Wanted: Regional partners in the fight against organized crime
Researchers
- Martijn Groenleer
- Jorrit de Jong
- Sandrijn Cels
- Bas Keijser
- Maurits Waardenburg
- Laura van der Last
In cooperation with
- Delft University of Technology
- Harvard University
- Erasmus University
- Utrecht University
Funded by
- Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Office
- National Police
- Taskforce Brabant-Zeeland
- Municipalities of Rotterdam and Velsen
- National and Regional Information and Expertise Centers
Period
- 2015-2017
Summary
Organized crime networks are increasingly embedded in the world of legal organizations. Licit businesses as well as public and semi-public organizations facilitate cybercrime, human trafficking, large-scale fraud, and drug trafficking, often without being aware of it. This facilitating role is problematic not just because it creates opportunities for organized crime, but also because it undermines the integrity of public and private institutions.
Law enforcement agencies in the Netherlands, including in the Brabant-Zeeland region, are therefore experimenting with a novel, problem-oriented approach towards fighting organized crime and its subversive effects. Through ‘smart collaboration’ among public-sector and with private-sector parties the idea is to turn such organizations from facilitators of crime into partners in the fight against crime. This transformation has radical implications for governance, as roles, responsibilities and relationships of the various parties drastically change.
To address the puzzles that this generates, the projects addresses the following questions: What new forms of collaborative governance can be identified, notably at the regional level, in the fight against subversive forms of organized crime, and how do these compare? What triggers private parties to structurally and voluntarily collaborate with law enforcement agencies, given the many constraints and disincentives, and why does collaboration take a particular form? How do new forms of collaborative governance perform in practice, and what indicators can help to ‘measure’ whether public-public and public-private partnership actually results in societal effects, particularly a reduction of organized crime?
Publications
- Cels et al. (2017), Gezocht: Pioniers Strategische samenwerking in de strijd tegen ondermijnende criminaliteit. [Wanted: pioneers for strategic cooperation in the fight against organized crime]
- Waardenburg et al. (2016), Managing the Performance of Public Sector Collaborations: A Literature Synthesis using Examples from the Law Enforcement Domain. TiREG Working Paper
- Waardenburg et al. (2016), Probleemanalyse is het halve werk [Problem analysis is half the work]