Countering Organized Crime in the European Context

Abstract

The importance of the topic is determined by the study of issues related to combating organized crime in the context of world security policy. The purpose of the article is to analyze foreign experience of combating crime in Italy and Great Britain at the current stage of their development. In the course of the study, attention was drawn to the fact that organized crime arises from a complex causal complex, the fight against which will be effective only when there are appropriate conditions for the formation of a system of measures (economic, social, legal, organizational, etc.), which will be aimed at blocking, neutralization of these socially dangerous modern phenomena on the basis of special law enforcement activities. The center of such activity should be represented by a law enforcement structure capable of promptly and effectively responding to existing challenges and threats that emerge from the organized crime, including at the transnational level. The paper states that the issue of socio-legal control of the activities of transnational criminal structures directly depends on the level of adaptation of national legislation to changes in crime and, first of all, its highly organized forms. When studying foreign experience of fighting crime, including in Italy, it has been found that all issues related to the fight against organized crime are under the responsibility of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The main areas of activity of organized crime in Italy are: drug smuggling, extortion, corruption and fraud, robberies, etc. While analyzing fight against organized crime in the United Kingdom, attention has been drawn to the fact that the main areas of activity of organized crime are drug business, illegal migration, laundering of “dirty” money, corruption, fraud, illegal circulation of weapons and other explosive items, cybercrime, etc. In the course of the study, it has been emphasized that the peculiarity of such crime is its transnational and global nature. In this context, all efforts to combat organized crime in Great Britain are put into a comprehensive fight against this socially dangerous phenomenon today.