Briefing on the criminal networks priority

Report: 7
Date: 24 April 2006
By: Commissioner

Summary

The purpose of this report is to provide further background to the MPA around the Criminal Networks priority in the MPS Corporate Strategy.

It provides at outline of the ongoing development work in the area of criminal networks, identifies the development of targets and a performance regime for this area and highlights any issues that are causing the MPS concern.

A. Recommendation

That

1. members agree the new approach for tackling criminal networks – as outlined in the Policing Plan – subject to ongoing review and specific briefings as requested; and
2. help coordinate and integrate this approach across the MPS

B. Supporting information

1. Criminal Networks is now one of the key priorities in the Metropolitan Police Service’s Corporate Strategy, and on 15 March 2006 an internal and external launch of the MPS new approach to Criminal Networks took place. Feedback from this has been extremely positive. This new approach has been developed in the Specialist Crime Directorate and led by Assistant Commissioner Ghaffur over the last 12 months. It is aimed at improving our knowledge and intelligence of criminal network activity across London (and beyond), disrupting these criminal networks and seizing their assets, and reducing the harm they cause in communities and neighbourhoods across London.

Background

2. Changes in technology, travel and the diversity of London’s communities as well as London’s increasing dominance as a major financial and cultural centre are reflected in the growing complexity and presence of criminal networks affecting our capital. To tackle this policing challenge, we need to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the social, economic and political impact the activities of these criminal networks have on individuals, neighbourhoods, communities and London itself.

3. Criminal networks generally do not focus on a single activity or crime type such as drug dealing or prostitution but are involved in a range of criminal activities. They tend to take crime opportunities when they occur or commit crime in order to facilitate more serious crime, for example stealing someone’s identity to make people trafficking possible. Serious and organised crime can take many forms, for example kidnap, threats to kill, shootings, robberies and extortion.

4. Because of the range of opportunities open to criminals, they tend to be involved in a range of criminal activities for profit, selecting low risk, high profit options as they arise. Police will always investigate crimes as they happen, but the real challenge now is to try and prevent a larger proportion of this criminality from occurring in the first place, to be pro-active in targeting the criminal networks that we know about, and to be better prepared for dealing with crimes that require a fast-time response. In order to do this, we need to tackle the criminals and their networks and support systems as much as the crime type. We need to identify and disrupt them, and so impact on the entire range of crime they engage in to be immediately effective, but also to address crime trends in the longer term. To do this we need to map the criminal networks and all the activities they are involved in to the best of our knowledge.

5. Community engagement is a crucial aspect of enabling us to understand the harm being caused by criminal networks within a specific community and to enable us to effectively disrupting criminal network activity and helping prevent it spreading, or becoming further entrenched. We have to build up the confidence of each community/ neighbourhood so they feel safe to talk to the police and trust that we will protect them, and so that we have people willing to provide evidence against offenders when necessary. In many cases, community members are too afraid of the criminal networks or wary of the police to give evidence to enable us to convict.

6. We are making a concerted effort to understand how criminal networks affect the different communities in London (Vietnamese, Tamil and other South Asian (Operation Quadrant), Turkish and Trident), and to work with these communities to establish a way that the police can help them. The perception of organised crime differs between cultures – some accept extortion as part of doing business and will not necessarily challenge it and usually will not report it. It is an enormous challenge for the police to gain the trust of so many different communities. Safer Neighbourhood Teams are and will continue to be a key part of helping understand how criminal networks affect different communities, as will Independent Advisory Groups and increased consultation with business, education and social groups.

7. This involves working closely with other UK law enforcement agencies (in particular the Serious Organised Crime Agency) and other police forces, and also the governments of other countries as we seek to understand and address the issues behind the criminal activity. For example the recent emergence of Vietnamese cannabis factories across London and associated money laundering and other criminal activity has meant that we are engaged with the Vietnamese government and police, and also the relevant agencies in Australia and Canada where they are also dealing with this particular issue. These national and international links will be vital in tackling the wider policing issues and underlying causes of many of the new and emerging trends we are seeing in criminal network activity across London.

8. Criminal role models are present in many communities and these people often attract and encourage local vulnerable young people to take part in increasing criminal activity. Targeting these criminal role models and helping to divert the vulnerable young people away from criminal activity is part of this approach.

Relationship with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA)

9. It is crucial that the MPS creates and retains a close strategic partnership with SOCA – a view that is shared by those at the head of SOCA. Much work is currently underway (led by SCD) to establish protocols and Standard Operating Procedures (these should be in place by the end of May) between the two organisations to ensure a smooth working relationship at the operational level. Regular meetings also take place at the strategic level to ensure that the thinking, performance frameworks and learning/knowledge is shared and to ensure the relationship remains mutually beneficial. Over time the intelligence picture, via the Strategic Assessments and the Criminal Networks prioritisation work, will help inform the overarching SOCA priorities. The MPS is aware that it is vital that a productive long-term relationship is built with SOCA in order to achieve the performance goals of both organisations and reduce the harm from organised crime.

10. SOCA and the MPS will exchange and share certain officers, particularly in the areas around intercept (where SOCA retains ownership of the process but we now have our own officers in the section), tasking and intelligence. The MPS will be able to task SOCA via this process, and vice versa. We do not envisage that this will be unmanageable, and we are already sharing intelligence around the top core nominals and networks.

Methodology: Four Steps and the Prioritisation Matrix

11. We have developed a methodology (referred to as the ‘Matrix’) to map the criminal networks in London, their activities, and make an assessment of the harm caused by their actions in order to prioritise between different networks. This is linked to the Core Nominal Index, which includes individuals within criminal networks, with others, whom we prioritise and aim to target based on a similar threat assessment. The aim is to ensure that our pro-active operations (whether intelligence, prevention or enforcement) are targeted against the higher priority networks and individuals. There are several layers to the Matrix (a database housed in SCD) that is under continual development, and we are hoping to incorporate all criminal networks identified from across the MPS as soon as possible.

12. The four main steps of the methodology, all involving the matrix and the information it captures, entail:

• Understanding the networks and the criminal activities they are involved in. This entails changing how we gather, analyse and use intelligence, from a single crime type focus (i.e. focusing separately on drugs, firearms, robbery) to identifying all the criminal activities a network is involved in and proactively targeting the network itself, rather than reactively investigating the offences. Key elements to this are the issue of presenting this information, identifying where our intelligence gaps are, and commissioning intelligence requirements to address these, and challenging the culture of not sharing intelligence within the organisation.
• Understanding the harm criminal networks cause to communities and neighbourhoods. The understanding of direct and indirect harm and harm reduction is evolving within the government, and the MPS are leading the way on how was can measure and assess this. The Matrix is one way in which we can assess harm, and our impact; we are also developing methods to identify how harm is perceived within communities by way of surveys, community consultation and the new Safer Neighbourhoods Teams. The MPS Corporate Control Strategy and the National Policing Plan both contain objectives relating to progressing our understanding of harm, and demonstrating our contribution to harm reduction. It should be noted that the reduction of harm is a government objective, and it is not one the MPS is expected to deliver alone, and the creation of SOCA will assist law enforcement in progress this.
• It is clear that criminal networks impact on people’s quality of life and increase fear of crime. We are using the information and intelligence we have to identify the best approach we should take to tackle the networks that pose the greatest threat to communities and London. We will use people with the highest quality skills and our other resources to tackle these priority and prolific offenders. This work will involve all parts of the Metropolitan Police Service, partner agencies and other law enforcement agencies to ensure that our specialist skills are effective in reducing the harm caused by criminal networks.
• Prioritising for Intervention: To ensure that we are focusing our operational and intelligence resources on those networks causing the greatest harm to communities, as well as prioritising areas and issues for prevention, alongside the continuing reactive work. Both the Matrix and the Core Nominal Index will ensure that those individuals and networks posing the greatest threat are the subject of law enforcement activity. As such, this prioritisation will also include upward tasking to SOCA where appropriate.
• Evaluating impact and harm reduction: This links to aspects of the strategy; linking individual disruptions to the level of harm linked to a network and crime reduction in communities and measuring community confidence in our activities and the perception of harm reduction within communities. We are working with the Home Office on academic work and pilots to establish baseline harm assessments for various communities, as well as analysing surveys such as the Public Attitude Survey.

Types of criminal networks operating in London

13. We have classified the criminal networks active in London into four main groups that are aimed at describing the core cohesive factor that explains why these people are doing business together. These classifications are:

• Family networks: based around a core family (the Krays are a popular traditional example)
• Proximity networks: based around a certain geography – a neighbourhood where people grew up together; a prison where they met and formed business ties; where they live now or specific focus of their activity (e.g. networks that focus on Heathrow airport)
• Cultural networks: where the binding factor is a common language, culture, hometown or friends-in-common. Over time some of these networks will become less exclusively focused around one culture and they might shift to the proximity classification
• Virtual networks: where the networks do not meet physically (i.e. internet based) drawn together by a shared interest (e.g. paedophilia). Also covers service providers such as money launderers who are not necessarily a member of any particular network, or those involved in fraud

What we are learning

14. Prior to this year we were unable to provide evidence for the ‘big picture’ of criminal network activity, which made it difficult to demonstrate how organised crime fed into perceptions of crime more generally, violence, murder rates etc. These breakdowns are relevant as it starts to provide an evidence-base around criminal networks and organised crime that the MPS has never been able to provide before. It demonstrates the multi-commodity and multi-criminality aspect of criminal networks – before some would talk about this but it could not be ‘shown’ that it was the case. It is this sort of evidence that provides the fuel for internal reconfiguration from being structured around crime types (i.e. ‘a drugs squad’, ‘an armed robbery squad’, ‘a money laundering squad’) alone, to having a more flexible operational team to be accountable to what the intelligence is telling us about these criminal networks. This should minimise the internal duplication of having separate operational teams looking at the same network/individuals but from different crime type angles.

15. Of the 180 or so criminal networks we currently have mapped (though some we have only very sketchy intelligence) we have learned the following:

• 47% belong to the cultural classification
  42% to the proximity
  9% are familial
  2% virtual

• 49% operate at a national or international level
  15% operate across more than one borough but still within London
  36% operate within one borough (some at a very local level)

There is a high correlation between cultural criminal networks and those that operate internationally.

• 96% of networks are involved in multi-criminality
  64% include drugs/firearms and money laundering
  32% are not involved in drugs, but more focused on economic crimes
• 4% are only involved in drugs

16. 70% are involved in the use violence. 56% are involved in the use of serious violence. 30% do not use any violence.

17. Of the current homicide case load in London (320 cases) one third can be attributed to criminal networks/organised crime:

• 25% are directly attributable to criminal networks
• 8% indirectly attributable
• 21% we do not know if there is a link
• 46% there is no link to criminal networks

18. These figures demonstrate the increasing complexity the MPS is presented with when dealing with criminal networks. With nearly half operating at national or international level it emphasises the importance of interagency partnerships, but also that the MPS need to look more strategically at source country work in order to facilitate activity in London. Within the current networks there are at least 24 ethnicities represented with at least as many languages spoken – this is a relevant strategic issue for the wider community engagement issues, but also for fast-time operational activity, such as kidnaps, where increasingly the MPS need to locate vetted people with language skills to help resolve the kidnap itself. They also demonstrate how criminal networks/organised crime feed directly into violence rates and the homicide rate – this helps make organised crime more relevant to the wider policing agenda and over time will help bring the harm reduction and crime reduction performance frameworks closer together.

Targets in the Policing plan

19. The disruption of criminal networks was an SCD objective for 2005/06 (set at disrupting 50 criminal networks), and the target has been increased for 2006/07 in order to reflect that this is now an MPS wide strategy.

20. For the next performance year, the main target as outlined in the Policing Plan (attached in full) is to disrupt 100 criminal networks. This target may be revised upwards after the first six months. For the internal control strategy around the criminal network objective we are aiming to ensure that our pro-active operations are aligned with the higher priority criminal networks and individuals (core nominals).

• We have introduced a much more rigorous process around claiming a disruption (which has to show that a criminal network is unable to function at its previous capacity), and this is also being rolled out across the MPS. Only disruptions that are approved through this process will count towards the overall target
• The target of 100 was reached as it is double the target for last year but not too ambitious to encourage any perverse incentives (i.e. to disrupt easier but lower priority networks and individuals in order to reach the target)

Issues of concern

21. We do not have any concerns around meeting the targets as outlined in the Policing Plan or control strategy.

22. There remains a challenge around building a comprehensive intelligence picture of criminal network activity across the MPS. Enormous progress has been made over the last twelve months, and this will continue to improve throughout the year, but it will take time to develop. Part of this is around increasing internal understanding of the sort of intelligence we are looking for and why, and then ensuring the questionnaires are completed correctly to enable the intelligence to be incorporated into the prioritisation matrix.

23. A further issue we need to manage is the growth in demand that is the result from having a clearer picture of criminal network activity across London. This is why we need to be strict in how we prioritise around threat and harm, and ensure we are allocating proactive resources to the highest priorities. The reactive response will of course remain, and the intelligence housed in the matrix is helping with fast-time investigations (e.g. kidnap investigations) that involve criminal networks.

24. Now this is a corporate priority it is a challenge to ensure that the corporate tasking process recognises the priorities as shown by the intelligence picture around criminal networks, and that corporate tasking takes place as appropriate. There remains resistance at some levels to dealing with criminal network activity if it is not seen to be directly contributing to volume crime targets. This is an issue that is being and will continue to be addressed at a number of levels.

SOCA

25. The next six months are important in terms of overcoming any nervousness around the impact that SOCA might have on MPS operational activity. Many of those in the MPS are wary about the creation of SOCA – based on memories of NCIS and the view that the MPS lost a lot of valuable work to the ‘new’ NCIS that was never quite recovered – and it is important that these issues are managed. For these reasons the protocols and SOPs are being drafted more thoroughly than with the precursor agencies, and more time and emphasis is being placed on the strategic partnership.

26. It is of some concern that SOCA does not currently have the importation and supply of firearms or ammunition as a priority – this has been discussed with SOCA, the Home Office (Organised Crime Strategy Group) and other agencies. As mentioned earlier, over time the determination of SOCA priorities will shift as the intelligence flow from forces improves and the MPS will ensure that its evidence-based assessments feature prominently in this process.

C. Legal implications

None

D. Race and equality impact

1. Through the methodology outlined in this report we are seeking to have a fuller understanding of the harm caused by criminal networks and to seek to direct resources and policing activity to those criminal networks that are causing the most harm to London’s communities.

2. Around half of the criminal networks we are dealing with in London are cultural in classification (as defined earlier in this report) covering at least 24 ethnicities, and in order to engage with each community and to effectively intervene against the criminal networks we need to understand the business and social dynamics within each community. A criminal network within the Chinese community will behave and be structured differently to a network within a British Caucasian community to that in the Turkish community.

3. We have therefore discussed this with different groups and organisations throughout the development of the new approach and the matrix, and emphasised that our intention is not to stigmatise communities but rather to better understand the issues they are facing.

4. The MPS is conscious that this approach could be wrongly interpreted to say we are ‘targeting’ certain communities by focusing on trying to understand the harm caused by criminal-network elements that exist within these communities. We are aware of the potential impact of this new approach on the various communities affected by policing activity against criminal networks based within these communities.

5. Community and Equality Impact Assessments will be carried out in partnership to ensure that very possible step is taken to reassure communities, so policing activity in not perceived as targeting or stigmatising any particular groups, but rather working with them to understand the issues they are facing around criminal networks. This is particularly true where perpetrators and victims are from the same community such as has been demonstrated with Operation Trident.

6. This approach will is taking account of the new MPA and MPS Community Engagement strategy currently being developed and our commitment to this is overseen by the MPS Criminal Networks Strategy Group.

E. Financial implications

There are no financial implications pertaining to this particular report.

F. Background papers

• Brochure on Criminal Networks
• General presentation on Criminal Networks

G. Contact details

Report author: Anna Aquilina, Strategy Adviser, Specialist Crime Directorate, MPS

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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