A Method for Organized Crime Harm Assessment: Connecting Associated Crimes
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Article
A Method for Organized Crime Harm
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Assessment: Connecting Associated Crimes
Juliana Gómez-Quintero *, Spencer Chainey and Herve Borrion
Abstract The increasing call for harm-focused approaches warrants a method for assessing the harm of organized
crime. A harm assessment of organized crime can be of use to law enforcement agencies for prioritizing efforts and
designing policies that aim to counter organized crimes based on the harm they cause. It can also be used by other
institutions that can intervene and support law enforcement indirectly in preventing and counteracting organized
crime. However, assessing the harm of organized crime entails dealing with the complex structure of intertwined
criminal activities and addressing the fact that organized crime groups commit other crimes to support their main
criminal activity. This research introduces a novel method for Organized Crime Harm Assessment (OCHA method)
and demonstrates it with the application to the case of heroin trade into and within England and Wales. The chal-
lenges of applying the OCHA method are identified and discussed, as well as its limitations, contributions, and
opportunities for future research.
Introduction Alliance, 2019), illegal firearms, fraud, human traf-
Many countries, including the UK, Australia, and ficking, and cybercrime (NCA, 2019). The results
the Netherlands, have developed national and re- from these assessments are then used to decide on
gional strategies for countering organized crime interventions that aim to counter and mitigate
groups (OCGs) in an attempt to reduce the nega- these organized crime activities. The estimation of
tive impact these groups have on society the harm that is caused by organized crime is a key
(Boerman et al., 2017; Department of Home objective of these assessments and should play a
Affairs, 2018; HM Government, 2018). As part of central role in the design of crime control policy
this strategic focus, law enforcement agencies against OCGs (Greenfield and Paoli, 2013).
regularly conduct assessments to better understand Akin to harm is the seriousness of organized
the current and future threats of organized crime crimes. In the realm of sentencing guidelines, ser-
activity. Assessments are completed for a range of iousness has been defined as a combination of
activities including drugs (DEA, 2019), child sex- harm and culpability of the offender (Ignatans and
ual exploitation and abuse (WePROTECT Global Pease, 2016; Curtis-Ham and Walton, 2018).
*Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, University College London, London, UK. E-mail: juliana.gomez.18@
ucl.ac.uk
Policing, Volume 00, Number 0, pp. 1–19
https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paac046
C The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press.
V
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creative-
commons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.2 Policing Article J. Gómez-Quintero et al.
Under this definition, seriousness does not neces- different forms (e.g. financial, physical, psycho-
sarily reflect the magnitude of harms (i.e. negative logical, reputational, etc.) and so that the focus of
consequences) of a crime. A crime may be more intervention becomes mitigating the harm in its
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serious than another crime because of the different levels (e.g. individual, societal, environ-
offender’s history (e.g. they are recidivists or had a mental, governmental, etc.). Indeed, placing harm
wilful misconduct), but the harms may be the at the core of the design of direct and indirect
same for both crimes (Mitchell, 2019). For ex- interventions to counter organized crime would
ample, manslaughter is considered less serious shift the focus from the offenders to the victims
than murder because of differences in the inten- (Ignatuschtschenko, 2021) and would therefore
tions of the offender, but the harm (i.e. loss of life) motivate a policy discourse that prioritizes the re-
is the same in both cases. More specific to organ- duction of harm over enforcement goals such as
ized crime, the term seriousness has been used to apprehension and interdiction, in the case of drug
indicate that a crime has a complexity and sophis- trafficking. Interventions derived from such harm
tication that should be accounted for in legislation, assessments could be direct, in the case of law en-
and that it is harmful (Sergi, 2017). forcement, but also indirect and mitigating in the
The use of the seriousness of organized crimes case of development actors that can build resili-
as a criterion to prioritize countering efforts ence in communities and state actors, and to alle-
requires an assessment of harms (Paoli and viate the impacts of OC (GIATO, 2016). However,
Greenfield, 2018). A harm-focused approach a systematic method for the estimation of harm
would bring an added value to the decision mak- has yet to be developed.
ing of law enforcement and development actors In recent years, several advances have been
(e.g. public sector agencies, non-profit organisa- made in creating and using harm assessment
tions, and multilateral agencies) directly and indir- methods in policing. These include the Crime
ectly working on the countering of organized Harm Index (Sherman, 2007; 2013) and the Harm
crime and mitigation of its impacts. Paoli and Assessment Framework (HAF) (Greenfield and
Greenfield (2018), for example, propose the use of Paoli, 2013) and have become useful tools for con-
harmfulness’ as a criterion to decide if an act can sidering the harmful consequences of crime rather
be considered criminal; to inform how law en- than just measuring crime incidence. These tools,
forcement could prioritize the countering of dif- however, are insufficient for accurately assessing
ferent organized crimes; and for the design of the harmful consequences of organized crime be-
sentencing guidelines and programmes that assist cause they do not account for the harm caused
victims. They also argue that the concept of harm- across the successive stages of an organized crim-
fulness could be extended to understand the inal activity. These tools also do not consider the
impacts of interventions so that they too, can be harmful consequences of the crimes that are con-
analysed from a harm perspective (see also nected to a specific organized criminal activity
Borrion et al., 2020). For example, many studies (e.g. incidents of violence that are related to an
have found that interventions aiming to curtail OCG’s involvement in the supply of illegal drugs).
drug trafficking have been more harmful than they To estimate the harm caused by organized crime
have been effective (Caulkins and Reuter, 2009; requires an assessment of how the criminal activity
Blaustein et al., 2017). Ignatuschtschenko (2021) unfolds across the many stages that are involved in
also argues that harm assessments should inform crime commission and the interconnectivity of
the investment in countering crime and poses two criminal activity. Understanding the commission
more potential benefits of harm assessments of an organized crime activity across several stages
namely to identify and evaluate harm in its helps in the examination of the causal relationshipOrganised Crime Harm Assessment Method Article Policing 3
between events in a sequence across the activity activity causes, which in the case of the drugs trade
and in the development of explanations about spe- must also include an assessment of harm relating
cific actions performed within a wider activity. In to the production and supply activities that are
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the illicit drug trade, for example, these stages in- part of this activity (Caulkins and Reuter, 2009;
clude the production of the drug, its transporta- Greenfield and Paoli, 2012). Other methods to as-
tion, wholesale, and street distribution. Organized sess the harm caused by organized crime have
crime activity can also involve a diverse range of focused instead on the OCG as the unit of analysis
connected criminal activities that contribute or are (Mulholland and Cole, 2021). However, in using
associated to the main criminal activity (Hancock OCGs as the unit of analysis for assessing harm
and Laycock, 2010; von Lampe, 2011; Lavorgna, restricts the assessment of harm from organized
2018), and are often essential to the activities and crime because the OCG may not be involved in
survival of OCGs (Pascual, 2017). For example, in performing all the activities (Felson, 2006; Bright
the illicit cocaine trade, associated criminal activity and Delaney, 2013; Bright, 2017).
can include the theft of chemicals that are used in In this article, we introduce a method for assess-
the processing of coca paste to cocaine, and thefts ing the harm of organized crime for all stages of an
committed by drug addicts to obtain money to organized crime activity. The harm assessment
purchase cocaine. An organized crime activity can method includes the measurement of harm that is
also be connected to other organized or non-
associated with connected crimes. In the next sec-
organized crimes, such as corruption (Gounev and
tion, we critique in more detail the suitability of
Bezlov, 2010), money laundering (Gilmour, 2016;
existing harm assessment tools for measuring the
Bayona-Rodrıguez, 2019), human labour exploit-
harmful consequences of organized crime. We
ation and trafficking (Shelley, 2012), and violence
then introduce the Organized Crime Harm
(Goldstein, 1985; Desroches, 2005). Thus, a com-
Assessment (OCHA) method as an instrument to
prehensive harm assessment of organized crime
measure the harm caused by activities performed
must not only consider the main criminal activity
by OCGs and examine its use applying it to the
(such as the cocaine trade) but must also consider
the harmful consequences of connected activities heroin trade into and within England and Wales.
as they play out across the many stages of the main We finish by discussing the challenges in the appli-
criminal activity. cation of the OCHA method and conclude by
Attempts to assess the harmful consequences of identifying opportunities for improvements and
OCG activity have mainly focused on their in- future research.
volvement in the illegal drugs trade (see discussion
in Paoli and Greenfield, 2013) Most of these
Crime harm assessment
attempts, however, have only focused on the harm
that is associated with drug use rather than the All techniques for measuring the harmful conse-
wider range of harms associated with the illegal quences of crime involve applying some form of
drugs trade. For example, Moxham-Hall and weighting procedure to each crime incident. That
Ritter (2017) identified 10 indices in their system- is, rather than just measuring the number of inci-
atic review of illicit drug and alcohol harm indices, dents, crime harm measurement involves weight-
all of which assessed the harms of drug use and ing each incident according to an assessment of its
did not include assessments associated with the impact. Early attempts to assess the harm of crimes
harmful consequences of the illegal drugs trade. used information from surveys to construct
Focusing on only one stage of an organized crime weights (Sellin and Wolfgang, 1964; Rossi et al.,
activity limits the assessment of the harm the 1974; Wolfgang et al., 1985), and to evaluate the4 Policing Article J. Gómez-Quintero et al.
seriousness of offences (Pease, 1988). Other publicly available and they offer consistency for
approaches have used the costs of crime as weights measuring harm in different contexts under the
to distinguish differences between the harmful same jurisdiction (Sherman et al., 2016). There
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effects of crime (Savona, 2009; Cohen and Bowles, are, however, several different approaches in how
2010; Wickramasekera et al., 2015; Heeks et al., sentencing guidelines have been used for weighting
2018). This can help remove much of the subject- harm. The Cambridge CHI (Sherman et al., 2016)
ivity in determining harm weights in comparison uses the starting point for sentences (e.g. the num-
to when only people’s opinions are used (Levi, ber of prison days) to calculate weights, whereas
2016). Using the costs of crime does, however, others such as the California CHI (Mitchell, 2019)
have several shortcomings: Some crimes are diffi- use maximum sentences. Other approaches have
cult to cost; a measure of cost can be prone to in- used the actual sentences given to offenders rather
flationary adjustments, and, as costs likely differ than sentencing guidelines (Curtis-Ham and
between countries, a cost of crime approach is Walton, 2018). When sentencing guidelines are
prone to international inconsistency. not available, some have created their own sen-
In recent years, the two most widely applied tencing guidelines to generate harm weights
approaches for the assessment of harm have used (Andersen and Mueller-Johnson, 2018; Rinaldo,
2018).
sentencing guidelines as weights of harm or have
The use of sentencing guidelines to weight the
applied a qualitative framework that considers the
harms of crimes does, however, come with limita-
severity and incidence of criminal acts. We next
tions. Some researchers have argued that sentenc-
examine these two approaches in detail.
ing guidelines are based on too many other factors
to make them appropriate for weighting the harm
Crime harm index of crime (Maguire and McVie, 2017), with some
challenging the fundamental premise that they are
Crime Harm Indices (CHIs) apply weights to inci-
democratically defined (Paoli and Greenfield,
dents of recorded crime based on a measure of the
2018; Ransley et al., 2018). Tusikov (2012), for in-
harm these crimes produce. This approach, for ex-
stance, argued that sentencing guidelines can be
ample, results in individual incidents of sexual
contaminated by political interests. However, the
assaults being more greatly weighted than each in- processes involved in creating sentencing guide-
cident of shoplifting because of the greater harm lines used by a criminal justice system does include
caused by a sexual assault. A CHI approach, there- a period of research and public consultation
fore, produces a measure of crime that offers a (Sentencing Council, 2021), which means that the
more considered understanding of the harmful process of defining the guidelines can accommo-
consequences of crime than is generated when date evidence-based findings and democratic in-
only counts of crime are considered (Sherman, volvement, and that their use for weighting crime
2007, 2013). In general, the CHI is calculated as harm can be improved as research into their use
the product of the crime count (incidence) and develops.
the harm weight for that crime. In practice, CHIs that use sentencing guidelines
Several approaches have been developed to have become widely used in a range of policing
weight the harms of crimes. Sherman (2013) pro- contexts. Examples include the Cambridge CHI
posed using sentencing guidelines as the means for (Sherman et al., 2016), the Swedish CHI
weighting harm, stating they offer a pure weight of (Kärrholm et al., 2020), the WA-CHI for Western
harm because of how sentencing represents demo- Australia (House and Neyroud, 2018), the Danish
cratic values of the consequences of crime, they are CHI (Andersen and Mueller-Johnson, 2018), theOrganised Crime Harm Assessment Method Article Policing 5
CA-CHI for California (Mitchell, 2019), the New severity, a qualitative scale was used—catastrophic,
Zealand CHI (Curtis-Ham and Walton, 2018), grave, serious, moderate, and marginal—with loss
and the crime index for Northern Ireland of life, for example, being rated as a catastrophic
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(Macbeth and Ariel, 2019). These indices have harm, and other physical and psychological harms
been used to measure how crime has changed over being ranked as grave harms. The harm rankings
time (Andersen and Mueller-Johnson, 2018), to generated using the HAF are then prioritized based
examine how crime harm concentrates in space on the assessment of severity and incidence. The
(Bland and Ariel, 2015; Weinborn et al., 2017; HAF has been used in the assessment of the harm
Norton et al., 2018; Fenimore, 2019; Macbeth and of cocaine trafficking (Paoli et al., 2013), cannabis
Ariel, 2019), to measure the extent of crime harm cultivation (Paoli et al., 2015), human trafficking
that is caused by offenders (Frydensberg et al., and labour exploitation (Greenfield et al., 2016;
2019; Ratcliffe and Kikuchi, 2019), and to evaluate Davies, 2018), cybercrime (Paoli et al., 2018), and
crime prevention interventions (Ariel et al., 2016; piracy (Peters and Paoli, 2020).
Gibson et al., 2017; Mitchell, 2019).
The suitability of the CHI and HAF
Harm assessment framework for assessing the harm of
The HAF proposed by Greenfield and Paoli (2013) organized crime
is an alternative approach to the CHI for measur- In this section, we examine the sequence of steps
ing harm. The HAF involves generating a model of that are involved in the application of the CHI and
the primary crime activity, and its accompanying the HAF. We do this to identify similarities and
and enabled activities. The harms associated with differences between the two approaches, and to
the primary criminal activities that are identified identify the strengths and limitations of each.
in the model and the accompanying and enabled From this comparison, we identify potential ways
activities are then mapped against harm and harm the two approaches can be used for assessing the
bearer taxonomies and rated using ordinal severity harm of organized crime and the additional
and incidence scales. In the taxonomies, harms are requirements for this type of harm assessment.
classified in terms of functional integrity, material Figure 1 depicts a comparison between the CHI
interest, reputation, or privacy. Harm bearers are and the HAF, showing how each approach pro-
classified as individuals, private sector entities, gresses through a series of steps that result in the
government entities, or the environment. Severity assessment of harm. The steps in the HAF and the
and incidence ratings are combined in a matrix to CHI were extracted from Greenfield and Paoli
rank harms by low, medium, and high priority. To (2013) and Sherman (2013), respectively. From
rate incidence, a qualitative scale is used: continu- this figure, we can identify that the main differen-
ous occurrence, persistent occurrence, occasional ces between the CHI and HAF are in how they se-
occurrence, seldom occurrence, and rare occur- lect the crimes for harm assessment and how they
rence. Rating the incidence involves assessing the measure the harm that crime incidence causes.
incidence of the crimes and of the harms caused The HAF uses a business process model to select
by the crimes. For example, for the activity of sex crimes that are considered as harmful and identi-
trafficking, Greenfield et al. (2016) rated the inci- fies the bearers of these crimes, from which ratings
dence of sex trafficking and then rated the inci- of the incidence and severity of harms are pro-
dence of harms such as loss of life, and duced. The CHI uses crimes reported to the police
psychological and physical damage. To rate to measure the incidence of crime, grouped by6 Policing Article J. Gómez-Quintero et al.
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Figure 1: Comparison of the HAF (Greenfield and Paoli, 2013) and the Crime Harm Index (Sherman, 2013).
crime type (e.g. a count of sexual assaults, a count connected crimes that are perpetrated in any of
of shoplifting incidents, etc.) and then applies a the stages of an organized crime activity. The HAF
harm weight to each of these crime-count group- expands the analysis to include not only the pri-
ings. In the case of the HAF, the assessment of mary crime activity but also two types of con-
harm is calculated using a qualitative matrix that nected activities: accompanying activities, and
combines incidence and harm rankings. For the enabled activities. For example, in the assessment
CHI, harm is calculated as the product of the of the harms of cocaine trafficking, Paoli et al.
crime counts and the harm weights. Organizing (2013) classified trafficking as the primary crime
the processes that are involved in each approach in activity, and retail supply and use of cocaine as
the manner shown in Fig. 1 helps to evaluate the enabled activities. However, the HAF does not ex-
suitability of each approach for assessing the harm plain how to carry out the analysis across the dif-
of organized crime. ferent stages, without double-counting harm.1
Both methods have limitations when consider- A ‘whole process’ view of the organized crime ac-
ing the harmful consequences of an organized tivity that considers harm across an entire organ-
criminal activity. The CHI only considers crimes ized crime activity is, therefore, lacking.
that are grouped by crime type categories to deter- The HAF and CHI have other limitations. The
mine an assessment of harm; it does not include HAF has been criticized for being difficult toOrganised Crime Harm Assessment Method Article Policing 7
measure (Mitchell, 2019). The CHI relies on The OCHA method is a five-step process that
reported crimes to calculate crime harm (Sherman involves creating a crime script for the organized
et al., 2016). Therefore, for the purposes of organ- crime activity, associating connected crimes to
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ized crime activity where much of the activity is each key stage within the crime script, estimating
clandestine and goes unreported, the use of the the incidence of crimes, defining the harm level
CHI in measuring organized crime activity is lim- for each incident, calculating the total harm for
ited. The CHI has also been criticized as an over- each stage of the crime script, and prioritizing the
simplification of harm assessment (Paoli and stages for intervention (see Fig. 2).
Greenfield, 2018). The first step involves creating a model of the
In principle, the HAF and the CHI are useful crime commission process for the organized crime
approaches for assessing crime harm but as shown activity and associating connected crimes to each
above, they also have intrinsic limitations for esti- stage. Crime scripts (Cornish, 1994) are useful for
mating the harm caused by organized crime. identifying the different stages within an organized
Specifically, improving the assessment of harm crime activity as they place emphasis on the se-
caused by organized crime requires an approach quence of events involved in criminal activities
that considers harm across all the stages of an
(Bullock et al., 2010). Using a crime script at this
organized crime activity and includes the harm
stage is conceptually similar to the construction of
caused by connected crimes.
a business process model (Borrion, 2013), the lat-
ter being suggested in the HAF as the first step for
OCHA method assessing harm. Crime scripts have been used in
researching organized crime activity, including
In this section, we introduce the OCHA method.
human sex trafficking (Savona et al., 2013), envir-
This method is designed to address the shortcom-
onmental crime (Tompson and Chainey, 2011),
ings of the CHI and HAF in the assessment of
the transnational illegal market in endangered spe-
harm of organized crime and act as a template for
cies (Moreto and Clarke, 2013), theft of oil from
researchers and practitioners to make more accur-
ate assessments of the harmful consequences of pipelines (Alonso Berbotto and Chainey, 2021),
organized crime. The method we propose includes and the drugs trade (Chiu et al., 2011; Jacques and
the assessment of harm across many stages of an Bernasco, 2013). Dehghanniri and Borrion (2021)
organized crime activity and the inclusion of provide a comprehensive review of the application
crimes that are connected to activities in each of crime scripts.
stage. To create the OCHA method, we used a de- Figure 3 shows the key stages within a crime
sign methodology, following the steps proposed by script of the heroin trade in England and
Collatto et al. (2018) and that incorporates design Wales. This heroin trade involves five stages:
principles described by Dresch et al. (2015). We production, transnational distribution, wholesale,
drew from existing solutions—namely the CHI retail, and consumption (Natarajan, 2010; Kinlock
and the HAF—to design the OCHA method and and Gordon, 2015). Heroin is mainly cultivated
used the heroin trade into and within England and and manufactured in Afghanistan (FATF, 2014;
Wales to demonstrate its application, identify UNODC, 2020), and brought to Europe through
challenges and discuss potential ways these can be the Balkan route via Iran and Turkey (EMCDDA
overcome. and EUROPOL, 2019). In this script, transnational
1
In Paoli et al.(2013), trafficking and retail supply are considered two separate activities, one preceding the other. Because
enabled activities can also be construed as direct activities (depending on the perspective adopted), adding the harm esti-
mates from all activities (including connected activities) across all stages together is likely to overestimate the total harm.8 Policing Article J. Gómez-Quintero et al.
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Figure 2: The Organized Crime Harm Assessment method (OCHA method).
Figure 3: Stages of the heroin trade into and within England and Wales.
distribution, wholesale, and retail take place in Enabling offences are those that facilitate direct
England and Wales (McSweeney et al., 2008). offences but do not necessarily involve the victim or
To identify the crimes that are associated to an illegal commodity and could be replaced by another
organized crime activity, we propose the use of a tax- enabling activity (e.g. money laundering, fraud, vio-
onomy of association that refers to three different lence to protect drug markets, and corruption).
types of crime: direct offences, enabler offences, and Fuelled offences are those that are facilitated by dir-
fuelled offences. Direct offences are those that are ect offences and do not involve the victim, target, or
most directly related to the organized crime activity. illegal commodity (e.g. human trafficking funded
They often relate to an illegal commodity, a target or with income from drug-production as a crime
a victim. Examples of direct offences include the re- fuelled by drug trafficking). Enabler and fuelled
cruitment of victims for human trafficking and the crimes are connected crimes to the organised crime
production of heroin in the case of drug trafficking. (OC) activity (see Fig. 4).Organised Crime Harm Assessment Method Article Policing 9
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Figure 4: Taxonomy of crimes associated to an organized crime activity.
Table 1 illustrates the use of the taxonomy and production and transnational distribution phases
its integration with the crime script from Fig. 3 for (FATF, 2014) and human trafficking for sexual ex-
heroin trade in England and Wales. For this ex- ploitation during transnational distribution and re-
ample, direct offences are the production, supply, tail phases ( Shelley, 2012; Bean, 2014; EMCDDA
possession, and import/export of heroin, and the and EUROPOL, 2019).
use of premises for these drugs trade-related activ- The second step of the OCHA method involves
ities as defined in the Misuse of Drugs Act of 1971 estimating the incidence of crime. In the case of
and the Customs and Excise Management Act of connected crimes (enablers and fuelled), the inci-
1979 (Sentencing Council, 2012). Enabler offences dents of interest are those that occur due to the
included money laundering at the production, organized crime activity. Often, it is not possible
transnational distribution, and wholesale stages to generate an actual number of these incidents
(FATF, 2014; Levi, 2014; Soudijn, 2016; EMCDDA and instead an estimation is required. Hopkins
and EUROPOL, 2019); corruption during trans- et al. (2013) estimate, for example, that 6% of
national distribution ( Pearson et al., 2001; Gounev homicides that occur in a single year in England
and Bezlov, 2010; EMCDDA and EUROPOL, 2019 and Wales are connected to organized crime.
); violence at the retail stage (Hopkins et al., 2013); Estimating the incidence of crimes that are con-
and forced labour during production, transnational nected to the heroin trade into and within
distribution, and wholesale (EMCDDA and England and Wales proved to be challenging. This
EUROPOL, 2019). ‘County lines’2 is an emerging is because limited literature and other accounts
form of criminal exploitation in the UK (Stone, generated by policing agencies currently exist on
2018; Robinson et al., 2019; Spicer et al., 2019) and the incidence of these crimes. UK police recorded
was found to be associated to the retail phase crime (Home Office, 2019), the UK Focal Point
(NCA, 2019). In the matter of sexual exploitation, Annual Report (2017a, b), the UK Drug Report
Bean (2014, p. 226) described prostitution as part from the EMCDDA (2019), and the UNODC
of what he called the ‘snowball’ criminality of drug (2019) World Drug Report were examined for this
markets. He described the nexus between prostitu- purpose but these sources were limited in their
tion and the drugs market: ‘it is possible to see content. Although disappointing, this finding did
prostitution as a market within a market, the largest not expose a weakness of the OCHA method as a
and most important being the drug market, but method for assessing the harm of organized crime
assisted and sustained by the sex market’. Fuelled but rather identified a challenge that we return to
offences included acts of terrorism during the in the discussion section.
2
County Lines refer to criminal activities where illegal drugs are transported from one area to another, and often from cities
to less populated areas, usually by children or vulnerable people who are coerced into it by criminal groups.10 Policing Article J. Gómez-Quintero et al.
Table 1. Direct, enabler, and fuelled crimes associated to the heroin trade
Stages Production Transnational Wholesale Retail Consumption
distribution
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Direct crimes Production; posses- Importing; posses- Supplying or offering to supply, Importing/export-
sion with intent sion with intent possession with intent to supply ing; Possession
to supply to supply of a controlled
drug
Enabler crimes Permitting premises Money laundering, Permitting premises Criminal exploit- Theft (i.e. shoplift-
to be used for corruption, crim- to be used; ation—modern ing, car theft,
production; inal exploit- Money slavery; violent etc.); Burglary;
Money launder- ation—modern laundering, crim- crimes (i.e. Robbery
ing, criminal ex- slavery, violent inal exploit- homicide); con-
ploitation— crimes (i.e. ation—modern trolling prostitu-
modern slavery homicide) slavery tion for gain
violent crimes
(i.e. homicide)
Fuelled crimes Funding terrorism Funding terrorism; Human trafficking Violent crimes (e.g.
Human traffick- for sexual ex- homicide, man-
ing for sexual ploitation; con- slaughter, etc.);
exploitation trolling prostitu- Cruelty to or
tion for gain neglect of
children
The third step involves defining the harm Heroin is classified as a class A drug (UK
weights for each crime incident. In this demon- Government, 2021) for which LSPs for offences
stration of the OCHA method, we adopt the same associated with class A drugs are higher than
weighting approach used by most CHI’s—the low- those for classes B and C. Secondly, some LSPs
est starting points (LSPs) for a sentence for may vary depending on the phase in which an of-
offenders who have not previously been convicted. fence has occurred. Thirdly, the LSP for posses-
This involves determining the number of prison sion offences differ when paired with an
days associated with a sentence and using only the intention to supply. Fourthly, LSPs vary accord-
days until when the offender becomes eligible for ing to the amount of drug found. Table 2 lists
parole for this calculation. If the starting point is examples to illustrate each consideration.
expressed in hours, hours are converted to days. If The fourth step involves calculating the total
the starting point is a fine, then the number of harm for all crime incidents for each stage of the
days is calculated as the days it would take an adult organized crime activity. This is the product be-
to earn the fined amount while working at the tween the incidence and the harm weight for each
minimum wage rate (see Sherman et al., 2016). crime, which is then totalled to generate a crime
In our illustrative application of the OCHA harm value for each stage of organized crime activ-
method, harm weights were calculated using the ity. The final stage involves prioritizing where to
suggested LSP in the Sentencing Guidelines for focus attention and target resources. The harm as-
England and Wales (Sentencing Council, 2021), sessment for each stage of criminal activity pro-
as per the Cambridge CHI. Additional considera- vides a measure of harm that can be used by a law
tions need to be made when calculating harm enforcement agency to determine the stage of an
weights for drug-related offences. First, sentenc- OC activity that generates most harm and to
ing starting points for drug offences vary accord- which the agency’s intervention efforts should be
ing to the classification of the drug (A, B, or C). targeted. The total harm for each stage relating toTable 2: Examples of variations in harm weights of drug offences due to drug classifications, trafficking phase, intention, and amount found
Consideration Example
First: Sentencing starting points for Offence: Production of a controlled drug
drug offences vary according to the Class A drug Class B drug Class C drug
classification of the drug LSP ¼ 18 monthsa LSP ¼ Band C finea LSP ¼ Band C finea
Harm weight ¼ 547.5 Harm weight ¼ 3 Harm weight ¼ 3
Second: Some LSPs may vary depend- Offence: Supplying or offering to supply a class A drug
Organised Crime Harm Assessment Method
ing on the phase in which an of- If directly offered to a drug user: If offer to supply occurs at any
fence has occurred LSP ¼ 36 monthsa other stage (for example, distribution):
Harm weight ¼ 1,095 LSP ¼ 18 monthsa
Harm weight ¼ 547.5
Third: LSP for possession offences dif- Offence: Possession of heroin
fer when paired with an intention If not paired with an intention to supply: If paired with the intention to supply at If paired with the intention to supply
to supply LSP ¼ Band C fine any stage other than retail: directly to a user:
Harm weight ¼ 3 LSP ¼ 18 monthsa LSP ¼ 36 monthsa
Harm weight ¼ 547.5 Harm weight ¼ 1,095
Fourth: LSPs vary according to the Offence: Production of a controlled drug
amount of drug found Amount ¼ 5 kg Amount ¼ 1 kg Amount ¼ 150 g Amount ¼ 5 g
LSP ¼ 7 years LSP ¼ 5 years LSP ¼ 3 years 6 months LSP ¼ 18 months
Harm weight ¼ 2,555 Harm weight ¼ 1,825 Harm weight ¼ 1,277.5 Harm weight ¼ 547.5
a
Assuming the lowest threshold for amount of heroin found (5 g).
Article
Policing
11
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the example of the heroin trade into and within findings about organized crime. We encourage
England and Wales is discussed in the next further research that considers if more categories
section. should be added to those we have introduced. One
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option is to include crimes arising because of pol-
icy with the argument that a substantial number of
Discussion harms derived from organized crime, particularly
As law enforcement agencies and other institutions in the drugs trade, are a result of their illicit status
endeavour to counter organized crime due to its and law enforcement action (Jacques and Allen,
many negative impacts to society, a harm assess- 2015; Ratcliffe, 2015). For example, Werb et al.
ment method that can orient where to focus these (2011, p. 87), concluded in their systematic review
efforts is needed. The OCHA method is a method that ‘gun violence and high homicide rates may be
for assessing organized crime harm that uses an inevitable consequence of drug prohibition and
organized crime activities as the unit of analysis. that disrupting drug markets can paradoxically in-
Different to other measures of harm assessment, crease violence.’ Including this category would re-
the OCHA method emphasizes the importance of quire defining and operationalizing the concept of
understanding the process of an OC activity and policy-induced crimes.
decoupling it into its different stages. The use of We have demonstrated the application of the
OCHA method to the heroin trade into and within
crime scripts to map the process of the OC activity
England and Wales, showing that it is possible to
allows a ‘more objective assessment and under-
break down an organized crime activity into its
standing’ of an organized crime activity (Tompson
different stages and consider which crimes are per-
and Chainey, 2011, p. 179) given the methodical
petrated at each stage. We have also shown that
process it entails, and helps to tackle the inherent
each stage involves different crimes, not only dir-
complexity of organized crime (Brayley et al.,
ect, but different enabler and fuelled crimes, and
2011; Savona et al., 2013; Chainey and Alonso
hence the harm assessment for each stage will be
Berbotto, 2021).
different. Recognizing that harm is different at
The OCHA method also furthers understanding
each stage, provides greater insight into how harm
on the extent of an OC activity by considering
is distributed across the crime commission pro-
connected crimes. The taxonomy of connected cess. The application has also shown that it is
crimes presented in the current study encourages possible to calculate harm weights for heroin
thinking about how crimes relate to organized trade-related crimes.
crime, as either direct, enabler or fuelled crimes. The OCHA method is designed to be applicable
Other classifications have focused on the link be- to different types of organized crime. Other than
tween organized crime and violence (Goldstein, the drugs trade, it could be applied for example to
1985; Reiss and Roth, 1993), thereby excluding human sex trafficking. Possible stages of human
other types of crimes connected to organized sex trafficking could be recruitment, transporta-
crime. The taxonomy we introduce provides novel tion and exploitation, and enabler crimes could be
possibilities for research, such as examining if forgery and corruption in transportation, and
there are similarities between different organized threats, violence and forced prostitution during
crimes. The taxonomy may also guide how agen- exploitation (Savona et al., 2013). Another ex-
cies such as Europol, the US Federal Bureau of ample is in wildlife trafficking where stages include
Investigation, the UK’s National Crime Agency, attacking, and killing the animal, escaping, and
and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs selling as stages in wildlife trafficking (Eloff and
and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) report their Lemieux, 2014). Corruption, theft, fraud, moneyOrganised Crime Harm Assessment Method Article Policing 13
laundering, and extortion, among other financial proportion of organized crime that they have
crimes have been found to enable these activities detected and prosecuted (Pascual, 2017), and
(Viollaz et al., 2018). changes in organized crime that is observed by po-
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The application of the OCHA method to assess lice agencies may be a reflection of their law en-
the harms of the heroin trade into and within forcement efforts (Windle and Silke, 2019).
England and Wales has, however, uncovered sev- Additionally, determining whether an offence is
eral challenges in how to accurately and precisely connected with an organized crime is a challenge
measure the harm that is caused by organized given that law enforcement agencies do not neces-
crime activity. The first task involved identifying sarily register when a crime is attributed to OCGs
the stages of the organized crime activity. (Dorn and Bunt, 2010; Tusikov, 2012) nor do they
Although several sources of information were used detail if it is connected to an organized crime ac-
to identify the stages of the heroin trade into and tivity (e.g. to protect the OC activity or to finance
within England and Wales, this might be more dif- it). Intelligence about OCGs recorded by national
ficult for other, less researched organized crime ac- or regional police agencies would have been useful
tivity such as labour trafficking (Cockbain et al., for the current study, but access to these were not
2018), and more novel forms of activity such as possible for this research because of the sensitive
the use of cryptocurrencies for money laundering and restricted nature of these data. However, use
(NCA, 2018). of these data can also be limited because often
A second challenge the research exposed was in these data do not contain information about the
the identification of connected crimes, both en- nature of the criminal activity, such as how the ac-
abler and fuelled crimes. Our analysis of the heroin tivity is committed, the roles that individuals per-
trade showed that the focus of research on this form, the equipment that is used, and the
topic was most usually about the connections be- connected crimes that are committed across the
tween the heroin trade and specific types of crime main criminal activity (Chainey and Alonso
(e.g. the heroin trade and violent crime). Very lit- Berbotto, 2021). Gathering information about the
tle research to date has examined more widely the incidence of connected crimes associated with the
range of crimes that are connected to organized drugs trade has the added challenge of attribution
crime activity. This required us to examine infor- of causality (Singleton et al., 2018). For example:
mation from multiple sources to generate an ac- How to establish if a homicide was the result of a
curate account of the crimes that were connected drug-trade activity? or how to determine if a theft
to organized crime activity. Another challenge was was perpetrated to fund drug use? As De Bont
the estimation of incidence of direct and con- et al. (2018) have noted, missing data, fragmented
nected crimes. Sherman et al. (2016) and other data, comparability issues, and data quality issues
authors of CHIs use official crime count records to in police-recorded data are obstacles for determin-
estimate the incidence of crime to generate assess- ing the full provenance of drug-related homicides.
ments of harm. However, information about The application of the OCHA method in the
organized crime and the crimes that OCGs com- case of the heroin trade into and within England
mit is not as systematically recorded as crimes and Wales has illustrated the need for methods to
used in CHIs (Tusikov, 2012). Also, because OCG be developed that provide better estimates for inci-
activities are often performed discreetly and go un- dence of direct, enabler, and fuelled crimes. We
detected (Hobbs and Antonopoulos, 2014; noted in our findings on the application of the
Pascual, 2017), a comprehensive account of the OCHA method to the heroin trade in England and
criminal acts an OCG commits is not recorded by Wales the disappointment in not being able to
police agencies. Police reports only reflect a fully estimate the incidence of connected crimes.14 Policing Article J. Gómez-Quintero et al.
This finding did not expose a weakness of the guidelines are designed and how they could be
OCHA method as a method for assessing the harm used for evaluating crime harm.
of organized crime but rather identified a chal-
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lenge for researchers and law enforcement agencies
to address. The clandestine nature to a lot of Conclusion
organized crime activity means that information Despite advances in creating and using harm as-
about this activity can often be limited. However, sessment methods in policing, such as CHI and
Alonso Berbotto and Chainey (2021) have shown the HAF, the available tools are insufficient for ac-
that in such situations open sources of intelligence curately assessing the harmful consequences of
(OSINT) within a crime scripting process can pro- organized crime. In particular, these tools do not
vide a detailed account of organized crime activity, account for the harm caused across the successive
and which in turn can be used for generating a stages of an organized criminal activity and do not
more accurate estimation of the incidence of con- consider the harmful consequences of the crimes
nected crimes. We anticipate conducting further that are connected to a specific organized criminal
research that examines how OSINT, alongside activity.
other sources of information, can be used to ad- In this article, the OCHA method is introduced
dress the challenge of estimating the incidence of to address these shortcomings, demonstrated with
connected crimes across an organized crime activ- application to the heroin trade into and within
ity. In addition, as institutions, practitioners, and England and Wales. The OCHA method involves
researchers have become more conscious about creating a crime script of the crime commission
the importance of gathering information about the process, identifying connected crimes to the
wider activities that OCGs perform when engaged organized crime activity, estimating the incidence
in a main criminal activity, new initiatives have of crimes, and devising crime harm weights. From
emerged to address the lack of information about this, the OCHA method offers a means for deter-
these wider activities. For example, the UNODC’s mining how harm distributes across an organized
(2016) initiative for an international classification crime activity. Although challenges remain in ac-
standard for crime provides a transnational tool curately measuring the harm that is caused by
for producing statistics on crime and criminal organized crime, the method we introduce offers a
justice, and now facilitates comparability among valuable step forward in how the harmful conse-
the different information sources that have imple- quences of organized crime activity can be
mented it. quantified.
The further challenge our research has exposed
was the calculation of harm weights. England and
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