National Security vs Criminal law. Perspectives, Doubts and Concerns on the Criminalisation of Organised Crime in England and Wales

Abstract

National security vs criminal law. Perspectives, doubts and concerns on the criminalisation of organised crime in England and Wales. Abstract:This paper will interpret and critically analyse the new offence for organised crime in England and Wales (Section 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2015) from a criminological perspective in light of evidence found in research in the country. It will argue that changes in the law relate to changes in political narratives rather than to variations in the criminal panorama of organised crime. It will discuss these changes within three perspectives, which address various levels of concern: a narrative perspective, which reflects on the overlapping of meanings in the use of the words 'organised crime'; an evolution perspective, which reflects on the origins of the new participation offences with reference to both national and international pressures; a management perspective, which reflects on some of the immediate effects of the new offences of organised crime on the criminal justice system. This paper will conclude that political narratives have indeed influenced criminal policy, while there is no significant change in the phenomenon of organised crime to justify such narratives.

Organised food crime: an analysis of the involvements of organised crime groups in the food sector in England and Italy

“…The feature of seriousness has been analysed in relation to regulatory breaches against consumers such as food offences [ 69 ]. Moreover, literature and policy debates have constructed organised crime as a cluster of complex and serious crimes through the “ paradigm of seriousness ” [ 70 , 71 ]. This paradigm implies that if a criminal practice is serious – if it creates severe consequences to the victims or it is punished with high penalties – then this practice is labelled and tackled as organised crime to protect national security.…”

Cyber-organised crime. A case of moral panic?

“…While most academic studies focused on particularly serious forms of cybercrimes, such as those compromising data and financial security (Birk et al 2007;Yip et al 2013;Hutchings 2014;Formby et al 2017), other studies and reports draw conclusion on cybercrime more in general (Choo & Smith 2008;McGuire 2012;Broadhurst et al 2014;Europol 2017). Unfortunately, unequivocal evidence of the presence of OC online is so far missing, as most existing papers are based on hypothesis, on a limited number of case studies, or set extremely low standards for inclusions of different phenomena as OC (which has been consistently criticised over the years by OC researchers, see for instance Paoli 2002;Hobbs 2013;Sergi 2016) (see also Leukfeldt et al 2016Leukfeldt et al , 2017 for an updated and broader literature review on the use of the cyber-OC rhetoric in these studies). While the existing literature suggests that it is likely that the criminogenic features of cyberspace are attractive to OC, there is currently no sufficient evidence that OC groups are morphing into online criminal networks.…”

“…Assuming characteristics of the offenders involved as a proxy for the seriousness of the offence is always problematic (Sergi 2016). In the lack of sufficient empirical evidence, therefore, the alleged link between Bcyber^and BOC^seems to serve the purpose to sensationalise statements and articles (Lusthaus 2013) by invoking imagery of mafia-type OC or, to borrow Wall's words, Bcyberpunk meets The Godfather^ (Wall 2008: 873).…”

“…More specifically, this study will analyse UK press to explore to what extent Bmoral panicĉ an be identified, how primary definers (or Bmoral entrepreneurs^, in the moral panic jargon) use particular tactics and rhetorical constructions, and what are the dominant consequences. 1 The UK has been chosen as a relevant case study as it is a country where the conceptualisation of OC has been evolving and refining from both a policy and a legal point of view over the years in a process dominated by the juxtaposition between the concepts of Bserious^and Borganised^, which led to the characterisation of OC as a national security issue (Campbell 2014;Sergi 2016). Over the last few years, as demonstrated in Lavorgna and Sergi (2016), an inverted parallelism between the characterisation of OC as a serious threat to national security and the developing characterisation of cybercrime as serious crime too -therefore organised Bby defaultis triggering the securitisation of cybercrime in the country, with important consequences in terms of policing powers and approaches, and resources allocation.…”

Counteraction to High Treason in Russian Legislation of the Second Half of the 19th — Early 20th Centuries

“…Примечательно, что в последние годы зарубежные исследователи также уделяют внимание как общим проблемам правовой защиты национальной безопасности, так и проблемам уголовной ответственности за государственную измену, нередко охватывая также аспект исторического становления и развития уголовно-правовых институтов в этой сфере [Aldrich et al, 2018;Fodor, 2012;Sergi, 2016;Steinberg et al, 2014;Zedner, 2010].…”