Getting one’s hands dirty!

Citation

Rider, B. (2014), "Getting one’s hands dirty!", Journal of Financial Crime, Vol. 21 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFC-02-2014-0010

Getting one’s hands dirty!

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Financial Crime, Volume 21, Issue 2

In recent months, there appears to be an increasing amount of semi-public discussion about the defence and security implications of certain types of crimes and, in particular, organised criminal activity in places such as Afghanistan. In many respects, this is to be expected as our forces increasingly withdraw from direct combat, and emphasis is placed on post-conflict development. Of course, whether the relevant wars have in fact ended and, consequently, whether it is meaningful to bring in the paraphernalia that those who specialise in post-conflict situations so relish, is rather more debatable. It is also the case that in peacekeeping interventions, the military, whether they are up to it or not, inevitably find that they are required to discharge some traditional policing functions. This is particularly so when the civil society is absent in terms of its capacity or commitment to police itself. Compounding this has been the need to actively assist in the investigation of alleged war crimes and provide technical and other forms of support to non-military security personnel. The USA has long recognised the need for the military to know more than simply what is required to police itself. The U.S. Department of Defense has taken an active interest in, for example, the tendency of organised crime to establish or re-establish itself in the areas of political and social turmoil. It has recognised the basic reality that where supply cannot meet demand, there is scope for criminals and others to step in. In doing so, criminal organisations are unlikely to confine their activities to commercial intermediation.

The extent to which we in the United Kingdom have been mindful of such issues is less clear. In the days of the empire, the military in one form or another were often involved directly or at least indirectly in policing, and in some places, the role of the colonial police service was almost indistinguishable from that of the military. Today, however, there is minimal exposure to such an experience in officer training, and with the exception of one or two specialised programmes – mainly for those involved in intelligence-related work – the impact of crime is largely ignored. Consequently, military personnel are ill-prepared and not equipped to identify and address conventional policing issues. In fairness, it is, of course, relatively recently that the intelligence and security services have woken up to the potential implications of organised crime and, in particular, its economic manifestations. Indeed, the Home Office has, only in the last few months, set about commissioning a number of studies on certain aspects of organised crime as a threat to the UK’s security. In fact, when the Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons looked at this back in 1993, the Home Office accepted that it had no special knowledge or expertise in this area, with the exception of Northern Ireland. The Ministry of Defence has sporadically taken interest, particularly in regard to the funding aspects of subversive groups and their ability to procure weapons. However, with the financial crisis, a number of these initiatives have been scaled back, outsourced or simply terminated. In the context of its specific remit, there is probably more relevant interest in the Department for International Development now that aid has a clear association with security-related interests.

The Royal United Services Institute under Dr Frank Madsen of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, an international expert on transnational organised crime and former senior official of the General Secretariat of International Criminal Police Organization – Interpol, has over the last year organised a series of lectures on a variety of issues associated with defence security and the control of crime. While these seminars have generated considerable interest in official and even military circles, sadly, as is so often the case, there has been only limited interest within the academy. The reluctance of academics across the spectrum of disciplines that these issues relate to, to take any real interest has been commented upon before in the pages of this journal!

A number of the Royal United Services Institute lecturers emphasised the need to consider issues rather more in the round than is common practice. For example, take the approach of the UK authorities in addressing the deliberate leakage of vast amounts of classified and damaging information through the internet. Reluctance to think and certainly act beyond the circumference of the relevant silo is again apparent in the way in which the authorities have addressed the secondary Snowden disclosures. While senior law enforcement officers argued that notwithstanding the uncertainties relating to the effective and proper application of the criminal law, particularly given its sensitive and conservative interpretation within Whitehall, there were tangible steps that could have been taken, for example, under the civil law. It was, however, the Home Office’s lawyers that took a more cautious, and perhaps uninspired, approach, harking back to the view of Lord Mansfield in 1775 (1 Cowp. 382 at 391) – that there is “no distinction better known, than the distinction between civil and criminal law” – and it was within the criminal law that appropriate weapons were to be found, if at all! Perhaps a more charitable view of the advice on offer, was that given the extreme sensitivities of the government’s relationship with the media after Levinson attempting to invoke arguments and procedures that have been used to effectively silence verbose British spies in the past would be even more controversial than stretching the anti-terror laws to breaking point. Of course, this is scant justification for the real costs (in so many respects) of the withdrawal – internationally of some 400 exposed informants and agents – but civil rights do need to be balanced and the press kept on side!

14 February 2014

Barry Rider