Conference programme - International Crime Science Conference 2023 | UCL Department of Security and Crime Science - UCL

The 14th International Crime Science Conference programme includes plenaries, parallel sessions and panel discussions.

This conference has now been sold out.

Registration

The conference will take place on Monday 19 June 2023 at 9am in the Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, NW1 2BE, London.

Welcome

The welcome address will start at 9.30am and will be delivered by Prof Shane Johnson and Prof Kate Bowers.

Prof Shane Johnson - UCL

Shane Johnson is a Professor of Future Crime. He directs the Dawes Centre for Future Crime at UCL and co-directs the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Cybersecurity at UCL. He has published over 150 articles, has a Chief Constable's commendation for his work on what works to reduce crime, and is a member of the Scientific Advisory boards of the UK Home Office and the Max Planck Institute.

Prof Kate Bowers - UCL

Kate Bowers is the current Head of Department of the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science.

Kate has worked in the field of crime science for almost 30 years, with research interests focusing on the use of quantitative methods and data analytics in crime analysis and crime prevention. Her most recent interests are predictive policing, big data approaches and the use of innovative data and data science approaches in understanding crime trends.

Plenary discussion

The discussion will be chaired by Dr Ella Cockbain and will feature Prof Felia Allum and Prof Phil Williams.

Dr Ella Cockbain - UCL

Ella is an Associate Professor in Security and Crime Science at UCL, and a visiting research fellow at Leiden University.

Her research focuses primarily on human trafficking, child sexual exploitation, and labour market abuses. She is committed to nuanced, evidence-informed and context-sensitive responses to these complex social phenomena, and has done a lot of work around challenging misconceptions and misinformation. She is the former co-chair of the UK’s Modern Slavery Strategy and Implementation Group on prevention, and a current member.

A previous ‘Future Research Leaders’ fellow of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Ella currently leads two major studies: one focusing on human trafficking (ESRC-funded), the other on labour market abuses (with co-lead Chris Pósch, funded by the ESRC and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy). She supervises numerous PhDs relating to human trafficking, smuggling and exploitation, and is leading the new teaching module on these topics.

Prof Felia Allum - University of Bath

Felia Allum is Professor of Comparative Organised Crime and Corruption at the University of Bath.

She is the author of ‘Politicians, Camorristi and Businessmen’ (Maney Publishing, 2006), ‘The Invisible Camorra’ (Cornell University Press, 2016) and more recently, a graphic narrative with Anna Mitchell ‘Graphic narratives of organised crime, gender and power in Europe’ (Routledge, 2022). Her book ‘The Invisible Camorra’ was awarded the distinguished book award by the International division, American Society of Criminology in 2017.

In 2019, she was awarded the Jennie Lee Prize for Outstanding Teaching by the British Political Studies Association. Between 2018-2023 she was a Leverhulme Major research fellow researching women in transnational organised crime groups. Her research interests are organised crime, Italian mafias, criminal mobility, gender, crime-politics nexus, qualitative methods and life stories.

Prof Phil Williams - University of Pittsburgh, USA

Dr Phil Williams is Professor Emeritus, the University of Pittsburgh. During the last 30 years his research has focused primarily on transnational organized crime, and he has written on this in Survival, Washington Quarterly, The Bulletin on Narcotics, Scientific American, Crime Law and Social Change, and International Peacekeeping. He has also published books on national security issues.

In addition, Dr. Williams has been a consultant to both UNODC and United States government agencies and has also given congressional testimony on organized crime. His most recent work, coedited with Michael Glass and Taylor Seybolt, is Urban Violence, Resilience and Security: Governance Responses in the Global South published by Elgar in January 2022. He also has a forthcoming book on Organized Crime and Illicit Economies in North Africa and is currently preparing a report The Future of Organized Crime for the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Parallel sessions

New and emerging technologies and organised crime

This session will be chaired by Manja Nikolovska and will features talk from Prof Shane Johnson, Juliana Gómez-Quintero, Dr Mariam Elgabry and Prof Lewis Griffin.

Manja Nikolovska - UCL

Dr. Manja Nikolovska is a Research Fellow at the Dawes Centre for Future Crime.

Her research focuses on how technological and social change can affect the future of crime. Her background is in Information Systems Science and Criminal law. Recent work includes making meaning out of social media data for future fraud prevention; examining cyber security behaviours and routine activities during disruption, deriving insights from policing the pandemic in anticipating future threats and the evolution of cyber grooming of children. She views upon the future of crime as a living organism in an ever-evolving societal and cyber ecosystem, feeding of novel or adapted situational factors that may communicate criminal opportunity.

Working closely with law enforcement and practitioners in the field drives her work with grounding that in practice, (cyber)crime prevention is “what works” to reduce it. Therefore, she attempts to approach future crime anticipation and prevention with theoretical and conceptual shapeshifting among research practices and fields that answer to prevention viability in practice.

Prof Shane Johnson and Juliana Gómez-Quintero - UCL

Juliana is an engineer and researcher in crime science. and a PhD candidate in Security and Crime Science at UCL. She is researching the distribution of harm across the cocaine trade in Colombia. Examples of previous projects include simulating coca crops, cocaine production and interventions; modelling the jurisdiction for peace of Colombia to estimate workflows and costs; and identifying future crimes enabled by the metaverse.

This talk will focus on Crime Facilitated by the Metaverse.

The metaverse is an emerging convergence of technologies (e.g. virtual reality and blockchains) that enables users to experience mixed/extended realities for a range of legitimate purposes (e.g. gaming, entertainment and education). To anticipate crimes that the metaverse might facilitate, in this paper we report the findings of a study which involved a state-of-the-art scoping review of the existing literature, and the elicitation of views from two expert groups. The latter were: 1) a mixed European sample (with participants from law enforcement, industry, academia and the voluntary sector), and; 2) an international sample of law enforcement stakeholders.

A total of 30 crime threats were identified and participants were asked to rate these according to their likely harm, frequency, achievability and defeat-ability. The findings are discussed with the aim of informing approaches to preventing crime in the metaverse.

Prof Lewis Griffin - UCL

Lewis is a Professor of Computer Science and Departmental Tutor at UCL. His research is in Computer & Human Vision, AI & Security.

This talk will focus on A non-technical introduction to Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT and other similar products.

Dr Mariam Elgabry - Bronic

Dr. Mariam Elgabry is founder and CEO of cyber-biosecurity company Bronic. Dr. Mariam has worked across the private, public and civil society sectors around the world to offer a wide variety of bespoke services from strengthening national strategic planning to informing the impact of developments in science and technology for diverse policy environments.

This talk will focus on Biosecurity vs. Organized Crime: The Growing Influence of Engineered Biology.

Imagine a world where criminals utilize gene-editing technologies to unleash a new wave of illicit activities, all within the confines of a petri dish. By harnessing fast-growing genetically modified microorganisms, they can decentralize drug trafficking networks, posing unprecedented challenges to law enforcement.

In this talk, we will explore the intersection of engineered biology and organized crime. Brace yourself for an exploration of the evolving biosecurity landscape and the urgent steps required to thwart the potential misuse of this powerful technology.

Human trafficking and 'modern slavery'

This session will be chaired by Dr Ella Cockbain and will feature talks from Dr Lisa Tompson, Dr Matthew Ashby and Dr Donia Khanegi.

Dr Ella Cockbain - UCL

Ella is an Associate Professor in Security and Crime Science at UCL, and a visiting research fellow at Leiden University. She leads the UCL research group on human trafficking, smuggling and exploitation, and a new specialist teaching module on these topics. Her research to date has mostly focused on trafficking, child sexual exploitation and labour exploitation.

She is committed to encouraging more nuanced, evidence-informed and ethical responses to complex social phenomena. She has published extensively, including the book 'Offender and Victim Networks in Human Trafficking' (Routledge, 2018). She also writes for mainstream media outlets, particularly around misinformation. Ella has worked closely with various organisations across the public sector, civil society and industry. She previously held a ESRC ‘Future Research Leaders’ fellowship, and currently leads two major studies: one focusing on human trafficking, the other on labour market exploitation (with co-lead Chris Pósch, for the Director of Labour Market Enforcement).

Dr Matthew Ashby - UCL

Dr Matt Ashby is a lecturer in crime science at the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science at University College London. His research focuses on crime analysis, how crime concentrates in time and space, and how police can use data to solve crime problems. Dr Ashby’s research has been funded by organisations including the College of Policing and UK Home Office.

Dr Ashby is a former police officer, has a PhD in crime science and is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He teaches crime mapping and data analysis, as well as training police practitioners on problem solving.

This talk will focus on Geographic and demographic patterning in human trafficking victimisation.

Human trafficking (and ‘modern slavery’) covers a wide, varied and ill-defined range of exploitative practices. Although conflating different issues obscures important variation, as prior research has shown. In this study, we sought to examine factors contributing to the changing landscape of trafficking identified in the UK over a ten-year-period, focusing on geographic and demographic patterning and trends.

We conducted exploratory data analysis of individual-level data for 26,918 people referred from 2009-19 into the UK’s National Referral Mechanism (NRM): the central system for identifying trafficking and providing victims some support. Our results highlight the shifting landscape of trafficking identified in the UK over the decade, with marked increases in referrals and major changes in their composition. The effects of key policy changes are evident. Victimisation concentrates heavily, with four countries constituting half of all referrals when accounting for population size. Exploitation type and sub-type vary markedly by nationality, gender, age and exploitation location.

Our analysis emphasises the complexity of trafficking, and importance of disaggregation. The results add weight to both situational theories of crime, and complex systems thinking around human trafficking and anti-trafficking. We argue that analysis and intervention should be more responsive to geographical and demographical patterning and prioritise concentrations of harm. More extensive, fine-grained and consistent collection of geospatial data is sorely needed. Despite our dataset’s documented limitations, our analysis shows the value of nuanced, context-sensitive, large-scale analysis.

We also discuss how the nature of trafficking/‘modern slavery’ actually identified to the authorities is likely to change considerably, due to ongoing rollbacks on access to protections and an increasingly hostile environment around immigration. That raises important questions for future research and responses.

Dr Donia Khanegi - UCL

Donia works as a Research Fellow at the UCL Jill Dando Institute. She has an academic background in forensic and crime science, with research interests including human trafficking, drug trafficking and policy, and behaviour change.

This talk will focus on Human trafficking, complex systems and (dis)organised crime: A comparative social network analysis of trafficking for labour exploitation.

Social network analysis is a popular method for understanding structural relations underpinning criminal activity and informing more nuanced responses. For human trafficking, offender-focused research is rare. Here, we present a comparative analysis of a novel dataset, derived from 170 in-depth labour trafficking case files. We identified 350 known or suspected offenders grouped across 100 offending structures – ranging in size from 1 to 19 members. Using social network analysis and cluster analysis, we identified four distinct ‘types’ of offending structure and examined how they compare.

The results add weight to conceptualisations of trafficking as a complex system: varied, dynamic, and full of dependencies and interactions. We found considerable evidence of offending structures that challenge conceptions of trafficking as organised crime, including lone offenders and pairs. Our results emphasise the limits to the dominant organised crime frame of anti-trafficking and show considerable variation in social structures within which trafficking occurs.

Dr Lisa Tompson - New Zealand Institute for Security and Crime Science

Dr Lisa Tompson is a Senior Lecturer at the New Zealand Institute for Security and Crime Science.

This talk will focus on the Modern Slavery & Explotation Helpline.

The Modern Slavery & Exploitation helpline is a crucial part of the anti-trafficking landscape in the UK. Similar to other helplines for complex social issues, the Helpline provides victim-centred support which can reduce harm and fulfil public health aims. Dissimilar to some other anti-trafficking helplines globally, the MSEH is operated and funded independently of the state.

In this talk, we will discuss several reasons why it is important to understand more about how anti-trafficking helplines are used in practice, particularly because there is virtually no relevant research base globally on this topic. We draw from our analysis of the empirical patterns in Helpline data, which covers over 3,500 cases reported to Unseen over the first 2.5 years of the Helpline’s existence.
First, we argue that helplines provide much-needed support to marginalised, stigmatised and/or criminalised populations.

We next discuss the merits of comparing independent anti-trafficking data with state-collected data on trafficking and exploitation. Third, we illustrate how usage patterns of the Helpline offer insights into how the public understand trafficking and the possible effects of messaging on this topic. Fourth, we discuss how engaging with helpline data and staff provides important insights into how helplines address victimisation and what challenges and risks they face, particularly in the context of the hostile environment around immigration. We conclude by considering some of the future directions for research in this space.

Organised crime groups internationally: activities and counter-measures

This session will be chaired by Dr Kartikeya Tripathi and will include talks from Prof T Wing Lo, Dr Derica Lambrechts and Dr Patricio Estevez-Soto.

Dr Kartikeya Tripathi - UCL

Kartikeya's interests lie in applying a mixed-methods approach to investigate questions around crime, security and terrorism. In my work I draw upon my diverse academic background in History, Law, Criminology and Crime Science.

Dr Tripathi has worked across a range of topics such as modeling deviation from security procedures by metro rail drivers (for my PhD), quantitative analysis of sexual harassment of women in India, practices used by police in developing world to geo-locate crime in informal neighbourhoods as well as my current project on cybercrime against the elderly.

Kartikeya has worked on research projects with various government and private sector organisations both in Europe and Asia, and is especially interested in applying principles of Crime Science to support capacity building in developing world.

Prof T. Wing Lo - Caritas Institute of Higher Education, Hong Kong

Professor T. Wing Lo is Vice-President (Research and Technology) at Caritas Institute of Higher Education, Hong Kong after his retirement from City University of Hong Kong, where he was Associate Vice-President and Head of the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences.

This talk will focus on Transplantation of triad territory: A structural network perspective.

Territory is an important feature of criminal organizations, where they can develop a network of influence and business interests. While some research on Chinese triad organized crime has been published in recent years, the concept of triad territory is still under-researched. This paper aims to discuss what a triad territory is, how it is formed and managed, and whether the territory is functional or geographical.

Using qualitative research methods, including interviews of triad figures, participant observation, and field trips with triad members, it is found that the triad structural network (more than a social network) within a triad society has facilitated the development of triad territory inside Hong Kong and transplantation of triad territory outside Hong Kong. Once settled in the new territory, the transplanted gangs operated according to the local subculture of organised crime, where the triad structural network becomes localized and connections with the triad headquarters are downplayed.

Dr Derica Lambrechts - Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Dr Derica Lambrechts is Senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Stellenbosch University and an experienced political science lecturer, political risk analyst and organised crime expert.

This talk will focus on Gang related content on social media in South Africa.

The adaptable organisational and operational nature of gangs has facilitated a significant virtual presence. The existence of gangs in the online space includes mobilization of members and supporters, criminal acts and transactions, and symbolic parading of the criminal life. The latter is most common on social media.

Social media is also used by digital social movements, most noticeably those located in a specific (physical) geographical area plagued by gang activities. The digital space enables virtual networks to share information, opinions, and experiences to create awareness about criminal activities and (potentially) facilitate social change. African research on gang related content on social media is limited if any exists at all.

Accordingly, this study will provide a descriptive narrative of gangs and related content on social media through online framing of digital artefacts. For this initial stage of the research, only one social media space will be used: TikTok.

Dr Patricio Estevez-Soto - UCL

Patricio is a Lecturer at the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science, where he has taught on range of courses including organised crime, quantitative methods, research design, and crime prevention.

This talk will focus on The impact of the kingpin strategy on extortion and kidnapping.

The main counter-organised crime policy of the Mexican government has been the so-called 'kingpin’ strategy, which seeks to undermine organised crime groups by arresting or killing their leaders. However, evidence suggests that ‘neutralising’ a criminal leader is associated with increases in homicides related to organised crime. There is little research on the impact of such strategy on other forms of organised crime violence, such as extortion and kidnapping.

Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the impact and displacement of criminal neutralisations on extortion and kidnappings in Mexico. Our findings suggest that extortions increase significantly in local municipalities in the six months following a neutralisation, and only moderately in their neighbours. Conversely, kidnappings were not affected by neutralisations. Overall, the findings suggest that alternative policies are required to counter organised crime-related violence.

Government responses to organised crime

This session will be chaired by Dr Patricio Estevez-Soto and will feature talks from Daniel Joloy, Walter Kemp and Dr Lorenzo Pasculli.

Dr Patricio Estevez-Soto - UCL

His research is mostly focused on crime in Mexico and Latin America and the Caribbean, on issues such as organised crime (in particular extortion), repeat victimisation, quantitative criminology, crime prevention, and the nexus between crime and public policy.

Daniel Joloy - Amnesty International

Daniel Joloy is a Senior Policy Advisor at Amnesty International, where he has led the organization’s work on drug policy and human rights. Previously, he was the Advocacy Director at the Mexican Commission for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights, a leading Mexican human rights organization in Mexico and was also the human rights advisor for the youth-led organization Espolea.

This talk will focus on Drug control and human rights: The needed paradigm shift.

More than 50 years of punitive drug policies have left a legacy of violence, disease, mass incarceration, suffering and abuse around the world. Punitive policies have failed to decrease the use and availability of drugs and have instead undermined the rights of millions, exacerbated the risks and harms of using drugs, and intensified the violence associated with illicit markets.

It is in fact the poorest and most marginalized communities who are suffering as a result of harsh drug control policies that are devastating lives and tearing communities apart. It is time for the adoption of new models of drug control that put the protection of people’s health and other human rights at the centre, including the decriminalization and regulation of drugs.

Dr Lorenzo Pasculli - UCL

Lorenzo is Principal Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the UCL Dawes Centre for Future Crime. He is also Visiting Professor at Nebrija University Madrid.

This talk will focus on Future Proofing the Law against Emerging Financial Crime Threats.

Lawmakers in different jurisdictions often respond to new criminal threats emerging from social and technological change by enacting new laws, but these can become outdated very quickly as legislation can be easily outpaced by the speed of social developments and technological progress. To address this problem and make the law less reactive and more proactive, some states are exploring strategies and techniques that can help future-proofing the law against criminal threats emerging from technological change, but little is known about these strategies and techniques.

This paper will offer an overview of strategies and techniques adopted in various jurisdictions to future-proof the law against financial crime threats emerging from such technologies and a preliminary assessment of their compatibility with the rule of law. Our findings will help identifying policy and regulatory issues as well as solutions that might apply to other countries in the future as well as laying the groundwork for future research in this area.

Dr Walter Kemp - Global Strategy at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)

Dr. Walter Kemp is Director of the Global Strategy at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Strategic Adviser at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and teaches at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna.

This talk will focus on Time for a global strategy against organized crime.

Organized crime has become a global threat. It causes harm to so many aspects of our lives in so many countries of the world. It is a transnational problem which no country can deal with on its own. However, despite the global reach and impact of organized crime there is no global strategy to deal with it.

Walter Kemp from the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime will make the case for why a global strategy is urgent and necessary, and what such a strategy could look like.

Organised crime, natural resources and natural disasters

This session will be chaired by Dr Joyti Belur and will feature talks from Lauren Pearson, Adan Silverio-Murillo and Fan Pan.

Dr Jyoti Belur - UCL

She is an Associate Professor in Policing at the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science she has undertaken research for the UK Home Office, College of Policing, ESRC and the Metropolitan Police Service.

Lauren Pearson - UC Berkeley, USA

Lauren R. Pearson is a PhD Candidate in the Geography Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her M.A. from the University College London and her B.A. from New York University.

She is currently in residence at the Interdisciplinary Research Lab on Mafias and Corruption housed in the Università Federico II.

This talk will focus on The Spatial Production of the Mafia.

The “Spatial Production of the Mafia” proposes to address a major lacuna in geographic literature: how the mafia reproduces itself territorially and economically through the production of crisis and rupture. Analyzing the 2021 wildfire season in Sicily, where 8,133 fires were reported across the region (60% of which were set illegally), this paper will explore how Sicily’s Cosa Nostra capitalizes on the socio-spatial tactic of rupture—defined as a specific and intense episode of change—to extract capital through fire.

These fires set in motion a range of illicit accumulations: the appropriation of land holdings, the fraudulent acquisition of state funds, and the brokering of newly burned land to solar and wind energy companies, all of which were incentivized by Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRPP) and the billions of euros promised to Italy’s southern regions. The NRPP funds, which hold so much promise for Italy, carry with them the parasitic tendency of the Cosa Nostra, where the society and geography of Sicily are instrumentalized as an accumulation strategy for the mafia.

Dr Adan Silverio-Murillo - Tecnologico de Monterrey, USA

Adan Silverio Murillo is an Assistant Professor in the School of Government at Tecnologico de Monterrey. He holds a PhD in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on economics of crime and family economics.

This talk will focus on his study on Do Earthquakes Affect the Regional Configuration of Organized Crime Groups?

Background: There is a debate regarding the relationship between disasters and crime. On the one hand, disasters can increase social cooperation and this arousal of prosocial behavior can decrease crimes (Fritz, 1996). On the other hand, disasters can affect police capacity increasing opportunities for crimes (Cohen and Felson, 1979). Yet, little is known regarding the effects of natural disasters on territorial control by crime groups.

Objective: To study the spatial effects of earthquakes that hit Mexico in 2017 on territorial control by organized crime groups. Methods: We use a combination of spatial and causal methods with new data available in Mexican municipalities regarding territorial control by organized crime groups (The Ocved project).

Results: We find local clusters of different organized crime groups which change their configuration and criminal activities in municipalities hit by earthquakes.

Fan Pan - University of Hong Kong

Mr Fa Pan is a postgraduate student in the Master of Social Sciences in Criminology, University of Hong Kong.

This talk will focus on the Characteristics and Patterns of Organised Crime in Rural China, with new insights into organised crime in China and its embeddedness in different social contexts being provided.

My presentation focuses on the organisational structures and operational patterns of organised-crime syndicates in China. 976 organised-crime judgments were collected from China Judgments Online, a platform maintained by the Supreme People’s Court. A content analysis was conducted and characteristics and patterns of Chinese organised crimes were identified. These were further classified into two settings, organised crimes taking place in urban and rural areas, in order to better understand the embeddedness of organised crimes in different social contexts. Significant differences were found in three respects: First, a higher prevalence of violence and also the ‘soft violence’ appear frequently in urban China. Second, they differ in terms of their profit patterns. Third, they evade law enforcement in different ways.

Gangs, groups and drugs

This session will be chaired by Dr Paul McFarlane and will feature talks from Dr Kate Gooch, Prof James Treadwell, Sally-Ann Ashton and Emilia Ziosi.

Dr Paul McFarlane - UCL

Dr Paul McFarlane works at University College London's Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science.

Paul was formerly a senior manager at New Scotland Yard for the Metropolitan Police, with three decades of experience collaborating with international law enforcement agencies to detect and disrupt the activities of transnational organised crime groups. Paul has recently been investigating police responses to the county lines offending model in the United Kingdom as well as the links between urban drill music and group-related serious youth violence.

Dr Kate Gooch - University of Bath and Prof James Treadwell - Staffordshire University

Kate’s principal research interests are in prisons, youth justice and the criminal law, and the use of qualitative and ethnographic research methods to address criminological and socio-legal questions.

James Treadwell is Professor of Criminology at Staffordshire University. He is an noted criminological ethnographer uses participant observation ethnography and in depth interviewing as research approaches.

This talk will focus on The Prison Firm: New Geographies of Organised Crime, New Criminal Markets, and the Transformation of Prisoner Society.

Despite the burgeoning literature on organised crime within the community, little research has focused on the prison as a ‘space’ and site for organised crime. Based on extensive ethnographic research conducted within English prisons over an eight-year period, and qualitative research with prisoners, prison staff and police representatives, this article critically examines how organised crime functions within prison, with what effects, who is involved and why. It explains how criminal networks function across prison boundaries and explores the new geographies of organised crime that flows into, out of, and across prisons.

Most crucially, the article explains why organised crime has become a prominent feature of the contemporary prisoner society, expanding work on ‘Mafia transplantation’ (Varese, 2021) and prison governance (Skarbek, 2014, 2020). Ultimately, it is argued that the prison has become a fertile space for organised crime due to a combination of: the emergence of new marketable and easily transportable goods; new communication and technological solutions; the unavailability (and unwillingness) of the State to govern and protect prisoners; the structural and material deterioration in prison conditions; the power and social capital gained by criminal entrepreneurs; the counterproductive effects of ‘disruptive’ tactics; and the speed with which organised crime groups evolve.

Dr Sally-Ann Ashton - Prairie View A&M University, USA

Sally-Ann is a Chartered Psychologist and international applied researcher with a focus on adolescent violent offending, child criminal exploitation, and street gangs in the UK and US.

This talk will focus on Location, location, location: localities of adolescent co-offending groups, street gangs, and organised crime.

Although county lines is recognised by the UK justice system, this occurrence represents the final stage of adolescent gang involvement. Research using data from interviews with adolescent and adult males who were exploited by criminal gangs will identify key locations for the stages prior to being trafficked to sell drugs out of area. The narratives revealed that local and regional geographic locations relate to the stages of CCE. They offer an insight into the process of child criminal exploitation and identify locations that could be used as a risk indicator for police forces and safeguarding teams.

Emilia Ziosi - University of Milan, Italy

Emilia Ziosi is a PhD student in Studies on Organized Crime at the University of Milan and was a Visiting PhD student at the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), SAS, University of London, from February 2021 to June 2022.

This talk will focus on The (in)visibility of cocaine trafficking: transportista groups’ territorial dynamics in the Honduran Mosquitia.

Conventional academic and public discourses on illicit flows tend to depict them as 'invisible'. Focusing on the Honduran Mosquitia, a remote region in northeastern Honduras that has recently emerged as an operational centre for Honduran drug traffickers moving and storing northward-bound cocaine, this research explores Honduran drug trafficking groups' territorial dynamics in the region with the aim of re-thinking how we conceptualise illicit flows.

Relying on semi-structured interviews with experts on the topic and the analysis of official judicial documents, it's shown how illicit economies are far from invisible when observed along the spaces through which they pass and in which they are grounded. In doing so, it's argued that reconceptualising how we conceive illicit flows can allow us to uncover other important dynamics, such as the interconnections between different types of crimes, and can be fundamental at the time of developing effective security policies.

Policing organised crime

This session will be chaired by Prof Ben Bradford and will feature talks from Dr Tim McSweeney, Steve Moore and Dr Jyoti Belur.

Prof Ben Bradford - UCL

Ben Bradford is Professor of Global City Policing at the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, University College London, where he is also Director of the Centre for Global City Policing.

His research interests include public trust, police legitimacy, cooperation and compliance in justice settings, and social identity as a factor in all these processes. He has also published on organisational justice within police agencies, ethnic and other disparities in policing, and elements of ‘public-facing’ police work, such as neighbourhood patrol, community engagement and stop and search.

Dr Tim McSweeney

Tim has been involved in local, national and international research and evaluation examining the processes and impacts of criminal justice interventions since the late 1990s. In addition to teaching and research roles in academia, Tim has held senior research positions within the UK Civil Service working with the Home Office (Counter-Extremism Unit) and Ministry of Justice (HM Inspectorate of Prisons).

This talk will focus on Using linked administrative criminal justice data to map the composition, geography, and outcomes of serious and organised crime (SOC) cases prosecuted before the criminal courts in England and Wales (2013-2020).

This research involved secondary analyses of over 12.6 million linked, individual-level, de-identified records from the criminal courts and prison system in England and Wales (E&W) over an eight-year period. It sought to estimate the rate and volume of ‘serious and organised crime’ (SOC) appearing before the higher courts in E&W, and to describe the characteristics of the defendants charged with these offences, and their associated outcomes.

Using a comparative design, the study also assessed: the severity and geographic distribution of offending associated with SOC; the extent to which prosecutions were discontinued, dismissed, or resulted in an acquittal (and the factors most predictive of this outcome); and the rate and frequency of reappearances before the criminal courts over time (controlling for any time spent in custody during the follow-up period). This unique study provides new insights on aspects of known SOC offending and highlights several areas of future research interest.

Dr Stephen Moore

Dr Stephen Moore is a former Merseyside Police officer. He joined the police after reading Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University. In 2020 Stephen completed doctoral studies at University College London, where he is now an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Security and Crime Science. He is also a graduate of the Cabinet Office Public Sector Leaders Scheme and the F.B.I National Academy.

This talk will focus on ‘Focused (but more than just) Deterrence’: Organised Crime, Terrorism and the concept of Preventive Influence.

The use of Focused Deterrence (FD) in relation to gang violence and street-level drug supply has delivered promising results. Two important questions remain unanswered: ‘How does FD work?’ and ‘Would FD work with more organised criminal groups?’.

The lexicon of deterrence in international relations (IR) is richer than that in criminology. The IR terminology is particularly rich in relation to terrorism. Using IR terminology to analyse FD suggests that ’FD’ is a misnomer. The term ‘Preventive Influence’ better describes the approach as what has traditionally been deemed FD encapsulates preventive activities beyond deterrence. This talk illustrates, with examples, how application of a Preventive Influence framework could enhance formulation and evaluation of initiatives targeting organised criminal activity.

Dr Jyoti Belur - UCL

Dr. Jyoti Belur qualified in Economics at the University of Mumbai where she worked as a lecturer before joining the Indian Police Service and serving as a senior police officer in the North of India.She is an Associate Professor in Policing at the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science she has undertaken research for the UK Home Office, College of Policing, ESRC and the Metropolitan Police Service.

This talk will focus on “Unsafe migration” or internal trafficking? Missing children, child bonded labour, and the role of the police.

This paper presents a case study of the response to internal child trafficking for labour exploitation in Mumbai, India. Children from rural parts of Northern India arrive in Mumbai accompanied by a one or more adults or touts, with the consent of the parents, for the express purpose of working in small factories and handicraft industries in the slums of Dharavi.

Although illustrating the very definition of classic internal trafficking for bonded labour, it is not in the interests of either the parents, the children themselves, the police, or the state authorities to acknowledge the phenomenon as such for a variety of reasons. It is only the sustained effort of third sector organisations working with the police and the state authorities that has had a significant impact on the lives of the children involved. The case study illustrates the importance of multi-agency partnerships in the situational prevention of internal child trafficking but also in addressing the long-term disruption of a problem with serious community well being and public health ramifications.

The talk will raise a number of questions with regard to who should own this problem and what is or indeed should be the role of the police for similar complex social problems in developing countries.

Moral panics, misinformation and misunderstanding

This session will be chaired by Dr Alys Mc Alpine and will feature talks from Louise Calvey, Dr Waqas Tufail, Dr Ella Cockbain and Sergi Bray.

Dr Alys McAlpine - UCL

Alys McAlpine is a computational social scientist with over ten years of expertise in applying public health strategies to prevent violence. Her research focuses on how to disrupt the complex and dynamic systems in which individuals are recruited or coerced into exploitation or human trafficking, commonly referred to as “modern slavery”.

She is investigating the use of participatory and mixed-methods agent-based modelling for intervention development. She obtained her PhD at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2021, funded by the ESRC. She was also an Alan Turing Institute PhD Enrichment student and Postdoc awardee. She is currently a Wellcome Trust fellow based at University College London’s Institute for Global Health and the Jill Dando Institute for Security and Crime Science where her fellowship research focuses on prevention of modern slavery in the UK.

Louise Calvey - Safer Foundations

Louise Calvey is an Independent Refugee & Asylum Specialist who works across the UK Refugee sector in service delivery and safeguarding, and she’s led teams working across Hotels, in Asylum crisis casework, refugee resettlement and led the airport welcome of Afghan refugees in operation Pitting.

This talk will focus on Migration: 'Stop The Misinformation'.

Government & media continue to whip a frenzy of panic over migration in the UK, their latest 'Stop The Boats' pledge & policies seek to double down on this. We'll explore the factual picture on irregular migration to the UK, its underlying causes and how government policy proposals are likely to exacerbate the problems people forced to migrate are likely to experience.

Dr Waqas Tufail - Leeds Beckett University and Dr Ella Cockbain - UCL

Dr Waqas Tufail is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Leeds Beckett University. His research interests concern the policing, racialisation and criminalisation of marginalised and minority communities and the lived experiences of Muslim minorities.

This talk will focus on Racialising Child Sexual Abuse and the Politics of Misinformation.

‘Muslim grooming gangs’ have become a defining feature of media, political and public debate in the UK. Without detracting from the very real harms of stereotypical ‘grooming gangs’, we demonstrate here how the broader discourse is rife with hidden agendas, misinformation and disinformation. We explain how this moral panic developed, and how it is manipulated today – including by those in the highest political office. We show who benefits from this narrative, which mainstreams far-right talking points and is increasingly used to legitimise anti-immigration agendas and prop up confected ‘culture wars’. We discuss the growing evidence of the harms caused by misinformation around child sexual abuse, particularly to victims and survivors and to communities stigmatised as sexual predators. We call attention to the pressing need for more accurate, inclusive and nuanced responses to child sexual abuse, and for concerted pushback on attempts to paint it as an outside threat.

Sergi Bray - UCL

Sergi Bray is a final-year PhD candidate at UCL studying under Prof. Shane Johnson and Dr. Sandy Schumann as part of the first cohort of UCL’s CDT for Cybersecurity. His topic of research is mitigation of deepfake harm, and he holds a MSc in Computer Science from UCL and a MA (Oxon) in Classics from The Queen’s College, University of Oxford.

This talk will focus on A Glimpse at the Reality of the Online Ecosystem of Deepfake Image-based Sexual Abuse.

Commonly referred to as “Deepfake pornography”, deepfake image-based sexual abuse (DFIA) has been a problem since late 2017. So far, one non-academic study has investigated this space, and the sparse statistics offered by this study continue to be reported every time a DFIA incident makes the headlines, even though the latest statistic from this study is just the number of DFIA videos found online in 2020: 85,000.

This number is surely sufficiently large to warrant further investigation of this ecosystem, but no other studies to date have done this. Any understanding that we could attempt to have regarding this space must rest on the out-dated and sparse findings from this one piece of research. To mend this situation, a systematic investigation into the online ecosystem of DFIA was conducted, and findings from the August 2022 data collection will be presented. The ecosystem spans 30 dedicated DFIA distribution websites, but the actual nature of the ecosystem emerges upon deeper analysis of external data sources such as website traffic measurement websites and cryptocurrency monetary flows through the publicly visible blockchain.

Fraud and financial crime

This session will be chaired by Prof Michael Levi and will feature talks from Prof Michele Riccardi, Jemima Murray and Prof Nicholas Ryder.

Prof Michael Levi - Cardiff University

Michael Levi has been Professor of Criminology at Cardiff since 1991. His main work has been making sense of the linkages and differences between white-collar and organised crime and their public and private sector controls, intersecting with fraud, corruption, money laundering and terrorism locally and transnationally.

He has major lifetime and other research prizes from the British, European and American Societies of Criminology, the Tackling Economic Crime Award in the UK 2019, and the UNODC/Al Thani Corruption Research and Education prize 2020. His external roles include membership of the Law Society’s Money Laundering Task Force, of the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime and of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Prof Michele Riccardi - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy

Michele Riccardi is Deputy Director of Transcrime and Adjunct Professor of Financial and Business information analysis at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and of Risk Assessment Methods at the University of Palermo. He is also teaching Money laundering and Developing Countries at the ASERI.

This talk will focus on The financial dimension of organised crime: a roadmap for future research.

The talk will address the issue of the financial and economic dimension of organised crime, and in particular of the infiltration by organised crime groups of legitimate businesses and of the legitimate economy. It will provide a review of past studies in this area, highlighting critical issues and promising research avenues.

It will also discuss the interlinks between organised crime, money laundering and white collar crime research, and how criminology and sociology could improve the study of the financial behaviour of criminal organisations much beyond the dominant economic approach. The talk will also provide data, case studies and examples of how infiltration of the economy by organised crime is evolving into new financial schemes and forms, including virtual assets and financial engineering.

Jemima Murray - Home Office

Jemima heads the anti fraud team in the Home Office and recently launched the Government’s Fraud Strategy.

This talk will focus on Fraud Strategy, discussing the Fraud Strategy published in May 2023.

Prof Nicholas Ryder - Cardiff University

With an international reputation for excellence in policy-oriented research in financial crime, Nic has played advisory roles both nationally and internationally. Nic's research has attracted funding (£2.1m) from InnovateUK, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), LexisNexis Risk Solutions, the City of London Police Force, the Royal United Services Limited, The Alan Turing Institute, ICT Wilmington Risk & Compliance, the France Telecom Group and the European Social Fund. He created edits Routledge's Law of Financial Crime Series.

This talk will focus on Terrorism financing, fraud and organised crime – time for a joined-up approach?

The aim of this paper is to identify the link between fraud, terrorism and organised criminal gangs in light of the publication of the Economic Crime Plan (2) and the United Kingdom’s (UKs) counter fraud strategy. In particular, the presentation focuses the UKs counter terrorism financing, fraud and organised crime strategies and advocates that a more joined up approach is necessary.

Panel discussion

The discussion will focus on Backfire effects and the unintended consequences in organised crime interventions.

This will be chaired by Prof Felia Allum and feature contributions from Prof Michael Levi, Dr Fola Adeyemo,Clare Gollop, Peter Walker and Dr Phil Williams.

Prof Felia Allum - University of Bath

Felia Allum is Professor of Comparative Organised Crime and Corruption at the University of Bath.

Prof Michael Levi - Cardiff University

Dr Fola Adeyemo - University of Liverpool

Dr Folashade Adeyemo is a lecturer in Law at the University of Reading, where she teaches both Company Law and Banking Law. She is also the Co-Director for Admissions and Recruitment for the School of Law. She has published in the field of banking and financial regulation, and has specific interests in bank insolvency, whistleblower protection. Her research touches on these issues predominately from the global south perspective.

Her most recent journal article was published in the Journal of Business Law (2020), where she considers whether whistleblowers are adequately protected under the Public Interest Disclosures Act 1998. Fola’s recent monograph, titled Banking Regulation in Africa: The Case of Nigeria and Other Emerging Economies was published by Routledge in 2022. The books' core jurisdiction focus is Nigeria; however, it also provides a holistic overview of the South African and Kenyan banking regulatory environments. Fola’ is currently writing her second monograph, titled Financial and Economic Crime in Africa: Regulatory Responses in Nigeria and Kenya.

Clare Gollop - National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC)

Clare is a CSE survivor who has spent over 20 years working within police and partner systems to shape responses to vulnerability, with operational and strategic experience in SOC, CT, public protection and community safety spaces.

As the Director of the Modern Slavery Police Transformation Programme she led an uplift in police activity and increase in police expertise across England and Wales, and developed new operating capabilities inside NCA, law enforcement partners and inside Europol. As the Director of the West Midlands Violence Reduction Partnership she enabled system change across community, child protection and criminal justice partnerships and supported the development, evaluation and mainstreaming of a number of interventions to prevent youth violence.

She was recognised in the New Years Honours in 2022 for her work on behalf of victims and survivors of modern slavery and the identification and support of vulnerable children during the pandemic. She is now a Deputy Director within National Police Chiefs Council’s Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme, which helps police forces in England and Wales and other partners strengthen the work they do to prevent harm to children.

Peter Walker - St Giles Trust

Peter Walker is a Team Manager with the charity St Giles Trust. Peter has dedicated his career to helping those in need, particularly young people who have been affected by physical trauma and violence. As a Team Manager in the A&E departments in five hospitals in the Midlands, Peter oversees teams that work tirelessly to provide critical care and support to those in crisis. His expertise in dealing with youth violence is second to none, and he has been recognised for his innovative and effective approach to addressing this complex issue.

As a qualified Counsellor and former University Lecturer, Peter is also passionate about teaching others how to communicate with young people (in hospital settings) who have experienced physical trauma, and his insights and expertise have helped countless individuals and organisations better understand and serve this vulnerable population. He and his team remain dedicated to delivering a compassionate service, with an unwavering commitment to helping young people make correct life choices.

Dr Phil Williams - University of Pittsburgh, USA

He has also published books on national security issues. In addition, Dr. Williams has been a consultant to both UNODC and United States government agencies and has also given congressional testimony on organized crime. His most recent work, coedited with Michael Glass and Taylor Seybolt, is Urban Violence, Resilience and Security: Governance Responses in the Global South published by Elgar in January 2022. He also has a forthcoming book on Organized Crime and Illicit Economies in North Africa and is currently preparing a report The Future of Organized Crime for the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Reception

Our drinks reception will start at 5pm, with the event concluding at 7pm.

Conference programme - International Crime Science Conference 2023