Measuring Organised Crime In Belgium

The analysis of organised crime is of interest to academics, policymakers, and regulators.The approach taken is necessarily determined by the requirement for analysis and the available resources.This book is the outcome of a six-month research undertaken for the Belgian Gendarmerie, at Ghent University. It presents a methodology to measure the impact of organised crime in Belgium and its research design has been shaped primarily by the demands of applied research. In doing so the research draws extensively from a breadth of research into organised crime while being shaped by the intelligence and policy requirements of the Gendarmerie's Organised Crime unit.This is reflected in the use of a risk-management process that provides the iterative framework for the methodology. Central to this is a three-fold focus that incorporates organised crime groups, illicit markets and economic sectors. Each element relies upon a different method of analysis, however their complementarity is ensured through the organising principle of the spectrum of enterprise.The result is a methodology that is capable of being incorporated into existing systems and provides a richer form of strategic assessments regarding the impact of organised crime in Belgium.

Recent years have been characterised by growing awareness among European member states about serious shortcomings to the way organised crime is measured and assessed. Currently, organised crime reports primarily generate descriptive analyses of a past situation based on law enforcement data and do not always provide the necessary information for proactive and preventive policy strategies. Therefore an EU Action Plan has been issued to develop a more future oriented and risk based methodology for the measurement of organised crime and to convert the traditional organised crime situation reports into strategic reports for planning purposes. This book is the outcome of two studies undertaken by a team composed of Belgian, Italian and Swedish researchers for the European Commission. It presents an overview of current practices in the measurement of organised crime in Europe and includes a discussion about the concept and the assessment of the impact of the phenomenon. Further the feasibility of the implementation of the existing EU Action Plan was studied and evaluated. As a result of applied research Measuring Organised Crime in Europe provides an in depth and comparative analysis of current practice in drafting organised crime reports across and by the EU and offers new ideas to improve their quality.

This book is the outcome of a six-month research contract undertaken by Ghent University's Research Group Drug Policy, Criminal Policy and International Crime for the Belgian Minister of Justice. Since 1996 the Belgian Government has produced Annual Reports on Organised Crime, and while currently this takes the form of a typically descriptive situation report there has always been the intention to further develop the methodology underwriting the report. It has been envisaged that such methodological development will rely upon the use of supplementary non-police data -both qualitative and quantitative - supporting the utilisation of more sophisticated analytical tools. Proceeding from earlier work undertaken by this research group for the Belgian Federal Police's Organised Crime Unit, this book is an elaboration of the ideas found in Measuring Organised Crime in Belgium: A Risk-Based Methodology (in which a method for determining the impact of organised crime in Belgium is proposed) for application in the context of the Annual Reports.Thus, the substance of this book is a discursive analysis of the issues surrounding a risk-based Annual Report on Organised Crime.As the result of applied research, Reporting on Organised Crime offers concrete recommendations and solutions for the analysis of organised crime and its reporting at the strategic level.

Policy makers no longer focus on repressive aspects of organised crime alone, but want to be informed about coming challenges and threats to allow them to take appropriate preventive action and target their reactive response better. For that reason, there is a growing demand to change the traditional assessments into analyses that include more prospective elements about current and potential future organised crime situations to identify specific risks or threats to society. The book outlines a methodology to perform analyses of long-term threats of organised crime and scenario studies and applies this on four case studies at two different levels: three studies at Member State level (Belgium, Slovenia, and Sweden) and one at the European Union level. ln a last chapter, conclusions and recommendations about the method and its applications are presented. The developed methodological tool and the scenarios are intended as a guide for action and consideration for all actors involved in the fight against organised crime.

This book concerns an insufficiently recognized form of organized crime : crime-enterprises operating on the legitimate market under the veil of respectable companies. The volume concentrates on the situation in the European Union.

The influence of organised crime on business activities, enterprises and economic sectors is a matter of concern for many policy makers across the world. As a profit driven criminal activity, organised crime operates in an environment which is not limited to the underworld economy alone. Assessments of the threat posed by organised crime and strategic (preventive) actions to tackle this phenomenon require an understanding of the vulnerable spots in the legal economy that are or might be exploited by crime. This book proposes a new methodology to scan economic sectors on their vulnerability to organised crime and provides vulnerability profiles of the transport and the music sector in Europe to which the method has been tested in a case-study. The developed methodological tool and the vulnerability profiles of both sectors are intended as a guide for actions and initiatives to be taken by governments, law enforcement bodies or economic sectors.

This work provides an innovative look at the use of open data for extracting information to detect and prevent crime, and also explores the link between terrorism and organized crime. In counter-terrorism and other forms of crime prevention, foresight about potential threats is vitally important and this information is increasingly available via electronic data sources such as social media communications. However, the amount and quality of these sources is varied, and researchers and law enforcement need guidance about when and how to extract useful information from them. The emergence of these crime threats, such as communication between organized crime networks and radicalization towards terrorism, is driven by a combination of political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors. The contributions to this volume represent a major step by researchers to systematically collect, filter, interpret, and use the information available. For the purposes of this book, the only data sources used are publicly available sources which can be accessed legally and ethically. This work will be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice, particularly in police science, organized crime, counter-terrorism and crime science. It will also be of interest to those in related fields such as applications of computer science and data mining, public policy, and business intelligence.

The infiltration of organised crime in the legitimate economy has emerged as a transnational phenomenon. This book constitutes an unprecedented study of the involvement of criminal groups in the legitimate economy and their infiltration in legal businesses, and is the first to bridge the research gap between money laundering and organised crime. It analyses the main drivers of this process, explaining why, how and where infiltration happens. Building on empirical evidence from the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the UK, Ireland, Italy, France and Finland, Organised Crime in European Businesses is divided into four parts. Part I explores the infiltration of legitimate businesses to conceal and facilitate illicit trafficking. Part II examines the infiltration of legitimate businesses to develop fraud schemes. Part III focuses on the infiltration of legitimate businesses to control the territory and influence policy makers. Part IV concludes by considering the research and policy implications in light of these findings. Bringing together leading experts and detailed case studies, this book considers the infiltration of organised crime in legitimate business around Europe. It is an ideal resource for students and academics in the fields of criminology, economics and sociology, as well as private sector practitioners, public officials and policy makers.