Community experiences of serious organised crime in Scotland: research report

6. Service delivery and community response

Overview

This chapter seeks to examine how SOC impacts on the quality and availability of general services and service delivery in case study areas through direct or indirect means. In considering this impact the chapter also examines how the general levels of fear and intimidation created by SOC in communities acts as a barrier to community engagement and effective exchange. The material in this chapter is predominantly based on interviews and focus group with service providers.

All the main case study areas examined as part of this research could be characterised as experiencing multiple forms of disadvantage, including chronic issues of deprivation, unemployment, and ill health. These difficulties are long-standing, inter-generational and have their origins in the economic, social and structural after-effects of de-industrialisation and recession. Statutory agencies and their partners therefore face considerable challenges in providing services and supporting the needs of the communities. Against this backdrop, the presence of SOC constituted a barrier to effective and equitable service delivery, both 'blocking' and 'distracting' scant resources.

Policing

At the most basic level, the presence of organised crime led to a marked lack of information or intelligence being passed from the community to the police, with suspicion and hostility often characterising the relationship. One participant described it as a 'wall of silence' resulting from the fact that 'everybody is scared or nobody has trust and confidence in the public bodies'. As one police officer noted:

The vast majority of people in your community are good law abiding citizens so there's a general atmosphere of fear, a kind of low-level fear. What I mean is that there is just that reluctance to speak up. Whilst they are not living in fear that the OCGs are going to come round their door and do them damage you know. I think there is an acceptance that if they were to do something to speak up against them, then damage could be done to them (Police Officer, Urban Embedded).

This lack of communication did not stop at the point of co-operation with the police, but also affected relationships with a broader range of service providers. As one housing officer noted: 'I would say that the folk who are known to be in organised crime are untouchable… you really would not get complaints about them' (Housing Official, Urban Embedded). Similarly, a youth practitioner in an urban embedded community stated:

Individuals have a control over the communities, they replace the police in some respects. You're living in a community, you're trying to live a normal law-abiding life, you've got children and something happens to the children. It's frowned on to go to the police, people are reluctant to go to the police. Sometimes people go to them [the organised criminals] to resolve things, then you're compromised (Youth practitioner, Urban Embedded).

Several respondents were quick to acknowledge that a fear of talking to the police was not necessarily irrational when the police service has a limited ability to protect people providing information about others in their community:

That is partly down to a village mentality, and it's very difficult for us to feel as if we can make an impact. This group of individuals have an incredible amount of strength and power because we can't be standing beside everyone's front door (Police Officer, Semi-Urban Embedded).

Community and prison-based respondents both provided stories of the consequences of 'grassing', including 'doors being kicked in' and houses being set on fire, that illustrated the strength of these fears. Yet it was clear that most community members did want the police to deal with those individuals that were causing the most harm in their communities. As one participant, a police officer, recounted, in relation to a particular organised crime network:

A local priest came to an engagement event I went to as the inspector and he says – 'son, do you know what your problem is?' He says '20 years ago he [an organised criminal] was breaking into cars and stealing radio cassettes, it was the fact that he wasn't dealt with as a youth and he was able to grow and grow and grow... he now stays in the leafy suburbs and has his own business and he's loaded... He became a legitimate businessman'. But the community was putting me in my place saying, 'you know, you guys should have taken him out 20 years ago' (Police officer, Semi-Urban Embedded).

However, it would appear that police-community relations were not close or strong enough in our case study areas to give community members the confidence to help or trust the police with this endeavour.

Beyond the general issues of area stigma and weakening community relations with officialdom, there are a range of other ways in which SOC impedes effective service delivery. At its most direct, SOC networks directly challenge or confront local agencies. For instance, a fire officer reported that the same person had made malicious calls to the fire and rescue service and been involved in the firebombing of offices. In another area, a police officer talked of how offending networks used smart phones to effectively neuter proactive police activity in the community:

We had a road block … and within half an hour it was all over social media. It used to be that when we had an operation we could stop the traffic all day. Now, within half an hour, we're burnt and we need to move it elsewhere. Same thing happened with an operation regarding drug dealing at a flat– within half an hour, there's a picture of one of my officers in plain clothes with the message 'polis are all over, blah blah (Police Officer, Urban Embedded).

In another example, it became apparent that a phone call to police relating to a firearms incident was in fact a ruse to divert police attention elsewhere, allowing free rein in the commission of a planned offence:

That's the threat – guy with a gun, get everybody up there…you're up there way down the other side [meantime they have] already picked their target, 'cos they've scoped it. We know that we're having that [car] because we've got a buyer for that (Police Officer, National Diffuse).

There was in this study area important connections to be made between joyriding and stealing the cars to order for organised crime groups. Through the interviews it became apparent that there are groups of older men co-opting younger people with the knowledge and ability to steal vehicles to order, across the city, with the sense that once they were back in their own area they could easily evade the police. In addition, the activity could act as a 'smokescreen' for more serious criminality, consuming police resources and contributing to a community perception of the police as ineffectual and unable to challenge offending behaviour. As one officer noted, 'the activities make a clear statement …you cannot police us'. According to one resident, the joyriding associated with vehicle thefts was more impactful than the thefts themselves:

… a whole community is terrorised by you knocking down their granny or smashing into the side of their car or burning out in someone's back garden, and just roaring about at night when people are walking to and from school, and in the one instance driving at young people coming out of school after three o'clock, you know… there are people frightened to go out after dark (Community respondent, Urban Embedded, male aged 31-50).

Other SOC activities had more indirect, but often more severe, impacts on service delivery and capacity. The most obvious was the targeting of populations with illegal drugs, creating social and health problems going beyond the maintenance of an existing market to the introduction of new drugs to communities, as well as targeting new users with school-based dealing.

Finally, a direct – and far from incidental – impact of SOC was the resources and attention that key individuals and incidents commanded from statutory organisations. An attempted murder, or a prison release of a key individual, could consume large amounts of agency time and effort, and this could extend well beyond the police to other partners such as social work and housing.

Conversely, the business model of SOCGs could involve the frequent 'firing in' ( i.e. informing on) low-level criminal associates such as frontline 'user-dealers' to divert the attention of law enforcement officials from more serious criminal activities. The steady feed of relatively insignificant actors through the criminal justice system not only consumes criminal justice resources, but also leaves the most affected communities with a legacy of social damage, as parents are left to struggle on alone, or as families are broken up, or children are subject to long periods of parental separation.

Housing

SOC intervenes at a community level through using knowledge of the community to exploit vulnerabilities, needs, and weaknesses. In the most affected communities, SOC's presence across the lifespan of community members can be as enduring a presence as those of state agencies and institutions, literally spanning from cradle to grave. Consequently, intervention possibilities for legal actors and statutory agencies mirror those targeted by SOC, and our case study sites revealed a range of common challenges and opportunities.

In case study areas that were, in many other respects, deprived of many of the services and opportunities that more affluent areas enjoy, housing remained a significant asset. As such, housing was both a key site for community development and support, whilst conversely also being seen as a business opportunity for SOC, where tenants could be exploited and/or where private rental stock, in particular Houses in Multiple Occupancy ( HMOs) could provide a useful business opportunity. Conversely, experienced housing officers could be particularly well placed to identify vulnerable tenants and to initiate various forms of support, intervention or referral:

It's just being more aware [….. ] because you're that golden thread in somebody's life. Police might dip in and out your life or they might not – education, social work, social care may or may not but whilst you're living in social housing you will have that common relationship and it is just about being aware and signposting. We don't want housing officers to become social workers but it's that…we need to be the catalyst potentially (Housing Official, Urban Embedded).

Legitimate housing provision in the form of good quality housing association accommodation was a critical resource for supporting vulnerable tenants. Where vulnerable tenants were proving to be problematic due to criminal or anti-social behaviour, the threat of eviction appeared to carry more weight than action by the police; as one housing officer commented in dealing with tenants involved in drug offences or anti-social behaviour:

It's not about the sanctions of the police – it's the impact on their tenancy. Because we have, certainly over the last 14 years got a lot smarter at managing that to say, well, if you are convicted, albeit we need to wait the 18 months for a criminal case to go through the motions but we will enforce it and we will evict (Housing Official, Urban Embedded).

However, fear of reporting could also impact on the willingness of tenants to seek support with addressing incivilities and criminality, leading to negative consequences for tenants and housing providers alike:

We've got one close that's really, really bad […..] think it might be a no-go zone that we've got an empty property in that close that we can't let and it's been empty since before Christmas [….] But the tenants in that close don't ever make complaints, it's not that they don't see it as a problem it's just that they don't want to complain about the people who are hanging about (Housing Official, Urban Embedded).

Conversely, where vulnerable tenants were convicted of low-level offences (typically drug-related), eviction could make any attempt to support and monitor those individuals highly problematic. This issue was raised by one respondent who commented on a woman losing her house because her drug dealing constituted a breach of her tenancy:

A particular girl that we dealt with … well-known in the community, helps old people, you know? Well-liked in the community, well-known in the community, but if you wanted a bit you know that that's where you could, that that's where you could go, and all she did was cannabis (Social Worker, Semi-Urban Embedded).

It was noted that this council were not obliged to re-house vulnerable user-dealers, and that they would often go into private lets, which were associated with increased risk of exploitation and greater difficulty for agencies in terms of engaging with, and appropriately monitoring, at-risk clients. Furthermore, an eviction for relatively small quantities of drugs can amplify the problems of vulnerability and support, as was evident in one example where a user-dealer was evicted and subsequently went back to live with his parents, who didn't in turn have the capacity to support or cope with him.

If you evict somebody that's had essentially a lifetime drug and alcohol problem, and their parents have carried it when you evict them, then it's back onto their elderly parents to deal with it. It potentially raises all types of issues around adult support protection (Housing Official, Urban Embedded).

The issue of eviction and pushing a person into private rentals and HMOs can also cause problems for housing associations:

Housing associations will talk about people making themselves intentionally homeless… They're driven then into low quality private rented housing. We don't know who's backing it [who owns the housing]. We don't know all the issues there. So I think we've got a lot of disconnect between social policies that are trying to work on improving communities and reduce criminality, I think they just put more stress on [communities] (Social Worker, Urban Embedded).

Practitioners across a range of sites referred to individuals with connections to SOC investing in properties to let, including multi-occupancy properties. However, the management of such properties could be problematic and there were difficulties with licensing and inconsistent practices.

Other vulnerable tenants could also fall through the net if they proved too problematic or unsuitable for mainstream housing provision. Notably, more chaotic and at-risk young people moving from more supervised youth accommodation or care provisions could find themselves frozen out of adult accommodation on the grounds of unsuitability/inability to cope, then being placed in temporary accommodation instead:

There's this revolving door so you either find yourself in a situation where providers will take them or maybe on a temporary or short term basis. Or it's a short term basis because the young person can't cope with the resource. … At the other end of that scale we have found ourselves having to put young people up in hotel accommodation. The most chaotic need a more stable environment and we're caught between trying to find that stable resource and that hotel if they're too chaotic for the stable resource. It's a terrible place to find yourself (Social Worker, Urban Embedded).

Furthermore, young people who are placed in hotel accommodation cannot cope with the situation that they find themselves in and find it exciting and hence 'they party all night and cause damages'. A more troubling consequence of such placements is that young people could find themselves on a carousel of temporary accommodation, with some accommodation options being associated with risks of various forms of exploitation (including being drawn into criminality) and victimisation (including sexual exploitation).

Broadly speaking, however, respondents viewed social housing as a key site for support, intervention and influence. Housing officers in particular were a far more constant presence in community life than most other service providers, and could therefore develop some measure of community trust and influence. Where social housing was making an effective contribution, it included functions such as being a key medium for generating community intelligence that the police themselves could not directly elicit. Intelligence sharing arrangements between housing and the police on criminal and anti-social behaviour often proved invaluable for both parties. Housing officers could also be a key line of communication between tenants and other support organisations, identifying needs and signposting them to suitable support and services. Larger housing providers had indeed developed sophisticated information systems that allowed them to identify and target both vulnerable and 'at risk' tenants to inform proactive and preventative activity.

Business and retail services

Informal interviews were conducted with a dozen local businesses in three sites, including owners and managers of retail and other services. In contrast to some of the findings in previous research in England (Tilley and Hopkins 2008), the significance of the relationship between SOC and local businesses seemed less pronounced, though it should be noted that business environments in our case study areas were weak anyway, with limited activity, a predominance of small business units, and a modest supply of mostly independent shops and services.

Two of the case study areas were proximate to concentrations of industrial estates and new office developments, but to a significant extent there was considered to be little interplay or overlap between the community and these new economic opportunities, which were largely considered to be employing people from elsewhere. There was certainly evidence, however, that SOC groups had local investments and used local businesses for money laundering purposes. In one site, such SOC investments were quite well known and were viewed to some extent as providing key amenities for the local community including motor vehicle services and leisure facilities.

A common representation by practitioners in all of our case study areas, however, was how SOC groups invariably extended their interests far beyond the confines of these areas, with higher level actors looking to launder and invest their money wherever the opportunities arose, whether that be elsewhere in Scotland or further afield. SOC actors launder and invest money through complex networks of relatives and associates, and are often quick and flexible in spotting new business opportunities that might typically be vulnerable to SOC infiltration. The police have recently recognised the importance of collecting financial and business information relating to key individuals and their associates, but the quality of information held by the police and by other local partners is still patchy.

Whilst local communities might not ultimately mark the boundaries of operation for a successful SOC business, communities provide networks of longstanding associations, friendships and businesses. These networks, if left unguarded, can provide opportunities for SOC actors to invest, to form relationships with legitimate professional actors (such as solicitors and accountants), and indeed to set themselves up as effectively legitimate business actors. In a climate of austerity, where national government and local councils are keen to promote small business, growth and local enterprise, the opportunities for SOC actors can increase.

Local authority efforts to stimulate economic growth were fraught with difficulty, as there was a perception that contract opportunities could be targeted by SOC groups. The ability of SOC to flexibly seize contract opportunities through offering cut price services has already been well-evidenced elsewhere, and in times of austerity has typically gravitated towards industries and services where cheap start-up costs have given SOC entrepreneurs a significant competitive edge. Whilst, nationally, there are a range of key partners and forums in each local authority area ( e.g. trading standards, local authority legal officers and licensing boards), and a range of available measures (including the sharing of police SOC intelligence to help inform decision-making) to help local partners protect the local business environment from SOC encroachment, it appears that in practice capacity and proactivity can be quite variable. Service cuts (particularly to trading standards), a mixed appetite for acting on SOC intelligence, and competing demands, all impacted on the effectiveness of local scrutiny:

….licencing boards and committees are very fact-based so intel is a bit of a no no at the moment. There's been literally no success putting evidence to boards because the boards have got a wider remit round about economy and all this. It's great to have all this money coming in and…aye, but it's all going back out the back door! (Police Officer, Urban Embedded).

In terms of the experiences of legitimate businesses in our case study areas, direct victimisation, threats and extortion from SOC was not greatly in evidence, although utilities works and building sites owned and run externally could attract the attention of private security firms with links to organised crime. In one area, for example, it was clear that at least one attempt by an outside company to start a particular service in the area had been prevented through an arson attack. A more general deterrent to business start-ups in these areas seemed to be the mix of poor infrastructural development, low consumer demand, general issues with anti-social behaviour involving young people and, in one case, the visible presence of drug dealing and drug users.

The local businesses that existed in our case study areas appeared to have equipped themselves well to the challenges of their particular locations, though some relied on quite heavy levels of security to keep premises and staff safe. However, the dominant approach seemed to be that of being known in the community – being well established - afforded a high degree of respect and consideration and many businesses were both proud and quite defensive about the communities that they served.

In instances where particular businesses were being targeted by young people, knowing who to influence or appeal to was key. In one instance, a new business was initially picked on by local youths, but as the business became established and popular with parents, youths were pressured to back off. In another example, a local service provider who was being persistently targeted by a group of young people turned to a key local community figure. Initial attempts to use the police to stop the trouble proved ineffective, whereas appealing to one of the key local drug dealers (with whom the gang were associated) quickly dispelled the issue. That said, credit was also given to the police in tackling more general levels of anti-social behaviour in the area through a focussed use of curfew orders and targeted police patrols.

Schools

Though SOC has been known in the past to have invested in nursery and childcare provision ^[3] (Murray 2010), the first common intervention point for SOC and state actors outside of family life are schools. As one police officer stated, 'we need to get in early – I think the people that are taking the drugs and committing the crime, we've lost them.' Schools are sites around which early drug dealing and consumption can be organised, and can be the site of both inclusion and exclusion.

School success can help pupils move on from difficult backgrounds, whilst school disaffection and exclusion are well known risk factors for involvement in criminality. Schools could therefore be viewed as key local institutions that have potential purchase on the trajectory of young people's lives. However, in case study areas many were seen to be struggling with the most at risk pupils:

We do a bit of work with the high school, and like any high school I would say that they're losing it, and not through teaching standards. We've got adults buying alcohol for kids, which impacts on attainment. The schools try their best, but if you've got a kid that's not academically strong, and they look …and don't see much by the way of opportunity, but a 21-year old driving a fancy motor with no qualifications or work history, then that becomes your role model (Social Worker, Semi-Urban Embedded).

In several interviews, the life-course of individuals drawn into offending was described as typically involving a process of school drop-out between S2 and S4, invariably involving a mix of school exclusion and truanting, compounded by poor support from parents who themselves had poor school experiences. Recognition, in line with long-established evidence, that keeping kids in school was an important protective factor, had clearly not been achieved for many of the most at-risk children and young people:

We could be more responsive in terms of keeping children in a mainstream school. Some of the young people we work with are incredibly clever but the school has not been able to deal with them. At primary you have one teacher who can be a go-to person for young people and then they go to secondary and that evaporates for children (Police Office, Semi-Urban Embedded).

There was, however, recognition that retaining highly vulnerable young people within schools could – if poorly resourced or managed – impact adversely on the experience of other young people. Drug use and drug dealing was seen as particularly prevalent and problematic in some areas, with kids in school 'off their face on drugs' and consequently causing significant disruption.

Innovation, and more generally recognition and efforts to counter some of the difficulties faced by pupils from the more problematic corners of their catchment areas, varied by school. Indeed in one of our case study areas, which was served by two separate high schools, one school was widely considered to be markedly more successful at affording some protection, in terms of pupils from the area enjoying better integration into the school and into pro-social friendship networks in the school community. Contrastingly, in the other school, children were viewed as remaining relatively isolated, stigmatised and disengaged within the school environment. What remained unclear within the constraints of this study was whether that protection stemmed from any explicit school practices or policies, or was rather an artefact of the differing social contexts and dynamics associated with the two schools.

Effective responses to drug-use were hampered by a lack of intelligence, with young people not coming forward with information, and with drug dealing networks typically being protected through social media encryption. There was a feeling of disconnect between the various services and agencies with responsibility, with schools feeling 'caught in the middle':

There's really good work going on, but it's not joined-up enough…the curriculum they have in Scotland, all these agencies are trying to get in, but there doesn't seem to be a simple collection pot …. I've had headmasters in, and they're all at their wits end with the effect that alcohol and drugs are having, yet I speak to the ADP (Alcohol and Drug Partnership) and they tell the opposite story (Police Officer, National Diffuse).

One promising innovation in one area, at least to get lines of communication open between children and the authorities, was the suggestion of the development of an app to encourage anonymous reporting of drug dealing around schools:

They wouldn't tell the police, parents, teachers about this for fear of being labelled a grass amongst their school bubble. You're finished – marginalised, an outsider... But, they said they would report anonymously through an app… I think the impact of such an app, marketed at the right age groups, could be massive […..] If you treat the schools in isolation then you can actually get the kids understanding what they can or can't do. Stop the bad things happening in the school, and you can actually make a difference – even if it's just making the school safer (Police Officer, National Diffuse).

In each of the schools, teachers discussed a range of different approaches they were taking to tackle these issues. One example was not letting pupils leave school unless they had a positive destination, creating a curriculum that the pupils were more likely to engage with, and working with colleges to help with this. More proactive development of 'counter narratives' to SOC activity could support these existing policies in a way that broadens community partnership.

Social Work and partners: supporting desistance

While prison, probation and community services were identified as a critical point of possible intervention, the challenges associated with effective reintegration, both of general offenders in these communities, and SOC offenders in particular, were formidable. As one Social Worker noted:

It's learned behaviours, because generally, generationally … you've got grandparents, parents, children, all involved …. it's very, very difficult to keep themselves away from their negative peers and, their associates. Some have made it, remarkably so, and against all the odds I would argue as well, because often, the hierarchy refuse to let them lead a pro-social life, and it's the pressure that's put on them and they eventually are sucked back into that lifestyle (Social Worker, Urban Embedded).

This pressure could be particularly acute for young people, not necessarily because SOC groups acted coercively towards them, but because their membership conferred a belonging and a status that had been notably absent from their home lives: 'It's near impossible for young people to get out of. It's almost like a family… unless you move completely away [and] you're up for a fresh start' (Social Worker, Urban Embedded).

However, whilst 'home' could present challenges in terms of limited pro-social influences, relocation to areas where the individual had no networks of familial or friendship support was seen as equally problematic and setting them up to fail. With limited exceptions, where long-term drug users might benefit from complete relocation, or where extended kinship mapping might identify more distant relations who could better support an individual, many of the professionals felt that individuals should stay in their home communities, even if these are 'in a notoriously difficult area.'

Getting an individual suitable housing was considered difficult when stretched providers were inclined to relegate the needs of individuals after release from prison as 'undeserving' and potentially a risk. However, some providers were more sympathetic to at least some categories of ex-offenders, though the negotiation and effectiveness of such transitions depended on strong working relationships between partner agencies and an investment in working with these individuals. As one social worker states:

They've all got different things and they've all got different criteria of what they're willing to take tenancy-wise.' If you've developed a good working relationship with that housing officer and you can explain the risks, how you're going to monitor that [….] you can try and get them in that way. I've not had much difficulty getting my client group houses but it's before they're at that stage. You've got stages before you get to a stage of where they're actually looking at coming into social housing. It's trying to keep that momentum up (Social Worker, Urban Embbeded).

A further challenge to re-integration back into communities for individuals centred on interactions with the police. Frequent low-level proactive enforcement by officers (for example, stop and searches or vehicle stops), who were unprepared to leave the 'offender' alone could, in the view of one experienced police officer, do as much damage to that individual's journey towards desistance as anything else. One police respondent had been actively involved as a through-care link for youth with SOC-related convictions, not only helping negotiate the support services that such individuals needed, but also educating local officers to ensure that they exercised appropriate discretion and gave these individuals the necessary space and time to move away from an offending lifestyle.

The challenges presented by different categories of SOC were also significant. Some of the most well-known and experienced criminals were commonly characterised as 'charming' and entirely 'compliant', belying the reputation they often had amongst their rivals and debtors for ruthless violence. These individuals however presented few challenges for their criminal justice social workers; they needed no help with accommodation or welfare and merely looked to bide their time and escape their licensing conditions as quickly as possible.

In sharp contrast, those individuals involved in front-line street level drug dealing, often drug users themselves, could be tremendously challenging and time consuming to work with. The criminality of these individuals was often based on acute vulnerability that had been exploited by their senior associates. Life histories involving family abuse and neglect, parental separation, domestic violence and substance misuse, led to individuals who were so angry, anxious and incoherent that they frequently self-excluded themselves from the help and support they desperately need. As one social worker notes:

They're so guarded, they come in guarded… and it's so difficult to, to break down those barriers with the young men, because they've maybe, they've had parents who've been involved or whatever and it's been like 'don't trust them, don't talk to them, they're out to get you', and the building of that relationship is also, it can be difficult because you're having to break down a lot of that stigma that they've got of us, of social work (Social Worker, Semi-Urban Embedded).

Before even being able to address any of their more complex needs, often very basic needs such as nutrition, accommodation and sleeplessness had to be addressed first. Mental health was seen by many as a particular issue, with pre-existing ill health being exacerbated (and sometimes exploited) by SOC. The challenge for service providers is that the source of any client's anxiety was beyond the ability of service providers to influence or control, a perceived threat lurking back in the streets and stairwells of the client's neighbourhood.

Whilst dealing with the complex needs of ex-offenders was seen as vital, and was clearly a source of some professional pride for respondents, there was a strong resistance to reducing all problems and solutions to therapeutic activities. Whilst clients may have exhibited a range of personal issues that needed addressing, issues associated with poor housing, a lack of services and a lack of training and opportunity were seen as equally critical. A narrow focus on therapeutic programmes that seek to 'responsibilise' individuals by reducing offending to a failure to meet 'life goals' came in for particular criticism:

Our traditional understanding of why people commit crimes or are involved in the criminal justice system are not because they're not meeting their life goals, because if they're individually not meeting their life goals there's a whole… particular communities, particular areas, and particular experiences and all the rest of it, therefore, it's structural. Therefore, the answer is in some kind of change structurally (Social Worker, Semi-Urban Embedded).

Whilst the barriers facing many clients were considerable, focussed partnership- based throughcare work from the prison onwards, could nevertheless deliver the sorts of substantive outcomes, including stable employment, that are considered critical for desistance.

Obstacles to progress

A lack of police resources was a recurring theme with statutory respondents, whether it was a lack of public contact, or regular information exchange, or intelligence meetings with partner organisations. Though there had been a recent shift back to resourcing more dedicated community policing after prior trialling of alternative resource allocation models, ^[4] there was still a sense in some areas, and amongst some partners, that the capacity of the police to meaningfully engage the community was limited. One police officer talked about the 'thin blue line getting thinner, community policing and everything else – we don't have information and intelligence'.

However, whilst there were recurring observations about difficulties with community policing across all our main case study sites, it would be erroneous to simply attribute problems of police-community mistrust to recent variations in police practice. Indeed, in one of our case study areas, a police respondent suggested that a distrust and dislike of the police was 'deep rooted' and 'intergenerational'. More significantly, official statistics show that overall views of the performance of local police have been less positive among those living in the most deprived areas in Scotland in comparison with the rest of Scotland, in Scottish Crime and Justice Surveys since 2012/13 ^[5] . (Scottish Government 2018a).

All of our main case study areas had experienced the scaling back of key statutory agencies, most notably the police and social work, in terms of an actual physical 'base' in those areas. The impact of this in relation to SOC was twofold. First, agency staff talked about a lack of community knowledge and context to their work. As one Social Worker noted from an urban embedded area notes, 'it does feel that there's a large part of the community that I don't feel connected to now, in a sense'.

But aside from the obvious challenges this could pose in terms of informed practice, diminished visibility and knowledge only served to further weaken the credibility of statutory organisations in areas where their legitimacy and authority was often already sorely tested:

They still see the police as the enemy… with recent cuts, for us, it's places like there that suffer. There was an office, an Inspector, a Sergeant and about 8-10 cops per shift. Now, if we're lucky, there's about 4 per shift – no Sergeants, no Inspector. That's all down to cutbacks. The [ SOC] group we're talking about see that as a real opportunity for them – it's not difficult to know when the cars are there. Plus, you'll find on a Friday/Saturday night… resources are brought down here (Police Officer, Urban Embedded).

A second key impact was that these communities, housing as they do some particularly vulnerable individuals, were most likely to be adversely affected by additional barriers to accessing services. This impact is partly related to the mundane issue of the cost of travelling further to access services:

I think that [centralisation] does affect, and we hear about it. Service users will tell us about it. Sometimes it's particularly difficult, again… the financial issues that that creates in terms of people travelling to appointments. A lot of our … budget is taken up by covering the cost of people to travel here (Social Worker, Semi-Urban Embedded).

But these mundane considerations could also tip over into more serious consequences, particularly for 'at risk' and chaotic individuals who may have been reluctant to engage with services in the first place. For individuals under supervision, travelling to other communities to access services could invoke real anxiety where that journey necessitated travelling into areas perceived as hostile territory, while non-attendance at required meetings ( e.g. as part of a condition of license) could also have signficant consequences:

They've not turned up for a report because they've got no money in a phone to phone us, and that they've no bus fare to get here… so we're thinking, 'they've not turned up, letter to court, we've got a job to do,' all of those bits. The next thing, they're remanded and we're having to go to the jail to interview them, and it's like 'genuinely, I didn't have any money to get there', so they're in prison (Social Worker, Semi-Urban Embedded).

Whilst the consolidation of some offices could offer some benefits, there was a sense that the overarching driver for change was purely financial, and that the consequences for communities and client groups was often poorly thought through.

The pressures placed on services are widely felt as a consequence of recession and austerity nationally, but the case studies provided further evidence of how such efficiencies can disproportionately impact on vulnerable populations. Organisations were however starting to adapt and innovate, and find some benefits from consolidation and integration. For instance, the possibilities of using shared community spaces ( e.g. centres and offices) for both service delivery and community events were being pushed further. Moreover, even where service consolidation was driven by cutbacks, these changes did throw up opportunities to work on a more joined-up basis both across traditional agency divides and with communities:

Although the main driver is about efficiencies and managing it, I think there are ways, I think there are real opportunities to engage the community in some of these activities and some of the things that are on offer, as a result of health and social care integrating (Social Worker, Semi-Urban Embedded)

In one of our case study areas, funds had been levered in via housing partners to fund a significant additional police resource to mount community operations that focussed on front line issues of drug use and anti-social behaviour. In another area, a more sustained police resource had been part-funded by a housing provider with the police being co-located with housing officers and working together to collect intelligence on, and address, issues of vulnerability and criminality in the housing stock.

A more systemic challenge with the management of ex-offenders and 'at risk' individuals were weaknesses and patchiness in information sharing between key agencies. This problem was particularly marked in relation to more high risk offenders, where intelligence and information that could be useful to the management of these individuals moved in a one-way flow up the police hierarchy with little information being fed down in return. Whilst practitioners often understood the police withholding information whilst they developed operations, the balance between long term police aims and the more day-to-day management of high risk individuals was not always seen as being effectively balanced.

Problems associated with these patterns of information flow included agencies and front line operatives often being unaware that key individuals posed particularly high levels of risk, with, for instance, social workers often remaining unaware that particular clients were considered to pose a threat to life or have access to firearms. At a more general practice level, even police officers in localities could feel that they were operating without an awareness of the 'bigger picture'. For social workers, this absence of a bigger picture could be more directly related to their ability to manage individuals who posed a risk to their communities:

The information that we get is just what's on the complaint or the indictment. It's then about developing that subtlety and knowledge about how to interact with people and draw stuff out of them. It's much more about context and circumstances and I think that's probably one of the weaknesses, information-wise (Social Worker, Urban Embedded).

Whilst Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements ( MAPPA) were intended to resolve some of these issues, and allow agencies to share information confidentially to assist with the more effective management of high risk offenders, the extent to which these arrangements worked effectively to support frontline practice clearly varied, with practitioners in some areas feeling largely excluded from arrangements that they perceived as operating at a more bureaucratic level:

we are not invited to MAPPA, as the key professional who could answer a question… that says something about how we are respected and valued, because MAPPA sees itself as the hierarchy of police, housing, children and families, the whole gambit and the idea is they are the decision making and purse holders.. but in all the cases I have had at MAPPA where we have been desperate for accommodation in the event of someone being liberated they haven't raised an eyebrow … I've never benefited from any decisions they have made that have eased a situation (Social Worker, Urban Embedded)

A further problem with this lack of effective information exchange and coordinated working is that it limited opportunities for proper consideration and debate on options for action that might be most effective to reduce immediate harm within communities. Whilst developing long-term operations to prosecute the most senior SOC participants may be the most effective strategy in some instances, such 'kingpin' strategies have also been shown to be frequently ineffective in disrupting SOC, in particular disrupting drug-related SOC activity:

We have had numerous action plans in relation to it, and I would genuinely say there's an attitude towards it of 'if you get the jail, you get the jail' – there will be someone else to step in to his shoes…[….] That's their lifestyle, and jail isn't an effective deterrent. I'm not saying this is everybody, but there's a mentality where it's expected and accepted. We've had numerous operations up there and it hasn't made one blind bit of difference (Police Officer, Urban Embedded).

Conversely, more mundane opportunities to disrupt SOC nominals may offer a more effective opportunity to cut short offending:

If we had information around that and we were able to verify a lot of that, that person could be recalled to prison, which in effect could end up[…] stopping a further crime being committed…. And that's no disrespect to the police, because I do recognise that they have got wider things, but the object of their operations, if you like, is not to supply us with information. But it would, I would like to reiterate to them that often if that information, that if you could share with us, could potentially get this man off the street, because we could recall him under licence. So we don't get a lot of information at all (Social Worker, Urban Embedded).

Partnership and Empowerment

A wholly expected yet important theme emerging from the research was the importance of working in partnership to address the intractable social issues that were present in case study areas. There was less of a sense through the fieldwork that areas would benefit from any particular configuration of partners or partnership structures, but more a recurring statement of the qualities of partnership that were needed to achieve traction on difficult social issues. These qualities included shared goals that were backed up by genuinely shared organisational objectives and performance indicators to really incentivise joined up practice. These goals needed to be underpinned by a stable foundation for partnership working.

The potential and importance of partnership work was evident across a range of social issues touching on serious organised crime. For instance, the Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice's report ( CYCJ 2018, forthcoming) on preventing the exploitation of young people by SOC, points to the complex needs, life histories, and problematic family and social networks that can contribute to them being exploited and recruited into low-level activity in support of SOC. In the face of complex needs, the report recommends a welfare approach that might naturally require input and coordination across a wide range of statutory and other supporting organisations, putting a heavy emphasis in turn on effective and co-operative partnership.

However, in our study a lack of stability in funding, relationships, and direction were constantly noted as barriers to effective progress. At a frontline level, simply knowing what resources, services and partners were out there to provide assistance with a family or a client could be challenging when this landscape was constantly changing. The fact that effectively securing help and resources in turn depended upon strong working relationships and trust made constant changes in personnel and organisations especially problematic. At the root of many of these problems remains a model whereby additional funding for addressing complex needs was routed via a convoluted web of short-term funding schemes, grants, and competitions, with funding often appearing or disappearing on the back of 'end of year' funding negotiations. The principal negatives of such an approach were, firstly, a constant change in what partners were focusing on to match new funding criteria, encouraging less partnership, absorbing significant resource and effort, and leading to more separate working, with many partners bidding for the same funding. Secondly, many partners were focusing down on 'single issues' to attract funding which did not match the complex nature of the underpinning social problems.

Our funding dries up at the end of March… and some of the work they've done …. it's phenomenal! Huge, huge difference we make in some people's lives. And that's going to go, so what happens? What happens from here on in? So [area] didn't get into this position over 2 or 3 years, this is 40-50 years of decline, and yet you're getting 1-2 year funded projects? It's just mad (Housing Official, Urban Embedded).

Empowering the community to take more ownership and have more of a voice in the strategic direction taken by partnerships was broadly seen as a positive, and a way of giving more stabliity and focus to partnership working. Communities in our case study areas were considered to have real strengths and assets, though there was also a recognition that the embeddedness of SOC created problems that needed to be acknowledged. As one social worker stated: 'one thing the area has is a strong community spirit, not always for the good, but strong'.

Partners faced delicate decisions about which community voices or resources to use. Mistakes had been made in the past, in one case study area in particular, with using people within the community who were considered to be 'respected voices', largely on the basis of their past criminality, the logic being that their buy-in would help the community take ownership of facilities or investments. This hadn't always worked and had, on occasion, led to very dubious forms of 'ownership'.

Respondents also felt that there were more general challenges in community engagement, notably giving voice to more marginalised groups in communities (notably young people) and being realistic about the capacity of disadvantaged communities to take ownership and responsibility. This capacity required nurturing through a continuity of effort, and through the presence of stable partners with whom the community could develop a trusting relationship.

Summary

This chapter has examined the ways in which SOC creates particular challenges for communities in terms of services and service delivery. Quite aside from the direct resources consumed in trying to tackle SOC and deal with the aftermath of its activities, the general ways in which SOC creates additional barriers of stigma, fear and mistrust between communities and service providers further diminishes the capacity for service providers to respond to other deep-rooted community issues (such as poverty and social exclusion). Whilst the current level of austerity is likely to intensify these problems, the chapter has attempted to highlight possible intervention points and promising areas of practice.