Pre-mortem Analysis of British Border Vulnerabilities to Organised Crime Activities post-Brexit

• In Event: WG Organized Crime and Criminal Networks Panel 5: Organized crime: involvement, trajectories and vulnerabilities

Abstract

Borders are considered to be one of the primary defences of nation states against a range of threats such as terrorism and organised crime. Countries around the world continue to securitise their borders and border security often plays a role in political competitions. Perceived inability of British authorities to control its own borders was one of the reasons why British public voted to leave the European Union. In the campaign leading up to the Brexit referendum, Leave campaign argued that free movement provisions enshrined in the EU treaties make it harder to fight terrorism and deal with criminals. However, following Brexit, UK lost access to some of the EU internal security instruments such as Second generation Schengen Information System which is the largest information sharing system for security and border management in Europe. Considering changes to the UK’s border regime and to the capabilities of its law enforcement, it is necessary to analyse the effectiveness of British border security policies and to analyse changes in the criminal landscape that can lead to new opportunities for organised crime.

The pre-mortem analysis is a method for stress-testing that is used to assess policy robustness by identifying weaknesses or flaws in existing policies and potential breaking or failure points along possible policy trajectories. It relies on the concept of prospective hindsight, i.e. generating explanations for a future event as it has already happened. Past research shows that application of prospective hindsight increases chances to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%. To better anticipate organised crime developments in the context of post-Brexit UK border vulnerabilities, this paper conducts pre-mortem analysis to gain a deeper understanding of organised crime threats related to UK border, and to develop measures that can strengthen border security of the UK.

Author

• Jakub Pinter, UCL (University College London)