs of organised crime in the UK are between £20 and £40 billion per year. Unsurprisingly then, a focus on criminal assets has come to the fore, both internationally and domestically. By the end of this year, there will be yet another agency assuming responsibility for targeting criminal assets in the UK, when the National Crime Agency replaces the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
Regular readers of this journal will be familiar with the rationales underpinning the “follow the money approach, for example that targeting criminal assets: demonstrates that crime does not pay, reinforces confidence in the criminal justice system, removes negative role models from communities, disrupts criminal networks, deters criminal activity due to reduced returns, etc. Different aspects of “follow the money approaches (e.g. criminal confiscation, non-conviction based confiscation, anti-terrorism financing measures) have been widely discussed. Yet, the impact of the anti-assets strategy has not received the same attention.
In Future Directions for Organised Crime Research, the Home Office emphasised the importance of understanding the impact of policies and practices: “Understanding the effectiveness of interventions – the evidence of ‘what works’ – is at the heart of policy research and is a central priority for organised crime research (Home Office, 2011, para. 29). The Home Office document points to major changes in UK policing, such as the proposal to create a National Crime Agency, which “will need access to robust evidence on ‘what works’ (Home Office, 2011, para. 34). The National Crime Agency is soon to be operational, under the leadership of Keith Bristow, having received royal assent under the Crime and Courts Act 2013. It is hoped that the new agency will buy into evidence-based consideration of “what works. Two points are worth mentioning at this point:
the importance of transparent and reliable data; and
the impact of the anti-assets strategy.
One area in which the Serious Organised Crime Agency was open to criticism was a lack of transparency and consistency in publishing the amounts realised in targeting criminal assets. For example, it would not be unusual for different figures to be published by SOCA and the Home Office in relation to amounts seized during a particular year; nor would it be surprising if those figures did not correspond with figures disclosed following Freedom of Information requests (Harvey, 2014). The absence of reliable data does little to instil confidence in the asset recovery regime and the agencies tasked with enforcing this regime. It is hoped that the new National Crime Agency will adopt a more open stance than the notoriously secretive SOCA.
Alongside the importance of transparency and consistency is the question of how to measure the impact of the anti-assets strategy. A criticism levied against both SOCA and its predecessor the Assets Recovery Agency was a poor return measured both as a stand-alone figure and against the costs of running SOCA/ARA. A tunnel vision on amounts realised is, however, rather short-sighted – though an inevitable consequence of including monetary returns as one key performance indicator. Monetary returns do not tell the whole story, so should not be used as a sole measure of success or failure. There is a need to look beyond the immediate monetary sums to see what disruption is caused to criminal activities. To insist on these agencies being self-financing is also unhelpful, unless the focus is on ensuring profitability (of the agency) rather than disruption of criminal activity.
The National Crime Agency would do well to learn from the mistakes of SOCA and ARA. The proceeds of Crime Act was enacted in 2002, yet there remains a dearth of knowledge on the operation and impact of the focus on criminal assets. Levi and Maguire (2004, p. 404) have emphasised that:
Far more detail is available about inputs and outputs – institutions established and actions taken to combat organized crime – than about their impact (outcomes).
They continue: “In short, it remains largely a matter of faith that there is some impact beyond the immediate operational outcomes (such as arrests or seizures of drugs) (Levi and Maguire 2004, p. 405). A decade later, the same might equally be said about the anti-assets strategy. Amounts confiscated and/or the number of confiscation orders obtained have been elevated to a place that is not necessarily merited.
Colin King
References
Cabinet Office and Home Office (2009), Extending Our Reach: A Comprehensive Approach to Tackling Serious Organised Crime, Stationery Office, London
European Commission (2012a), Commission Staff Working Paper: Accompanying Document to the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and the Council on the Freezing and Confiscation of Proceeds of Crime in the European Union: Impact Assessment, SWD (2012) final, European Commission, Brussels, 12 March
European Commission (2012b), Confiscation and Asset Recovery: Better Tools to Fight Crime, Memo/12/179, European Commission, Brussels, 12 March
Harvey, J. (2014), “Asset recovery: substantive or symbolic, in King, C. and Walker, C. (Eds), Dirty Assets: Emerging Issues in the Regulation of Criminal and Terrorist Assets, Ashgate, London (in press)
Home Office (2011), Future Directions for Organised Crime Research, Stationery Office, London
Levi, M. and Maguire, M. (2004), “Reducing and preventing organised crime: an evidence-based critique, Crime, Law and Social Change, Vol. 41, p. 397
UNODC (2011), Estimating Illicit Financial Flows Resulting from Drug Trafficking and Other Transnational Organized Crimes, UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Vienna