A network approach to organized crime by the Dutch public sector

Abstract

Addressing organized crime through public networks from an institutional perspective constituted one of the major innovations in crime control in the Netherlands; with significant implications for the manner in which the challenging problem of organized crime is governed by public administration. Two of the major foundations were the growth of public policies and implementation strategies that advanced across diverse jurisdictions and, based on the situational crime framework and crime scripts, the shifting focus from a preoccupation with offenders to analysis of circumstances which facilitate crime as well as viable opportunity-reducing measures, regardless of the motivation of offenders.

Keywords:

• crime scripts
• organized crime
• public governance networks
• public safety policy

Notes

1. According to Terpstra and Kouwenhoven (2004, p. 47), networks in the domain of public safety and security can be seen as policy networks or governance networks. See also (Crawford & Jones, (1995); Dean, Gottschalk, & Fahsing, 2010; Olsthoorn & van Hees, 2010).

2. COMPSTAT is an accountability process and management philosophy or organizational management tool for police departments, roughly equivalent to Six Sigma or TQM. COMPSTAT is a multilayered dynamic approach to crime reduction and personnel and resource management.

3. See for example Crawford (2009), Crawford and Jones (1995), Garland (1996a), Henry (2012), Hughes and Gilling (2004), Kenis and Provan (2006).

4. On the grounds that most of the current intervention strategies aim to eliminate opportunities for crime, rather than to focus on specific perpetrators (Nelen, 2010, p. 95). (See also Willem Huisman, Huikeshoven, Nelen, & van de Bunt, 2005; van der Schoot, 2006).

5. Central to the situational approach is a general disbelief that criminal groups are that important in explaining organized crime (see Edwards & Levi, 2008; Felson, 2006a, 2006b; Kleemans, Soudijn, & Weenink, 2012; Levi & Maguire, 2004).

6. Drawing on routine activity theory and rational choice theory.

7. From the rational choice perspective, it has been argued, this connection is obvious as ‘organized crime is rational crime par excellence’ (see Clarke & Eck, 2005; Cornish & Clarke, 2002; Olsthoorn & van Hees, 2010).

8. (E.g. Bullock et al., 2010; Edwards & Levi, 2008, p. 374; Kleemans et al., 2012; Levi & Maguire, 2004; Naylor, 2003; Van de Bunt & van der Schoot, 2003; Von Lampe, 2011, p. 149).

9. The city of Amsterdam set up a project to develop and implement an administrative approach to combat the organized crime problem: the Van Traa-project. This project is internationally recognized as a successful example of such an approach (Huisman & Nelen, 2007).

10. Clarke (1997) refers to this as a ‘criminal script of tactical and logistical actions.

11. The Barrier Model was based on the work of Siebe rand Bögel in 1993 in’ Logistik der organisierten Kriminalität’ Wiesbaden, Bundeskriminalamt (see also Spapens et al., 2011, pp. 10–22; Van de Pol, Gorissen, & Veldhuis, 2012).

12. As such, it tries to identify factors such as facilitators of crime, illicit actors, illegal service providers and activities at each node or phase (see Aronowitz et al., 2010, p. 75; Van de Pol et al., 2012, pp. 11–12).

13. Term coined by McIntosh (1975, p. 23). See Von Lampe (2011, p. 163).

14. Not all convergence settings are permanent in nature and attached to a specific location. Interprovincial meetings among Outlaw Motorcycle Gang members have reportedly taken place during kickboxing galas, for example. These examples highlight the situational contingencies of offender networking, suggesting the usefulness of adopting a situational perspective in the analysis of the associational dimension of organized crime when finding methods to address it.

15. Although each individual offence will have its unique characteristics, any one class of offending will have sufficient elements in common to allow the kinds of generalisation made and thus facilitate the kind of preventive intervention that might be applied to the whole class of offending rather than treating each offence as an individual incident.

16. Later named the 5 I’s model.

17. In many policy documents, certainly in Europe, the terms governance and network and the call for new ways to organize public services or decision-making processes can be found (see Klijn, 2008; Klijn & Edelenbos, 2012; O’Leary & Vij, 2012; Rhodes, 2007).

18. The idea that governance often takes place in and through networks of political actors, often combined with social actors, with the network being the defining characteristic of governance (Isett et al., 2011). In Europe, the network concept is as such strongly tied to the governance concept whereas this relationship in the United States is less clear (see Klijn, 2008; Klijn & Edelenbos, 2012, pp. 3–4; Rhodes, 2007, p. 1245).

19. The globalization of crime: A transnational organized crime threat assessment (2010). Since 1997, the subject of addressing organised crime has always been on the agenda of the European Union (Van de Bunt & van der Schoot, 2003).

20. Garland (1996b) refers to this policy as a strategy of responsibilization. He states that ‘increasingly preventive action takes the form of establishing co-operative, inter-agency structures which bring together public and private organizations in order to initiate local projects’.

21. Contact between the illicit and licit environment falls into three categories: the demand for illegal products and services from the licit environment, the abuse of facilitators in the licit environment and the availability of ‘tools’ in the licit environment (Van de Bunt & van der Schoot, 2003, pp. 9–10; p. 25).

22. Under the current Bibob legislation, authorities may examine a company’s or a person’s record before a permit or a subsidy is granted or a public contract is awarded. In the event of a criminal record or obscure financial structures the permit, the subsidy or contract may be refused.

23. See also Huisman and Nelen (2007), Olsthoorn and van Hees (2010), van der Schoot (2006), Von Lampe (2011).

24. As mentioned in the explanatory memorandum to the BIBOB Act. Kamerstukken II, 1999–2000, 26, 883, No. 3:2. See also van der Schoot (2006, pp. 110–112).