I’ve got a short piece about organised crime on the Guardian’s blog Comment is Free. From the intro:
The annual report from the Serious Organised Crime Agency, published yesterday, is a mix of self-congratulation and spectacular underachievement. While the rhetoric from politicians has been to get tough on organised crime, the reality is more humbling: we still don’t have a clear idea of the scale and nature of the problem. Read the rest here
Pretty much everyone is unhappy with the agency. Sean O’Neill, The Times’ Crime Editor has been trailing the publication of the annual report for the past week. According to his sources police officers have been leaving in ‘droves’, while the agency’s hit list has been shelved. The allegations were swiftly dismissed in a letter to The Times by Bill Hughes, SOCA’s Director General. He is now having to manage some internal strife at the Agency and has rounded on some officers who have chosen to take their problems to the media and not the management (which is odd given the top heavy nature of the organisation).
Elsewhere Alison Saunders, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Organised Crime Division is arguing that expectations of Soca had been too high at its inception. She has a point. Meanwhile the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are standing back and basking in the Government’s and the Agency’s incompetence and ineptitude.
