For the third time in 15 years, Britain has a new agency to fight organised crime. The creation of the National Crime Agency (NCA), which commenced operations in October, is in part an admission of failure. It is also a reflection of the new policing structures implemented by the coalition government since 2010.
So writes Charlie Edwards, Director, National Security and Resilience Studies, at the Whitehall-based defence and security think-tank RUSI (Royal United Services Institute
for Defence and Security Studies). He concludes that the lack of leadership with regard to organised crime seems to have been solved, with politicians across the political divide united in relation to this issue under an increasingly powerful home secretary. Such unity, however, may turn out to be short-lived. Britain’s fight against organised crime has largely ebbed and flowed in the past according to political will and there are many questions outstanding, not least what will happen to the new organised-crime fighting agency should there be a change of government.
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