By Huma Haider
Organised criminal actors can extend their influence over security sector officials through corruption, paying them to selectively enforce the law. In some cases, the rise of organised crime (OC) has eroded the state’s capacity to deliver security and justice. In other contexts, criminality is associated with a strong state that can protect corrupt officials and criminal actors. Strengthening the capabilities of corrupt security institutions can, in turn, be counterproductive in the fight against OC. The linkages between corruption, OC, the functioning of security and justice institutions, and their reform processes, call for integrated analysis, planning and implementation of initiatives to achieve security sector reform and governance (SSR/G) and to counter OC. There is, however, a gap in scholarship analysing connections between SSR/G and OC. In seeking to address this gap, this paper adopts an inter-disciplinary approach, reviewing scholarly and practitioner literature across a wide range of research disciplines. Key findings from the evidence review include:
Delayed or weak implementation of security sector reform (SSR) in transitional contexts can result in the entrenchment of corruption in security sectors, alongside new forms of corruption (for example, from privatisation processes), which in turn risks the rise of illicit activities.
OC can thrive where state institutions are absent or weak and where they are present or strong. A binary focus on strong versus weak states, with inadequate attention to context, has led at times to counterproductive interventions aimed at strengthening state institutions and the capabilities of security forces.
The political context in which SSR and initiatives to counter OC take place can have a significant influence on outcomes. Such reforms and initiatives require political will and support. Elites in authoritarian contexts may block reforms that could hold them accountable and undermine their ability to profit from OC.
Many SSR studies indicate that programming often prioritises less politically sensitive capacity building interventions. Yet, reforms that increase deterrent capacity can reinforce militarisation and increase violent crime by OC actors.
Higher levels of popular trust in the military have often been accompanied by greater state reliance on the military to perform civilian law enforcement and/or militarisation of the police to address OC and restore public order.
The militarisation of law enforcement has typically failed to counter OC, producing greater violence and criminality in many fragile and violent contexts.
Relying on armed forces to counter OC has often reduced incentives and resources for strengthening police institutions
Community-oriented policing is often employed to improve public trust in the police, yet there is limited systematic or comparative evidence that this is achieved.
Mass incarceration, from law and order approaches, has frequently strengthened the cohesion of organised crime groups (OCG), giving them a territorial base for power projection.
Overcrowded prison facilities and insufficient state staffing levels have often resulted in the rise of criminal governance and prisoner syndicates as parallel powers.
Inadequate reintegration of ex-combatants, or gang members in situations of urban violence, can encourage their involvement in criminal activities.
Conventional approaches to investigating and prosecuting criminal activity can be ineffective against complex OC networks. A proactive approach is required that seeks to disrupt and dismantle such networks, beyond arresting individual criminals.
Criminal justice actors need to recognise that women can be both victims and perpetrators in the context of OC, possibly allowing for legal leniency.
Judicial reforms tend to be more effective when they produce institutional change and empower new personnel to push through reforms.
Special courts, established to tackle OC and corruption, may divert resources from elsewhere in the judicial sector. It can also be challenging to reconcile accountability for past gross human rights violations and the need to counter contemporary OC.
Transitional trials, selective prosecutions and vetting, which remove officials guilty of corruption, OC and/or human rights violations from security and justice institutions, can help to reform abusive institutions and build trust.
There is evidence that failure to properly vet military officials and ex-combatants prior to their entry into a civilian police force has resulted in corrupt police forces with links to criminality.
There is debate as to whether transitional justice activities enable institutional reform and rule of law programming that can help to counter OC, or whether they are isolated from domestic capacity building.
Developing accountability and oversight of security sector institutions (for example, anti-corruption mechanisms and civilian oversight) can help to reduce OC infiltration.
Citizen security, a concept that extends to non-security sectors (for example, education, infrastructure and livelihoods), can be a helpful lens in designing more comprehensive interventions required to counter OC.
Where gender-responsive SSR is advocated, it is often reduced to adding women to programming and institutions, without addressing the structural, institutional and cultural barriers to meaningful engagement.
An effective system for combatting transnational OC requires the development of entities and mechanisms aimed at building operational cooperation and coordination among the security agencies of different states.
This Evidence Review Paper demonstrates the importance of adopting an OC-informed perspective in SSR/G and a SSR/G-informed perspective in addressing OC. By exploring the interlinkages, complementarities and trade-offs between security and justice sectors and their reforms, on the one hand, and countering OC, on the other, this paper seeks to provide insights into these perspectives.
SOC ACE Evidence Review Paper No. 05. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham 2024. 97p.
