22/09/2026
Chris English
Moving beyond enforcement and disruption to support change in the people and communities affected by and involved in organised crime. By Amy Hallas
The recent events in Middlesbrough have put a media spotlight on Serious Organised Crime (SOC). The tragic death of two police officers and five young men in a Road Traffic Collision led to a spate of arrests and unrest in the Middlesbrough area linked to Serious Organised Crime. But is the concern about SOC in areas like Middlesbrough, Stockton, Hartlepool, and Redcar something new, or have recent events simply led to greater media scrutiny of an issue that has existed for many years?
Between 2018 and 2021, I was a Probation Officer assigned to a newly formed Serious Organised Crime Unit, whose principal aim was the disruption of influential Organised Crime Groups (OCGs) and linked individuals, both in custody and the community, through joined-up work with the Police, NCA, HMPPS and National Intelligence Unit.
My team covered the whole of Yorkshire and the North East, including Cleveland, Northumbria, Durham, South, West and North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
The first few years of the project focused heavily on identifying key Organised Crime Groups in those regions and implementing disruption tactics both in custody and in the community. These included mapping networks and associates, identifying professional enablers such as solicitors, corrupt staff and estate agents, scrutinising bank accounts, phones and vehicles, adding bespoke licence conditions, using covert tactics and satellite tagging, and looking for signs of wealth, such as cars, jewellery, designer clothes, designer teeth and houses, where there was no apparent legitimate income. We also worked closely with the Police and the NCA in relation to the seizure of assets through POCA.
This was effective in some respects. It reduced individuals’ capacity to operate both in custody and in the community. But did it really address the underlying causes of SOC?
The balance was much more in favour of punishment, disruption, and control, where I felt there should have been a better-balanced approach.
The training of probation staff did provide more of that balance, and I was heavily involved in delivering sessions examining pathways into SOC, family and intergenerational involvement, identity, networks, and vulnerabilities. I also helped design a disruption toolkit to upskill officers working with a range of service users involved in SOC, from Principals heading up Organised Crime Groups to peripheral members who may have been groomed or targeted, had their homes cuckooed due to addiction issues, or were looking for a sense of belonging.
As part of this, we examined cultural factors and collaborated with local Gypsy and Traveller community representatives, who educated staff about masculinity, cultural beliefs, and gender roles. Financial motivation and debt were also key drivers into SOC, whether to fund drug misuse or because individuals lacked skills, legitimate employment, and other ways of making money.
My role also involved facilitating and chairing pre-release meetings for Principal OCG nominals leaving custody. I worked with the Police, NCA, HMPPS and other agencies to create disruption plans alongside the assigned Prison and Community Offender Managers.
These were effective meetings in terms of setting out actions for different agencies, such as monitoring bank accounts, interrogation of phones, Companies House checks, mapping networks and groups, and other disruption activity.
But what was routinely missing were the interventions.
The project was in its infancy and had not really moved beyond identification and punitive controls. But how effective can this approach be without understanding the communities and individuals at the heart of SOC?
You are containing a situation, not necessarily seeking to understand or change it.
If we look at an area like Middlesbrough, deprivation, poverty and the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) are important factors when considering pathways into Organised Crime. This does not mean that deprivation causes organised crime, but these are vulnerabilities that more sophisticated criminals can exploit.
Although women engage in Serious Organised Crime, the majority of OCG members I encountered were young males, often seeking belonging and identity and grappling with their masculinity. They may have addiction issues, be in debt or be attracted by financial gain and the feeling of being part of something. This can leave them vulnerable to being groomed by more sophisticated group members into criminality, whether that involves drugs, money laundering, firearms, or organised acquisitive crime.
If you have individuals like this on your caseload, hitting them with punitive controls and conditions alone is likely to lead to recall, recategorisation and resentment, potentially pushing them further into the clutches of the group.
Quick wins for HMPPS and the Police, perhaps, but are we making meaningful long-term change?
Of course, there must be controls. These are individuals and groups who can cause significant disruption, violence and harm within their communities, provoking fear, anti-social behaviour, and gangland-style retaliation attacks in which innocent people can become embroiled or harmed.
But alongside disruption tactics and joined-up work with the Police, we must seek to address the underlying issues.
Whether you are managing a Principal leader of an Organised Crime Group or a more vulnerable peripheral member, rehabilitative interventions need to remain part of their supervision and management. Although the style of intervention may differ significantly, it is important that we do not automatically write these individuals off as a lost cause or simply “too entrenched”.
If you are managing a Principal member of an OCG, you must be alert to superficial compliance.
In custody, OCG members can often be red bands, wing orderlies, enhanced prisoners, or gym orderlies. They may get on extremely well with staff and present as compliant, helpful, and trustworthy. But this can sometimes be instrumental. Positions of trust can give individuals greater access and freedom around the prison, which can be exploited to facilitate drugs, mobile phones, and other illicit activity. We also cannot ignore the potential for influential SOC nominals to groom, manipulate or corrupt members of staff, particularly where money, intimidation or relationships are used to gain influence and facilitate criminal activity within custody.
The quicker they can progress through the prison system, the quicker they are back out and potentially able to operate.
Similar behaviour can be seen in the community: reporting promptly, ticking boxes, and appearing compliant, while disclosing very little about their lifestyle and engaging minimally in meaningful work.
Working with these behaviours is challenging, but should we stop trying?
As with any individual we work with, engagement and motivational interviewing can be the first step. Group work may not be suitable because of the safeguarding issues involved in placing members of rival groups in the same room, so a structured one-to-one approach may be more appropriate.
This could focus on areas such as their life map and personal pathway into SOC, status and reputation, masculinity and retaliation, family roles and safeguarding, relationships, and fatherhood.
Exploration of the skills they have developed through their role in SOC is also important. How can we transfer those abilities into something legitimate, perhaps their own business venture that they can be proud of? Some of these individuals are highly adept at business, organisation, leadership, and finances. How can those skills be redirected?
With peripheral members of an OCG, you are likely to be dealing with a different cohort of individuals. As well as focusing on some of the areas above, practitioners may need to consider substance misuse work, exit planning alongside other agencies, and assigned mentors, particularly people with lived experience who have successfully moved on from similar lifestyles.
Keeping a trauma-informed approach is key when working with individuals involved in SOC. What have they seen? What have they experienced or been exposed to? Is their own safety threatened?
We also know that children, partners, and families need to be safeguarded, as well as the wider community. Exploration of family networks is therefore vital. Understanding who may be at risk from retaliation attacks, recruitment, exploitation or violence is crucial safeguarding work.
It is important not to take a blanket approach when supervising SOC nominals. It can sometimes be assumed that those higher up the chain cannot be rehabilitated. However, as with any individual on your caseload, and without being naive about the risks involved, it is important to retain some belief in their capacity to change.
They may reach a point where the threat of another lengthy prison sentence, concerns about their children or the risk of their family being harmed becomes the trigger for wanting to desist. Practitioners need to understand what matters to that individual. Their Achilles heel may be their children or their family, and interventions can be built around those motivations.
When it comes to tackling SOC on a wider scale, the government needs to look closely at the areas where organised crime becomes concentrated across the country.
What is happening within those communities?
Deprivation, unemployment, and lack of opportunity need to form part of that conversation. There is some amazing work being done by youth workers and community organisations, but they often lack the resources and funding they need. More opportunities for young people to enter employment and training in deprived areas can provide alternative pathways and reduce some of the vulnerabilities that organised crime groups are able to exploit.
I also wonder whether, when dealing with some Principal OCG members, a more overt approach could sometimes sit alongside surveillance and disruption:
We know who you are. We know what you do. Now let’s look at how you can use those skills to move away from this.
At the time I left my role in 2021, there were no plans in place that I was aware of to focus specifically on the rehabilitation of SOC nominals, with no dedicated one-to-one or group interventions in development. Although there are generic programmes run by probation which tackle areas such as instrumental violence and thinking skills, there was nothing SOC-specific, and I think this needs to change. Developing structured one-to-one work which looks at pathways into SOC and, importantly, pathways out could be hugely beneficial.
We have become increasingly sophisticated at identifying, monitoring, and disrupting people involved in Serious Organised Crime, but we haven’t developed an equally sophisticated rehabilitative response to help them desist from it.
Of course, enforcement and disruption must remain part of the response. These are individuals who can cause significant harm and communities need to be protected. But if our focus remains primarily on surveillance, disruption, licence conditions, recall and other punitive controls, are we really changing anything in the longer term, or are we simply containing the situation?
For me, there needs to be a better balance. We need to continue disrupting organised crime, but alongside that we need to understand the people involved, their pathways into it and what might help them find a pathway out. Without that rehabilitative element, we are missing an important part of the response to Serious Organised Crime.