Having discussed in other articles the structure of Organised Crime in America, where it is perhaps most well-known, we should also consider how this differs in the UK. It appears that on this side of the Atlantic Mafia-style groups and larger hierarchical systems of Organised Crime have failed to gain power as they have in the US, and it has been argued by Levi that this is due to the slightly more conservative social and political systems in the UK. While this may offer some explanation, another view is that there is less need for Organised Crime groups in the UK, since many of the items which are in high demand are not prohibited here, or at least not in the same way as in other countries. As has been discussed in various other articles, the reason that Organised Crime took off in America may be because of the high demand for prohibited items caused by the Prohibition of alcohol. Since alcohol was never prohibited in the UK, there was less opportunity for Organised Crime to thrive during the 30s.
Historically, Organised Crime in the UK has had a much more local character, with criminal groups being based in much smaller areas, rather than nationwide. The two biggest and most well-known of British gangs, the Krays and the Richardsons were based purely in London with each controlling one side of the river, and even at their time (the 1960s), their activities were not described as Organised Crime.
Based on today’s definition, Organised Crime in the UK would have first appeared in around the 1920s, and is thought to have been primarily based on gambling. Gangs formed as fights started to take place over gambling money and while the gambling that took place was on the most part legitimate, the fights that erupted from disagreements over the games were often brutal. In fact, an area of Sheffield was for some time known as ‘Little Chicago’ because of the scale of violence that had become expected there.
The gangs at the time fought primarily for the control of these gambling circles, but after the beginning of the First World War, new opportunities emerged for the selling of black market goods. Since restrictions had been placed on the public due to rationing, the gangs were able to make a lot of money from selling extra food tokens, food itself or alcohol. The majority of these goods were stolen from army stores and indeed, when the wars ended and rationing was removed, opportunities for Organised Crime dramatically decreased. The gangster Frankie Fraser was quoted as saying ‘I never forgave Hitler for surrendering’, since the end of the war meant the end of the boom in Organised Crime.
It was not until the 1950s that the biggest names in UK Organised Crime emerged, the Kray twins. Ronnie and Reggie Kray took part in a range of both legal and illegal activities, but they were always accompanied by threats of violence. The two remained powerful until the late 1960s, when they were both given life prison sentences for a multitude of crimes. At this point, the British authorities did their best to ensure that there wasn’t a resurgence in Organised Crime, and there was some success as the majority of crime that remained was much smaller scale at least than its predecessor. What arose was much smaller markets for individual commodities as opposed to large over-arching enterprises like those seen previously. However, in recent years the invention of better technology, such as the internet has meant that there has been a rise once again in larger scale crime operations, though at least by this method, there is still a reduced threat of related violence.
International crime has now become a somewhat bigger threat, however in general, the UK appears not to have seen quite such a rise in international crime as other nations, since as discussed above, there is still the protection of its considerable conservatism and consistency with the past, which ensures that on the most part, Organised Crime is kept to a local level.
Image from: http://www.bunker8.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/images/171kray3.jpg
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