Addressing Organised Crime and Security Sector Reform and Governance: Linkages, processes, outcomes and challenges
July 2024
Briefing Note 30
Huma Haider, Independent Researcher
SOC ACE Project: Addressing organised crime and security sector reform (SSR) and governance
PUBLICATION SUMMARY
The linkages between OC, the state of the security sector and SSR/G are stark, complex and multifaceted. There is, however, limited research that explicitly profiles and examines the connections. In seeking to address this gap, this briefing note summarises an evidence review paper that explicitly profiles and examines how security and justice institutions, organised crime, security sector reforms and governance (SSR/G) and counter-organised crime interventions influence and impact each other, positively and negatively.
There are five key findings from the research:
Corruption often plays a crucial role in linking security and justice sectors to OC.
OCGs and criminality can operate in contexts of varying degrees of state presence and strength.
Policies and strategies to counter OC have repercussions across a broad spectrum of security and justice sector institutions.
Conventional approaches to criminal justice may not work in the case of OC.
Addressing OC and reforming security and justice sectors are political processes requiring political will to achieve positive and sustained outcomes.
The research also outlines the implications of these findings for policymakers and practitioners:
The need for conflict sensitivity and gender sensitivity.
The need to provide alternatives to the functionality of OC.
The need to pay attention to interventions that go beyond formal state security apparatus.